Fantasy Magazine #7

Ari Goelman opens issue #7 of Fantasy Magazine with an interesting concept: retelling the story of Annie Oakley, the pretty, young sharpshooting maverick, and her debut - beating showman Frank Butler at a bet and entering show business herself. The twist: in Goelman’s “The Annie Oakley Show,” Annie is haunted by the ghost of the man she killed. Mr. Gillie’s ghost is a sneering, self-righteous nuisance, and he forces himself on Annie’s mind as invasively as he once forced himself on Annie’s body.

It’s a fun, exciting story. Goelman presents us with exciting, lively, and memorable characters which seem right in place in the busy Cincinnati state fair. Annie is well-drawn as willful and almost naive about her incredible talent, while Gillie blusters about repenting for her sins - “You going to shoot Lord Jesus?” - and Butler, calm and collected, chides her for every shot she fires for free. The contrast between Gillie and Butler is particularly well done; Gillie claims he’s got Annie’s best interests at heart, a glaringly obvious hypocrite, while we can clearly see that Butler treats Annie with true respect and appreciation, and we admire him for it.

As a retelling, though, “The Annie Oakley Show” strikes me as a bit odd. For one thing, Annie Oakley does not come across as being well known enough to current audiences to be able to assume the average reader will recognize the story of Annie and Butler’s meeting. Some readers, particularly non-U.S. readers, may not even recognize Annie Oakley’s name. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it is difficult to see what value is brought by retelling Annie Oakley’s story instead of writing this as a standalone. There’s no hint of comparison or contrast between this story and the original, nor do we get a twist upon characters or motives. It just happens to be people with the same names in roughly the same situations. The story would lose nothing by changing the names to fictional ones.

The story’s conclusion is also slightly disappointing. It has its drama and its action, but it appears to simply be another round in the battle between Annie and Mr. Gillie. The tone and structure of the story implies a change or accomplishment, but everything stays pretty much the same, giving the ending an arbitrary feeling, of the author forcing a conclusion. I think this piece would have worked very nicely as the first chapter of a longer work.

Lisa Mantchev brings us a fable, “Over Desert Sand and Ocean Calm.” A traveling hawk serves as courier between the ocean and the desert, each of whom is fascinated by the strange uniqueness of the other.

The good news is that at its core, “Sand and Calm” has immediate resonance—a must, for a fable to be a fable. A love affair between desert and ocean not only seems an inevitable extrapolation of opposites attracting, it also innately exemplifies the tragedy of insurmountable distance so common to such opposites. Additionally, I found the conclusion to be very fitting and meaningful—another basic requirement for fablehood.

Unfortunately, fables are tricky things to write. The author is consciously talking to the reader on two different levels simultaneously, setting a parallel between fantasy and gravity, and cannot let either one diminish the other. “Sand and Calm” does not manage to walk this fine line, veering too often into trivialities and exercises in anthropomorphication that make the story much more difficult to take seriously. Some of the images evoked are right in place, such as the ocean nibbling at the shoreline, Mantchev’s vision of the desert, and gathering up jewels of the sea. But when a story’s first paragraph describes a hawk “taking his family to the seaside on holiday” and packing along “a change of feathers,” it comes across sounding like it’s trying too hard to be cute. Similarly, when every line the ocean utters is accompanied by crashing waves or shifting currents, the reader is more distracted than impressed.

The result is a good story poorly written. At six pages, it’s worth wading through, but the value of this story is more in later reflection than in an enjoyable reading experience.

With Daniel Homan’s “The Queen of Hearts,” were you to read only the summary of its events, it might sound like an adventure story; a daring young hero risks all to save his townsfolk from a cruel master in a game of cards. But it isn’t. “The Queen of Hearts” is a horror story, one of inevitable doom—”How will it end? Don’t you know? In death,” say the strangers in the street—which is exposed little by little until it has grown substantial enough to pounce.

