Part seventy-three in my ongoing retrospective as I read the fiction to the back issues of
Realms of Fantasy and offer my thoughts, right up to the present. This time around I'll be going toe to toe with the October 2006 issue.
The cover to this one is by Gordon Crabb. Inside, it's listed as originally being the cover to
The Lightstone from Tor Books.
A rundown of this issue's nonfiction is as follows:
In the movie/TV column, Resa Nelson covers
Masters of Horror on Showtime; in the folkroots column, Hal Duncan writes about death and rebirth from world mythology to contemporary magical fiction; in the adult books column, Gahan Wilson reviews
Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology, edited by James Patrick Kelly & John Kessel,
H.P. Lovecraft's Book of the Supernatural, edited by Stephen Jones,
The Line Between by Peter S. Beagle,
The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones, and Paul Witcover reviews
Firebird by R. Garcia Y. Robertson,
The Silver Bough by Lisa Tuttle, and
Shuteye for the Timebroker by Paul Di Filippo; in the YA books column, Michael Jones reviews
Fly by Night by Frances Hardinge,
The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan,
Jennifer Scales and the Messenger of Light by MaryJanice Davidson and Anthony Alongi,
Timetripper Book One: Yestermorrow by Stefan Petrucha,
The Chronicles of Fairie Book One: The Hunter's Moon by O.R. Melling,
Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz, and
Boys That Bite by Mari Mancusi; in the artist gallery, A. Jaye Williams covers the art of the Hildebrandt Brothers; and in the games column, Eric T. Baker reviews
X-Men III: The Official Game for the PC, PS2, Xbox, and the Xbox 360,
The Da Vinci Code for the Xbox, PS2, and PC, for the D&D
Eberron world, a standalone adventure module,
The Voyage of the Golden Dragon,
Exalted Second Edition: Storytellers Companion from White Wolf Publishing,
Metal Saga for the PS2, and the latest card set in the
Magic: The Gathering line,
Dissension.
On to the fiction ...
The lead story is "Marriage Game" by Susan J. Kroupa, which marks her fourth appearance in the magazine. This one is a lighthearted ghost story about a couple of ghost ladies who play a "Game" wherein they try to influence the lives of "Flesh & Bloods," earning mostly meaningless points for causing certain events to happen due to their influencing. But in this instance, a marriage could hang in the balance due to their meddling. Art to this one was provided by John Singer.
Then we have "Dead Man's Tale" by Billie Aul, which marks her second appearance in the magazine. Like her first story in RoF, this is a post-Flood tale, where the sea levels have risen to such an extent that many magical folks have been forced to come out from hiding deep in the earth and take their place among humans. This in turn has caused many undead and fey who have lived among humans in secret all along to reveal themselves. Now everyone lives together in the ultimate melting pot. In this particular tale, a gumshoe detective must determine whether a man's severed lover is truly undead and unable to reanimate. If he is, then this was something the lovers did for kicks and that means a spell is blocking the undead body from reanimating. But if the body isn't undead as the lover claims, then the lover will be tried for murder. Art to this one was provided by Joel Spector.
Next up we have "Sunday" by Alethea Kontis. Alethea would have been a slush survivor of mine since I had been passing along earlier stories of hers for consideration. Instead, she pulled a literary fast one on me. In between submissions, she went out and earned herself enough literary credits to be considered an automatic pass from the submissions pile. Good for her. As to the story itself, this is the ultimate successful mishmash of famous fairy tales. In the story, Sunday Woodcutter finds herself falling in love with both a frog and a prince, only her kisses are failing to transform the frog back into a man, and the prince is considered an enemy of the family. In reading this, I detected influences from the Frog Prince, Cinderella, Snow White, and Jack and the Beanstalk to name a few. Yet the author manages to make this tale entirely her own. Art to this one was provided by Scott Grimando.
Following this we have "Blood of Virgins" by David Barr Kirtley, which marks his third appearance in the magazine. In this YA tale, dragons are like cars among teenagers, meaning they are status symbols. So of course almost everyone wants one. One problem, though. While the dragons are basically under control, they enjoy the blood of virgins. And wouldn't you know it, our protagonist is a virgin going into his first year of college. So not only does he wish to hide the fact that he is a virgin, but it's compounded by the fact that he's absolutely terrified of dragons. So what is the solution? Well, facing down your fear always helps. Meeting the right girl could help as well. This story is available in podcast form over on the Escape Pod website under 1/11/07 entry. Art in the magazine was provided by Huan Tran.
