Coyote Wild, YA issue, August 2008

The summer issue of the e-zine Coyote Wild is a special issue devoted to Young Adult Fiction, guest-edited by Sherwood Smith.

In “The Haunting of Jig’s Ear” by Jim C. Hines, Jig the goblin gets roped into a quest to free an apprentice wizard’s ghost—much against his will, because in goblin language, “brave” is another word for “suicidal.”

Hines cleverly takes the stereotypes of cowardly goblins and exploits it with impeccable logic, creating a culture that survives on wariness and treachery. The hapless Jig is a sympathetic narrator, and the voice is priceless. Recommended.

In “The Oracle” by Francesca Forrest, Five is the sister of Gosling, the titular Oracle—who is called upon to make a particularly difficult, politically charged pronouncement. But not everyone accepts Gosling’s word, and he may be in more danger than Five thinks.

I loved the characters in this, especially the cantankerous brother, Bothersome Knee, but the world felt a little too much on the generic side for my personal taste; the political issues seemed to resolve themselves far too easily, as if conforming to Five’s simplistic view of things.

In “I Have Heard the Angels Singing, Each to Each” by Rosamund Hodge, Maria, the child of an angel and a human, finds an odd statue in a 90-cent store—a statue in which angels are imprisoned. The angels, who can feel her, beg her to help free them. But there are two kinds of angels, and how can Maria be sure that those are the right ones?

There is a lot about this that I like: the setting of Los Angeles and the attendant Catholic beliefs are very well depicted and fitted into a nice overall universe. The writing, too, was beautiful, especially the descriptions of the angel song. However, I couldn’t help but think that this felt too much like a sequel to one or several stories I hadn’t read (I found one of them, “City of Angels,” in the March 2008 issue of Coyote Wild). The narration gets bogged down with exposition about the main characters, which didn’t serve any real purpose: most of it is largely irrelevant to the plot, but the explanations are also too short and too cryptic to serve any character-building purpose.

In “An Old-Fashioned Unicorn’s Guide To Courtship” by Sarah Rees Brennan, Alicia is studying at the Princess Academy in order to be a queen, but so far, she’s proved most stubborn by refusing to conform to any of the princess stereotypes. So when spunky Brianna decides to go on a quest to prove her womanhood, the Academy is all too glad to send Alicia with her—along with Alicia’s hopeless retainer and accountant, Miles, and Ethel, Alicia’s staid unicorn mount.

This started out as a hilarious take on fairy tales. I absolutely loved the tests princesses had to take (such as a slumber test, a title test, and, of course, dancing lessons), and Brianna’s speeches against the oppressive patriarchy are priceless. But along the way, it also developed into a warm, touching story of two very different people finding love, and of how the value of someone isn’t necessarily in the prescribed heroic acts. Recommended.

In “Mage’s Gambit” by Leigh Kimmel, Polly is the daughter of a crippled soldier living with her parents in the Collegia Magica as a menial, fed only by dint of charity. She must endure the taunts of the more privileged students, in particular those of the bully Millicent.

Though I loved the worldbuilding—in particular, the mixture of English colleges with magic, which was very well done—I’m afraid the story itself did not convince me. It set up very effectively the sort of discrimination a pauper might face in a class-bound universe and then proceeded to shatter all those expectations with a happy ending that felt too sappy for my tastes. This would probably have benefitted from being longer, so we’d have time to integrate the details of the world better. As it is, it feels a little too much like a standard revenge fantasy.

In “Family” by Mary Hodge, Terry and Tony are both children with magical abilities, but they’re afraid to reveal them to their new stepmother—afraid that she’ll run away from them.

I loved the idea of magical abilities applied to the real world, and how different talents might be used for performing household tasks, or used by children to get into believable fights. The ending itself was fun and a satisfying conclusion to this good read.

“When Lina Went on the Lam” by Jeff Soesbe features an eight-inch protagonist: Thumbellina, grown out of her mother’s DNA. Tired of being only a pretty thing to display at parties, she wants to go on an adventure and to find true love.

This is a nice retelling of the Thumbellina fairy tale, complete with an armed frog and clockwork beetles. Thumbellina herself is an endearing point of view character, and the ending is well done.

In “Dancing the Bones” by Michelle Muenzler, Nyah has a last chance to prove herself as an elephant woman, one who can “dance the bones and set the earth to shaking.” But Nyah is slender and weak, and the armour worn for the dance drags her down.

This has very atmospheric world-building, as well as strong characters. I loved the way it didn’t shy away from the harshness inherent in a hunter-gatherer society, and how the ending managed to be both hopeful and thoroughly realistic. Recommended.

In “Fallen” by Maggie L. Wood, the fey Ardis is a nobody, daughter to the exiled sister of the queen—that is, until the old, spiteful queen makes Ardis her heir. But what is at stake for Ardis? Is it truly to rule over the Light Court, or does the queen have more in mind for her?

This began well, but it never seemed to come to a satisfactory ending; the curse of the fallen comes out of the blue and so do its consequences—transforming the last part of the story into something that has little to do with the first part. Which is a shame, because I loved the faerie politics and how the character of Ardis navigated them.

In “The Girl-Prince” by Merrie Haskell, the eponymous character embarks on a quest across space to a planet where a princess is sealed in a tower—a princess who countless princes have died trying to rescue. That is, until the girl-prince comes along.

This was a delight to read and put a fresh spin on the much-used Sleeping Beauty retelling. The mix of SF and fairy tales works surprisingly well, and the tongue-in-cheek narration is a pleasure. Strongly recommended.

In “Invasive Species” by Janni Lee Simner, a devastating war between faerie and humans has left the narrator and her cousin sheltering with their aunt in the small village of Summerhaven. One day, the narrator shoots down a hawk—who shapeshifts into a young, wounded boy, one of the faerie who wage war against them.

The world in this is suitably creepy and wartorn. The idea of trees turning into vengeful, fighting monsters is nothing new, but it is very well depicted here, with a conclusion that is both realistic and poignant.

In “Smacking Back” by Laura Bradley Rede, the narrator, Cassie, is plagued by a particular class of bullies—ones who want to download knowledge about this week’s assignment straight from her brain in a procedure akin to mental rape. But Cassie has had enough of being bullied.

I was not quite taken with this at the beginning, because the whole idea of mind-rape did feel like a way of having all the emotional impact of rape without the sexual nastiness associated. However, the clever way things shift at the ending more than justified the use of this particular trope.

“Nomi’s Wish” by Alana Joli Abbott intertwines two stories: that of Nomi, a writer who rescues her sister, Ruthe, from the fairies; and Lou, the young girl who correspond with Nomi years later—and who gets a single wish that she never spends.

This is one of those stories where you piece everything together at the end, and it made for a satisfying if bittersweet dénouement. I loved the dual nature of the fairies—both helpers and hamperers—and how the rules that Nomi explains, interspersed throughout the story, foreshadow the ending’s poignancy. Recommended.

This issue of Coyote Wild has a strong variety of tales, even though most of them are fantasy rather than SF. The Haskell, Brennan, Muenzler, and Abbot alone are well worth the (admittedly null) price of admission. You should definitely check the YA issue out.