And congratulations to all the nominees, especially the winners.
Let’s take a look at them, shall we?
Richard Parks leads off with “Three Little Foxes”, the latest installment in his series about Yomada Monogatari, the Japanese ghost hunter. These tales are smart, sly, and a joy to read. This one is no different. Here Yomada is asked to investigate three ghosts who are haunting the garden of a prominent courtier. Of course, things are not exactly as they appear. The more I read of this series, the better I like it. The good news is that next year Prime Press is bringing out a collection of the Yomada stories while PS Publishing will publish a Yomada novel.
“Cursed Motives” by Marissa Lingen examines some of the ways in which the power of a curse can be a blessing. It’s a clever tale about a princess with the power to speak curses who is shipwrecked with her governess on an island when two castaways from an enemy kingdom wash ashore in a lifeboat. At the heart of this one is the old axiom about being careful what you wish for.
The third story is “Luck Fish” by Peta Freestone. SPOILER ALERT: I have some real problems with this story, and to discuss them, I’m going to have to give away much of what happens. Skip down to the next story if you don’t want to read them. The setting is reminiscent of Africa, which was a nice change from the usual fantasy setting I usually read, and Ms. Freestone puts her words and sentences together at a professional level. Unfortunately, exotic settings and pretty words alone do not a story make. The situation is this: Long ago the goddesses of the moons (there are three) hid fish underground to protect them from the heat of the sun god. The fish eggs hatch when it rains, and the villagers run out and collect the fish, which they dry for food during the hottest part of the year. The problem is that the rain only falls one day a year. The plot is this: Masozi is best friends with Themba, a girl who happens to love him, but he is in love with the village beauty Manyara and oblivious to Themba’s feelings towards him. Children become adults with permission from their parents when they are allowed to travel to a festival. Manyara pledges her love for Masozi, but when she becomes an adult and his father forbids him to, it’s so long, boy. There’s more lovesick teenage angst, the nature of which you can probably guess. Boy, I’ve never seen this plot before. (I’ve really got to find the sarcasm font on this keyboard.) Obviously there’s a market for this sort of thing, or else we wouldn’t be up to our armpits in glittery vampires. It’s just not the subgenre I want to read.
There’s another problem I have with this tale, and that’s the logic. If the fish come out of the ground when it rains, and it only rains once a year, why doesn’t someone just pour water on the ground anytime they want fish? Themba even suggests this early on, but no one else seems to have thought of it, and Masozi dismisses her suggestion. Of course, at the end of the story, when Masozi is sitting on the ground outside his hut feeling sorry for himself and crying, a tear (a single tear, mind you) hits the ground. The result is a fish squirms out. This defies all logic. If you can get the fish to come up by pouring water on the ground, it should have been done before. Is the whole village so dense that someone can’t think of this? Why hasn’t Themba tried it already since she did think of it? That whole part made no sense to me because I just can’t buy that no one had tried to draw up the fish that way. While I realize some of my objections, particularly to the romance, are matters of personal taste, I’ve come to expect better than this from BCS. END SPOILER.
Fortunately, the best story is the last one; my liking of it more than offsets my dislike of the previous one. “Unsilenced” by Karalynn Lee starts out like many other fantasies we’ve seen, with an unprepared girl assuming the reigns of empire upon the death of her father, but it soon moves in fresh and new directions. This story reminded me very much of Patrica A. McKillip’s work, and she’s one of my favorites. This was a complex, moving story about the ways we destroy what we love by trying to hold onto it. The characters, the young Empress and her brother as well as the mages, are fully flawed and fully realized people. There’s a depth and complexity to the story, the themes, and the characters that you usually don’t see in short fiction. It’s one of the strongest stories I’ve read in a while, and I’ve read some good ones this week. See previous posts for examples. I expect this one to be in at least one Best of the Year anthology next year and hopefully on some award ballots.
While not the strongest issue, I still think the fourth anniversary issue of BCS is a good one. You should check it out, especially the Parks and Lee stories. Congratulations to Beneath Ceaseless Skies on reaching this milestone. May the magazine reach ten times that many.
But you aren’t here to read my excuses. You want to know about Black Gate‘s new online fiction There will be a new story (which could be a novel excerpt) posted every Sunday for free. Details are here at Black Gate.
The first story went up this past Sunday. The story is “The Duelist” by Jason E. Thummel. (That’s his picture below, swiped from the Black Gate website.) I’ve had so many things going on and so much good short fiction to review this week that I’m just now getting to this one. The question is, was it worth the wait?
