Fantasy Magazine, June 2008

In honor of the wedding season (or perhaps despite it) Fantasy Magazine’s June offerings explore romantic love—love lost, love found, and “love” most deadly.

June’s first story is “On the Finding of Photographs of My Former Loves” by Peter M. Ball. “Everyone has a past and you do your best to pretend it doesn’t matter,” Deacon, the narrator-protagonist tells us. But Deacon’s past is definitely more interesting than most. After his wife finds the photos he’s kept of his old girlfriends, we discover just what kind of girls Deacon was into and why his wife feels she has to leave him.

Ball conveys the essence of each character efficiently but fully, with an especially sensitive—though not sentimental—look at Deacon’s wife. This piece is a subtle portrayal of the breakdown of a marriage and of self-discovery.

In Sean Markey’s “Sorrowbird,” a woman uses the last of her inherited magic to make a vessel for her grief over her long-lost husband. She intends the “mourning dove” as a sort of scapegoat, but redemption takes a different form.

Markey deftly uses a second person point of view to express the abject loneliness of his protagonist. This technique provides for the expression of raw emotion in a purer form than the self-awareness of first person or the dispassionate remove of third would allow. Woven with gorgeous imagery and intense details, “Sorrowbird” is heartbreakingly beautiful.

As “His One True Bride,” Margetta is blessed—or rather cursed—by the attentions of the Harper in this harrowing tale by Darja Malcolm-Clarke. A strange light occasionally manifests itself around her and she has begun to have visions. Some in her order suggest that the Harper has chosen her as his new bride, but others say that it is not so, that she is impious or cursed. Margetta does not know which would be worse, but she’s about to find out.

Margetta’s exciting story is marked by rising dread as the innocent young woman’s world begins to close in around her. This world—where a Beelzebub-like god stalks a new “bride” from each generation, and the days of the year are named for the gruesome deaths suffered by his previous brides—would be too much if it weren’t for Eleni, whose support is invaluable in allowing Margetta to use her own wits and courage to survive.

E. Catherine Tobler offers a quieter tale in both tone and theme with “The Lodger at Wintertide.” For nearly as long as she can remember, Sibley has lived silently among villagers who can neither hear nor speak. She knows she is different but does not realize that her fondest wish is within her grasp. Camden has spent his life wandering, chasing his desires, but finds that his own fondest wish may lie in that same silent village.

This is a subtle tale of deep longings with half-forgotten roots, of finding and reaching for one’s true desire after a long and disheartening search. It is well-told and engrossing with empathetic characters and romance that is conveyed with a maturity that precludes being sugared into meaninglessness.

“Marrying the Sun” by Rachel Swirsky: When he accidentally sets her wedding dress on fire as she’s walking down the aisle, Bridget calls it quits with Helios. Her solitary Ph.D. study of the sun had attracted the god’s attention, and with the help of an otherworldly matchmaker, the two had quickly become an item. But now as Helios carouses with his best man, the eternally rakish Apollo, and Bridget talks with her matchmaker, both lovers are left wondering what went wrong with their Earth-Olympus romance.

This tale’s serious themes of loneliness and unrealistic hopes belie its comic opening. I must admit that I was disappointed at the rise of these weightier concerns, but this was more a fault in my expectations than in the story itself. This is a well-told tale—just don’t expect a frolic.