Asriael rules over the Slants with black magic and grim hatred. The protagonist, known only by his false identity as Lord Renue, enters Asriael’s manor to play the Great Game and win back the deed to the Slants. Renue enjoys both natural talent and intense training, and success seems to be within his grasp. Alas, his mission is set aside when he finds hints that Asriael’s darker secrets are linked to his own family, supposedly dead for years.

“The Queen of Hearts” is largely a solid piece of writing. Greatly adding to its atmosphere are the short, clipped sentences the story is told with and the descriptions of Asriael’s many enchantments enforcing his rule, which are as ever-present and ominous in the story as they must be in the Slants themselves. Renue’s desperation and determination are also well handled—which I’m afraid backfires when he suddenly tosses them aside for his own personal agenda. This complete turnaround comes abruptly, and seemingly on very slim foundation. From this point on, the story also becomes increasingly confused and difficult to follow with events told only partially and out of order. The twists that are clear, and the successful increase of tension as the story nears its conclusion, keep it an exciting and enjoyable read, although they do not make up for the frustration at the lack of clarity.

Look into the undercurrents of this story, and you’ll find that the elements of horror and despair all spring directly from one source: abuse of power. The opulence of Asriael’s manor and the Great Game stand in contrast to the poverty of the Slants; the poorfolk are punished harshly for any misdeed while the rich are entitled to wear “gentlemen’s gloves” which hide even the harshest crimes. The sense of hopelessness conveys the ability of power to preserve and perpetuate itself, and the characters themselves demonstrate how power leaves a man empty and hollow. It is interesting to see a horror story told in such context, and nice to see a story with so many threads tied (some more subtly, some less so) around a theme.

“Tending the Mori Birds” by Caroline M. Yoachim is short and sweet. When a babe is born, his name is given to a Mori bird. Years pass until the day comes when the bird returns to its tender. When the tender reads the name the bird carries, the man dies. It’s a simple, elegant idea, and Yoachim’s telling of it is simple and elegant to match.

The theme to this story is the burden of responsibility shouldered by the tender, Prem. His duties are outwardly simple and not his to choose, and yet in performing them, the reader sees that Prem has an intimate connection to every person in the city. Yoachim conveys clearly that as difficult as it is to take even the slightest responsibility for life and death, it is necessary to acknowledge each and every one. Death birds they may be, but it’s not difficult to see that this is a story of optimism, of comfort—a story saying that somewhere, somehow, somebody watches over and cares for us all. And this care is, somehow, what keeps everything going. And thus, all is well.

Next up is “Undocumented” by Rachel Swirsky in which a family of poor Mexican immigrants faces the harsh travails of being a family of poor Mexican immigrants. Poverty, derision, and racism are the norm. When Papa is violently assaulted by rich white men, the family reaches a crisis point, and our young narrator’s last illusions melt away. Save for the fairy tale the girl begins telling at the beginning and a reference or two to it later, there is no overt speculative element to this.

I found little in “Undocumented” to commend it. The family’s condition and the attack on the father are, sadly, nothing new or surprising. The family members are all but indistinguishable from one another, save for family position. Worse, the entire story flows in fluent American, with no hint in style or vocabulary to the origins or surroundings of the narrator and her family. Nor did I find anything in the description of the narrator’s disillusionment that raised it above a simple flow chart of “Innocence + Tragedy ? Bitter Awakening.” And so as a whole, it comes across as stereotypical, superficial, and uninteresting.

Of course, it’s absolutely true—we cannot, must not close our eyes to the very real suffering which sits right under our noses. It’s an important, worthy message. Alas, “Undocumented” serves as a poor, ineffective messenger.

After a messy divorce, a nervous breakdown, and a suicide attempt, Penelope lives a quiet, unbothered life in a small Virginia town in “The Comb” by Mary Youmans. She spends her days walking through the hills, avoiding any kind of social contact, detached from the world. The change comes when she meets a Mysterious Stranger in the woods. The stranger is clearly captivated by her, and makes the odd offer of combing Penelope’s tangled, unkempt hair. He leaves her with the gift of a beautiful comb, a head full of questions, and little else.

