Realms of Fantasy, December 2007

Some reviewers seem to be blessed with total recall. They can remember in great detail every story and every author they’ve ever read and make scholarly comparisons to boot. I, on the other hand, seem to have lost ground in the memory department these past few decades, especially since my preschool grandchildren moved in. But I can still recognize a character or a world as vaguely familiar, like recognizing an old friend whose name has slipped your mind. Thank goodness for Google. You, too, may recognize some old friends in the December 2007 issue of Realms of Fantasy, as well as some less familiar friends-to-be.

“Still Point” by Graham Edwards stars a private investigator who never loses his cool, despite surroundings that rival the worlds of Lewis Carroll or Douglas Adams on the strangeness index. His calculator smokes cigarettes, his landlord is made of termite-infested wood, the area is infested with thunderbirds, and that’s just for starters. When time-challenged Jimmy the Griff shows up, things really start to happen. Sound familiar? Oh yes, there’s the magic coat that can be turned inside out and back to take on a variety of properties.

A little research turned up “The Wooden Baby” (RoF April 2005), “Dead Wolf in a Hat” (RoF October 2005), and “Syren” (RoF February 2007) all set in the same fascinating world. In this latest adventure, our hero joins up temporarily with an angel who’s tired of her job guarding a bank vault, has a run-in with renegade zombie policemen, and winds up swapping life stories with a behemoth. Not to mention the issue with the landlord. Whether you read the earlier stories or not, you’re in for a treat.

“Hot Water” by Richard Parks also struck a familiar note. Lord Yamada is a detective of sorts in feudal Japan. His earlier appearances include “Fox Tales” (RoF June 2005), “Moon Viewing at Shijo Bridge” (RoF April 2006), and “A Touch of Hell” RoF April 2007).

Lord Yamada, who is a little too fond of sake, has been kidnapped on the orders of Prince Kanemore and taken to an isolated Buddhist temple for rehab. When he and his servant, Kenji, avail themselves of the temple’s famous hot springs, they are nearly boiled alive by a sudden increase in the flow of hot water, which coincides with the appearance of a girl at the top of the superheated waterfall.

This is a world in transition. The Buddhists are in the ascendant, but the old supernatural beings such as gods and goddesses, spirits and demons, are not denied, only dismissed as unenlightened beings. If they cause problems, they must be removed. Or so believes Kenji, an ardent supporter of Buddhism in theory, even if he falls a bit short in practice.

As Lord Yamada unravels the mystery of the mysterious girl and the eruption of the hot springs, we see the testing of old loyalties and one monk with the courage to forge a connection between ancestral obligations and the new path to enlightenment. “Choices have consequences,” says Yamada, “whether we choose well or poorly. That does not mean we are free from choosing.”

In the world of “The Firemen’s Fairy” by Sandra McDonald, all fire stations have mascots—not the traditional Dalmatian dogs, but an eclectic collection of supernatural beings. The supreme mascot, reasonably enough, is a phoenix. Engine 157 has a dragon; Ladder 28 boasts a Valkyrie. Engine Company 14 has a fairy—a three-inch-tall cutsie, kissy fairy in pink tights, glittery ballet slippers, and a cap with bells on it. His name is Tinkerbob.

Newly graduated probationary firefighter Steven Goodwin is chagrined to find himself assigned to Company 14. Not only does he have to deal with the unwelcome attentions of Tinkerbob and a lot of razzing from macho firefighters in other companies, but Steven’s father, a veteran firefighter, is dismayed that Company 14 also has a woman in the crew. Despite a tour of duty in Iraq, Steven still has a lot to learn about life, loyalty, and courage. Sometimes it takes a tragedy to make us realize what’s really important.

“Transformations” by David Barr Kirtley is a story about a friendship between a machine—actually a biomechanical sentience—and a human boy. For all the little boys, and maybe little girls as well, who played with “transformer” toys, this is your toy come to life. He can be a really cool car that can go as fast as he wants to and never runs out of fuel. He can be a humanoid battle robot, waiting between assignments to fight evil aliens. And he really does have feelings, even if the boy can’t understand.

Here’s another that struck me as a familiar friend. Earlier adventures of Joe Murphy’s Sprokly Maezel, the charming and always polite girl with strange word-like squiggles capering across her wooden skin, include “The Secret of Making Brains” (RoF December 2004) and “The Secret of the Broken Tickers” (RoF August 2005).

In “On Tuesday It Rained Horned Toads” Sprokly has run away from her creator/grandfather Grampser and all her clockwork extended family. She stops at a farmhouse to ask for a drink of water and discovers Walter, a boy who doesn’t quite connect with his parents and the rest of the world.

Beth and Jacob Parker, Sprokly’s hosts, are worn out from the hard work of the farm, from worry about the drought, and especially from dealing with Walter. Worst of all is the insinuation of the doctors that Walter’s condition is their fault, that they somehow, through abuse or neglect, caused his condition. Families of children with autism and similar disorders may recognize this one. But Sprokly, bursting with empathy despite being made of wood, sees only that there’s a need and sets aside her own problems to help. Her methods are as unorthodox as Grampser’s. Does it work? Will the experience actually help Sprokly to communicate with Grampser as well? And what about those pesky horned toads? Read and enjoy.

“The White Isle” by Von Carr begins like a fairy tale, perhaps one of the many versions of an innocent young girl locked in a tower, waiting to be rescued. But this is no ordinary girl. Although she is innocent in a sense, it is a cold and terrible innocence, with all the amoral, unthinking cruelty of childhood. How she came to be here, who her people might be, do not enter into the equation, although there is a hint about tales of witch children. She simply is, and does whatever interests her at the moment. Few things hold her interest for long.

There is little common ground between the girl and the shipwrecked sailor she rescues. Although he amuses her for a time, their encounter serves to illustrate the danger of presuming to understand a wild and essentially alien being.