Realms of Fantasy, October 2007

October’s Realms of Fantasy features its usual movie cover, in this case Michelle Pfeiffer in Stardust. Inside are six short stories and the regular columns on books, movies, and games, as well as an article featuring artist Scott M. Fisher.

The stories themselves vary wildly in time and setting. We move from medieval fantasy (Ruth Nestvold’s and Jay Lake’s “Roger Lambelin”) to the Civil War (Devon Monk’s “When The Train Calls Lonely”) and up to modern times (Naomi Kritzer’s “Honest Man”).

The story that opens the issue, “Everyone Bleeds Through” by Jack Skillingstead is the weakest. The narrator, Johnny, is in a diner, guiltily thinking of the woman he is having an affair with, when a girl, Rena, comes in, and she is inexplicably familiar to him. It turns out that this world is only one of many; Rena shows Johnny how to see them, and how to remember the other lives that he’s had.

The problem is that I never really empathised with the narrator—whose unlikeability kept increasing as events progressed. Furthermore, while I like the idea of people “bleeding through,” the story was hard to follow, and the openness of the ending left me equally frustrated and confused.

In “Paper Cuts Scissors” by Holly Black, Justin sorts books for a wealthy collector—only he isn’t doing it for the money, but rather to find his girlfriend, Linda, who folded herself into a book after a quarrel they had. The idea is interesting, and the bewildered Justin makes for a sweet, sympathetic main character. But as the story progressed, it started becoming more and more about famous books—such as Pride and Prejudice—and the characters in them, rather than about Justin, and also sounding more and more like a eulogy to literature. Not a bad thing, but nonetheless, I thought it ill-placed in a short story. Also, Black uses a gimmick I don’t particularly like. “Paper Cuts Scissors” is divided into chapters, and each chapter is named after a class of the Dewey Decimal Classification. It’s a fitting choice for a tale about books and libraries, but the contents of the actual chapters seem to have little to do with their titles, which makes the whole set-up seem forced.

“Save Me Plz” by David Barr Kirtley probably makes way more sense if you’ve ever played a MOMRPG (massively online multiplayer roleplaying game) such as World of Warcraft. Otherwise, many of Kirtley’s sly allusions to gaming practises might well escape you. In a world very much like ours (save for the odd details such as roaming spiders or goblins imparting mystical wisdom), Meg tries to find her boyfriend, Devon, who appears to be trapped in an online game he was addicted to. But everything is not as it seems.

This is a fun, sarcastic ride in which the full impact of Devon’s plight slowly unfolds before being brought to you with a sharp sting. The ending makes perfect sense; it’s also much more chilling than I expected it to be.

“Roger Lambelin” is a collaboration between Ruth Nestvold and Jay Lake, set in their Rose Knights universe. The setting is medieval—at the time of tourneys and courtly love—and the language is that of ancient tales. Roger Lambelin is a Rose Knight whose colour is that of passion—the passion of unrequited love, which he feels for his fellow knight, Schneewitten. When Schneewitten disappears, Roger must find out where she has gone and then must make a terrible choice.

Despite the somewhat distant tone of the narration, this is a serious, quietly emotional read. The ending in particular is worth savouring.

“When the Train Calls Lonely” by Devon Monk is another strong offering in the issue. Told by Elizabeth, an illegitimate child raised at the house of the MacMahons, it deals with death and with grief. Elizabeth has the gift to see and hear ghosts in the moment before they depart this world.

This tale has a strong sense of atmosphere. The ghosts arrive in town with the train and must leave when the train’s whistle blows. Elizabeth’s voice is nicely done, and her complex relationship with the MacMahon family forms the core of a gut-wrenching tale.

“Honest Man” by Naomi Kritzer deals with con men—or rather, with a very particular con man who always calls himself after Presidents of the U.S.A. Iris first meets him in the forties, when she’s working at the Department of Justice, and throughout her life, she keeps running into him.

Kritzer puts a new spin on the mythology of con men by depicting the quintessential gentleman trickster, a character who “won’t cheat an honest man,” but who takes advantage of people’s greed to deceive them. Pitted against him is Iris, whose grounded life serves as an effective foil, and their successive meetings are a joy to read.

Overall, this was a pretty strong issue. While I did not care much for the first two tales, the rest ranged from good to excellent, my favourites being “Roger Lambelin” and “Honest Man.”