From here, the story continues to describe the progression of the strange and wondrous courtship between the two—the stranger Flyn’s elusiveness and mystery, and Penelope regaining her excitement and vitality, the comb untangling the knots in her psyche along with those in her hair. Though there is some conflict and danger, this is mostly about simple progress, of the natural process of recuperation and moving on, and of accepting and welcoming commitment.

What makes “The Comb” a pleasure to read is the gentle, descriptive voice of Penelope’s narration. This is a character story, and Penelope’s character is rich, interesting, and convincing. Youmans manages to bring out emotion without melodrama, by the accumulation of small observations, at a pace which is slow and easy—and rightly so.

The only thing I can say against this story is that it does suffer from Hollywood Syndrome. For all the effect Flyn has on Penelope, the actual amount of time they spend together in conversation or in contact is slight. What we see doesn’t feel like deep, well-grounded love, but merely the swell of emotion that’s often used as a literary shorthand for the real thing. This is particularly bothersome since Flyn seems to be meant to represent commitment, in contrast to Penelope’s previous husband’s unfaithfulness and lack of reliability. We do not doubt his commitment, but it seems blindly, hastily made, which lessens its value somewhat in my eye. Rather than relying on romantic stereotypes, I feel much refreshed when I see romantic interests actually showing themselves to be likable and appropriate such as that in “The Annie Oakley Show.”

“Bewildering” would be a good way to define Afifah Myra Muffaz’s “Into the Monsoon.” Like “Undocumented,” it does not have a clear fantasy element, but more serious than that is that it does not appear to have a clear plot or clear character, either. What it does have is a description of Song, traveling with her father in Bangkok, and the alien, threatening atmosphere of the city. I have no fundamental problem with a story describing the strangeness of a strange city, but “Into the Monsoon” serves up an odd mishmash of Bangkok’s strangeness with all kinds of other elements that just don’t combine into an intelligible whole.

After a brief introduction, we see that Song’s trip with her father is prompted by his dating a young woman and hitting Song’s mother. Pleasant. This is followed by the bulk of the story—a seven-page sequence of shopping for Dad’s pants in the market, with a stop for coffee in the middle. The pants-shopping does take the time to establish that Song feels A) lost and B) uncomfortable about not being Thai, but it also pays an inordinate amount of attention to the actual search for a pair of pants. From there, we move on to a Surprise Ending. The Surprise Ending did indeed take me by surprise, since it seemed to have so little to do with anything else, nor does the story continue long enough to consider any ramifications.

This is one of those stories where you cannot see what the author was aiming for, how they thought this came together as a story. It feels more like an author experimenting with writing voices through events picked on a whim—evocative, in its own way, but wandering so randomly through so much, it’s hard to get anything coherent out of it.

The premise behind “The Confessions of Prince Charming” by Kelly Barnhill is broadcast by its title. Confessions rip through a myriad of fairy tales, detailing the endless parade of princesses and bouts of depression in the life of Prince Charming. Charming himself is a common schlub, and that’s about all there is to this story. The humor attempted never rises above Charming going for “an opening for princes when I graduated from charm school,” Rapunzel storming off with “a baby in each arm and a speech about her needs,” and “Cindy” writing that “Mother is pestering me to have you buy her a condo on the other side of the forest.” In other words, it feels like a tired, familiar parody, like a third-rate stand-up comedian shoehorning all his stale old jokes into his new Prince Charming routine.

The style and humor may have been better tolerated, or at least pardonable, in a shorter story. Prince Charming as a louse of a husband can still have entertainment value, even though it’s been done before (Shrek being the most heavily commercialized example). The concept elicits a smile (or at least a smirk), which could be enough to justify a couple of pages of watching the prince in a single story. But dragging us through every single fairy tale ends up being a tedious repetition of the basic joke, more of the same dull tone reaching for a laugh.