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| Jason E. Thummel |
The answer is “Yes!” Note the exclamation point. This is a tale of a drunken duelist who is the top in his field. I’m not going into too much detail, because I don’t want to spoil any twists. (Although I will say the encounter our hero has with the Baron’s wife upstairs implies there will be a sequel.) Rather, let’s look at the writing and the characterization. You’ll just have to trust me that the plot is a solid sword and sorcery story.
First I like the protagonist, Androi Karpelov, because even though he’s a very flawed hero, he’s still a man with honor. And he’s willing to take great risks to satisfy that honor. The alcoholic hero isn’t quite a cliche, but this trope has been around a while. Thummel handles it with ease and breaths life into what could easily be a stock character from Central Casting.
The style is slightly old-fashioned, a perfect fit for the setting, which seems to be a quasi-Regency world from what we’re shown of it. Yet, it only sounds old-fashioned. The story moves at a nice clip, never dragging. And believe me, if it had drug, I would have noticed. I stayed up way too late to read this one, and if it had been slow I probably would have dozed off. I didn’t.
There is magic here, but it’s not flashy or ubiquitous. I like this approach. Magic that’s everywhere is too much like technology, and for me at least, that takes some of the sense of wonder away. And when the magic does appear, Androi reveals that he has a wicked sense of humor.
So, yes, like other short fiction venues I’ve looked at this week, Black Gate‘s online fiction debut has set a high standard of quality. That’s a good thing.
Thummel is also the author of the novel The Spear of Destiny and the short story collection In Savage Lands. I’ve got the latter and have read a couple of stories. I liked them a lot. Look for a review sometime in the next few months. This is a writer whose work I’m going to keep an eye out for.
I’m looking forward to more of Black Gate‘s fiction offerings. It’s been one of my favorite publications for a long time. I’m glad to see it isn’t going to go away since it’s no longer being published in print form. I hope they don’t run too many novel excerpts, though. I generally don’t read them I either know I’m going to buy the book, or else I don’t want to deal with the frustration of having to wait to finish the story.
I’m also hoping editor John O’Neill will consider making the new fiction available in some type of ebook that I could download and read on my ereader. I like that the fiction is free, but I would be willing to pay for it to have the convenience of not having to be at my computer to read it. That’s been a successful model for several online publications, so I’m hoping BG can make a go of it.
Anyway, congratulations, John, on a great kickoff and good luck with in the future with the fiction component of Black Gate.
Nightmare Magazine is the new online venture from John Joseph Adams, through Creeping Hemlock Press. Whereas Lightspeed focuses on science fiction and fantasy, Nightmare will feature new and reprint horror and dark fantasy, with interviews, nonfiction, and artist spotlights thrown into the mix.
Funded by a Kickstarter campaign, Nightmare is out of the gates and running, having gone live on October 1. If the quality holds, it will definitely be worth the money I spent to support it. Supporters got their electronic copies the same day the magazine went live, or I would have posted a review in advance.
While current plans are to publish two new and two reprint stories a month, the first issue has four new stories, an editorial by Adams, a column by R. J. Sevin, Author Spotlights in which the authors discuss their stories, and part one of an interview with Peter Straub. Cover artist Jeff Simpson is the featured artist in this issue’s Artist Spotlight.
Since this blog tends to be fiction oriented, let’s take a look at John Joseph Adams’ selections, shall we?
First up is “Property Condemned” by Jonathan Mayberry. In this story, four kids explore what is rumored to be the most haunted house in the most haunted town in America. This one is thought provoking and disturbing, and ultimately deals with the choices we make and whether we actually have those choices. It features some characters from Mayberry’s Pine Deep trilogy. I didn’t know this until I read the Author Spotlight on him. The story is a great stand alone, but I suspect if you’ve read some or all of the trilogy, it will have deeper meaning. (I downloaded the first volume on my ereader after reading the Spotlight.)
A man participating in the Iditarod runs afoul of the Wild Hunt and years later becomes their prey in Larid Barron‘s “Frontier Death Song”. This piece of dark fantasy was my favorite in the issue and is one of the best things I’ve seen from this author. Barron captures the fear and panic of being pursued and makes it real. I should have seen the ending coming, but I didn’t.
Genevieve Valentine takes us into Ramsey Campbell territory with “Good Fences”, an ambiguous story about a bitter man and a decaying neighborhood. Calling this story “ambiguous”isn’t meant to be slight. It’s the ambiguity that makes it work. Valentine deftly weaves several possibilities together, never letting us know which one is real.