“In Dreams Tangible” by Su-Yee Lin reminded me of a community writing project I was involved in about a year ago. Writers were invited to send in stories taking place in a world where people’s dreams sprung to life. I remember gnashing my teeth in frustration at a slew of stories in which protagonists conjured up the man/woman of their dreams, their dream house, and their dream car or just came up with whatever they needed or wanted at the moment. Dreams aren’t that straightforward. It’s ridiculous that a person should ostensibly dream of the same woman over and over, and yet, we never see a sign of the pink elephants or the frozen Driver’s Ed teachers that pop up in dreams as well. Dreams are chaotic.

In this story, Laurel, the dream weaver, goes too far off the other end. (What can I say? There’s just no pleasing a critic.) Laurel sees no reason to distinguish between dream and reality. Her world is a world of chaotic fantasy. The story begins when Astrophel, a man in black who tries to kill Laurel every night and so has become her secret friend, suddenly ceases his visits. Laurel must find and rescue him. Her response? She buys a first-class ticket to the moon.

Huh? Well, as a dream, it makes perfect sense, since it makes none at all. And this is where we recall that if anything is possible, then nothing is interesting. By this total non sequitur and other such examples of Laurel’s dream weaving, the reader cannot help but realize that there are truly no rules, no point of steadiness to rely on, and therefore no reason why Laurel shouldn’t be able to do simply anything. The obvious conclusion is that the entire “quest” for Astrophel is a meaningless game, played either by Laurel or the author, who may throw in plot twists as they like and contrive solutions as they like. It becomes odd and disorienting that Astrophel’s disappearance is presented as the central crisis of the story when the reader feels that he cannot truly be in danger with someone like Laurel coming to his rescue.

That leaves only a clever, stream-of-consciousness description of shifting from dreamscape to dreamscape, sliding down lanes of associations and random introspection. Is this shifting and sliding worthwhile? It’s a matter of taste. If chaotic dream narration sounds like something you’d enjoy, “In Dreams Tangible” offers nothing less. On the other hand, if the concept of a bunch of disconnected random images seems less than appealing, “In Dreams Tangible” offers nothing more.

In “The White Part of the Apple” by Emily Tersoff we have a worthy retelling of Snow White. It shifts focus away from the cheerful dwarves, evil witches, and charming princes, and instead paints the portrait of a young girl whose only parental figure is an abusive stepmother—a girl starved for love and running for her life. Tersoff inserts a bittersweet depth into the familiar tale; Snow White is about mere beauty, but Tersoff’s battered snow girl is about love.

I’ll avoid going into more plot on this one; it’s three pages long, and readers already know most of the storyline. The beauty is in the details, in the way they echo the original fairy tale while giving it new meaning—which is where “The White Part of the Apple” is such a masterful retelling, along with how Tersoff has keyed in on a minor element present in the original story and brought it to fore, making it work so well within the familiar framework that one wonders how you’ve missed it all this time.

Simon Logan closes the issue with “La Mer.” One year ago, Daniel gave his wife to the sea to end her suffering. Since then, he’s been tortured by his choice, and he now comes back to the same spot to ask, demand, and beg that she be returned.

It’s a familiar idea, and “La Mer” has no great surprises in store for us. Nor does it make any pretense of such. Over and over, we are reminded that Daniel is only one of many who have entrusted a loved one to the depths of La Mer. But it’s certainly worth a read—the use of the ocean, the character of the twisted fisherman, and the gentle conclusion make this an enjoyable variation on a tried-and-true theme.

Ziv’s Final Tally:
Stories: 11
Retellings: 3
Troubled Women Redeemed by a Trustworthy Man: 2
Troubled Men Redeemed by a Drowned Woman: 1
Unnamed Protagonists: 2
Dwarves: 15