The final fiction piece is “Afterlife” by Sarah Langan. This tragic tale concerns a middle aged woman living with her hoarder mother, waiting to be evicted, and running a school for ghosts reluctant to pass on. (A ghost story isn’t the same as a haunted house story, although the two overlap to the point it’s hard to tell them apart at times.) The real horror he doesn’t come from the ghosts, although they can be horrifying when they choose to. Rather, the horror unfolds as we learn more about Mary, the protagonist, and her mother Corrine.
I was impressed by the high quality here. I would expect any of the stories could be picked up for a Best of the Year anthology next year, they’re that good, especially the Barron (IMNSHO). Adams has set himself a high standard. Anyone with any familiarity with his work can see that he’s becoming one of the premier editors in the field today. If you like good horror and dark fantasy, check this one out. Stories and features are posted free online, with a new ones going live each week. If, however, you would like to show support for this publication, subscriptions are available here.
Anyway, Mr. Strahan was kind enough to send me advance copies of the two stories he’ll be publishing in October. One is a science fiction by Christopher Rowe which I’ve reviewed over at Futures Past and Present, and the other is a fantasy by K. J. Parker, the subject of this review. These are short stories, so the review aren’t going to be as long as the ones I write for novels.
“One Little Room and Everywhere” is just one more reminder why I (and you) should read K. J. Parker. I’ve not read any novels by this author, but based on the quality of the short fiction I’ve read, I need to fix that.
This is the story of a man cast out from a school of magic because he doesn’t have the talent to become an adept. It’s told in first person, and our narrator isn’t entirely reliable. At least I consider any narrator who has the habit of insisting it wasn’t his fault or making excuses to be unreliable.
Our “hero” doesn’t have the highest scruples. Knowing he will eventually be kicked out of school (nicely, of course), he sneaks into the library and steals some forbidden Forms, what are essentially spells that involve astrally projecting into a tower and entering certain rooms. This allows himself to set up business as a painter of icons when he leaves the school. Iconography is highly restricted in this society, which has a Renaissance feel to it, and there are only certain icons that can be painted. He soon becomes quite successful at it, and his icons begin to fetch high prices.
Of course, such success isn’t without it’s unforeseen costs…
What I liked about this story was the narrator’s voice, and the fact that he’s an admitted thief and cheat, and can we really believe everything he tells us? Parker uses hints and subtleties to great effect. The story is lushly written, but not in an overblown way. Rather the style is reminiscent of the time in which it’s set. The prose flows along, and like the last several short pieces I’ve read by Parker, I hated to reach the end.
With the story and it’s companion, Strahan has set the bar high on his initial choices to launch Eclipse Online. He’s going to have his work cut out for him to keep the quality this high. If I were a betting man, I would lay my money on his being able to do it. Check this publication out. It’s going to be good, and I’ll be surprised if the stories we see here don’t pick up some award nominations as well as a few awards.
And the winner is…Charles Gramlich. I wrestled with this for quite a while, but in the end, Charles won out on the basis of the detail of his entry. Charles please send me an email with a mailing address, and I’ll get the book to you right away.
All of the entries were outstanding, and this was a tough decision for me to make. Which is as it should be.
Thank you, everyone, who entered. And again, my apologies for the typo and confusion over the end date, especially to Martin Holm, who missed the deadline because he was traveling. He knowingly put in a great entry after the contest closed, and I appreciate his taking part.
The next novel on the agenda is Steel and Sorrow by Joshua P. Simon. I’ll probably start it sometime this weekend. I’ll refrain from saying what novel is after that; I’m going to play it by ear. I’ve got several I’m going to read this month, but I haven’t decided on the final order.
There are a couple of items that are seasonal in nature that I want to sprinkle in the mix, so I’m not going to lock myself down to any particular sequence.
One thing I am going to read a great deal of over the next few months is short fiction. In the next week, I want to review the premier issue of Nightmare magazine (I’m about a third of the way through now, and it’s great), the new fiction being posted on Black Gate, the anniversary double sized issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies (it’s not live as of this writing, but I have a subscription and have already downloaded it), plus the inaugural stories in Eclipse Online. Jonathan Strahan was kind enough to send me advance copies of the first two stories, and I’ll be reading those over the next day or two. Plus I have a number of anthologies and single author collections sitting on the shelves I’ve been wanting to finish.
That’s plenty to keep me busy.