Then we have "Snake Charmer" by Amanda Downum. This one is another one of my slush survivors. It also marks an interesting (but minor) step for me as an editor. Back when the story was still under consideration, Amanda happened to post a comment on my blog and mentioned that I had passed along her story. I asked her which one and when she replied "Snake Charmer" I said something about the story was, well, completely wrong in terms of what kind of tale it was. I realized the mistake much later on and was rather embarrassed about it. Since that sort of error was rather unlike me, I took some time to think about why I made it. And I realized that I had finally gotten to the point that I had read so many stories for RoF (published and otherwise) that I was occasionally getting them mixed up in my head. This includes the ones I like, such as this one. It's nothing personal to the authors, but after this happened I learned that sooner or later you start to reach a saturation point as an editor. You just can't remember every story as well as you'd like to. With these retrospectives, we're well into my time here as assistant editor. That means I've read just about all of these stories already. And while I may remember what most of them are about in terms of the broad brush strokes, I don't remember most of them well enough to write about them in these retrospectives without rereading them. So I came to this realization in 2006. Imagine how I feel in 2010? :)
As to the story itself, this was gives off an urban gothic flare with a hint of a high fantasy undercurrent. In it, the character of Simon Magus seeks revenge for his dead wife. Simon Magus seems like a high fantasy name, only very early on we find ourselves in a club that would seem right at home in certain parts of NYC. Other tidbits also let us know this is a modern setting, such as the guns the DJ in the club, and the mention of Halloween. Yet there are also tidbits that leak into this story that seem to come from an older, almost forgotten time, such as Simon's name, the mention of the otherkind, a history between the characters that seems to go back far longer than it should ...and let us not forget the last dragon. All of these tidbits are skillfully interwoven, and you find yourself nodding along as Simon seeks the aforementioned vengeance for his dead wife, even if it means killing the dragon in the bargain. Shawna's editorial tag line also sums this one up rather nicely: "Vengeance, they say, is a dish best served cold. But it can be hard to remember that when your veins are running hot with anger and despair." This story was selected for inclusion in
Best New Fantasy 2, edited by Sean Wallace. Art to this one was provided by Chris Cocozza.
After this was have "Myths & Legends" by Kathe Koja, another story that was accepted by the magazine before my time. This one is a rather quick tale about a high school girl who must finish her homework assignment about myths & legends that is due tomorrow while battling the ever-dangerous procrastination. Art to this one was provided by Kris Chau.
Finally we have "A Fish Story" by Sarah Totton. This is another one of my slush survivors. It also marks the first author I ever worked with on a rewrite of a story. The rewrite itself wasn't too extensive. The story itself was basically there in my opinion. It just needed a few tweaks. I suggested them to Sarah and she came through with flying colors. Interestingly enough, Sarah had submitted something to us at an earlier time that I had rejected. In the rejection, I gave her some feedback on the story. She applied that feedback, sent the story back out, and later informed me that she had sold it to
Writers of the Future. So given the end results of these two stories, I guess it's fair to say that Sarah liked my editorial feedback. But if you need further proof, it came in the form of her next submission, i.e. the story she sent us after selling "A Fish Story." When I informed her that because she had now sold something to us her future submissions would be automatic passes to Shawna and that it wouldn't have to pass muster with me first, she wrote back, "What? You mean I won't have Cohen's guiding touch on my stories going forward?" That one brought a big old smile to my face. Of course, a few years later, Sarah is once again under the spell of "Cohen's guiding touch," since a while back I accepted her short story collection as an an acquiring editor for Fantastic Books. It includes "A Fish Story" as well as "The Bonefisher's Apprentice," the story she sold to Writers of the Future. The collection should be coming out in the not-too-distant future. Ah, symmetry.
As to the story itself, let me start off by saying that I have always been a tough sell with funny fantasies.* They have their place in our genre and I fully acknowledge that. But I also know my own likes and dislikes enough to know that most speculative literature that is meant to be funny isn't for me. But this ...this was absolutely hilarious. In the first sentence I was reading about a world with cloud fishing and pink yaks. Wild stuff. As I kept reading, I found myself laughing aloud as a young woman pursues her "one true love" with obsessively hilarious determination, to the point that she seeks to catch the legendary Barbary Fish to impress him. Having it be the girl at this age going to these lengths really breathed some life into this story. So did the style. While we were working on the rewrite, I mentioned to Sarah that reading this reminded me of reading Mervyn Peake, to which she replied, "Peake is my hero." It shows, but she was not for one moment derivative. The style and imagination may have been somewhat reminiscent of Peake, but I haven't seen a story like this one before or since. It was eventually reprinted in
Fantasy: Best of the Year 2007, edited by Rich Horton. Art to this one was provided by Caitlin Kuhwald.
*I should also note that each time I've passed along a slush story to Shawna that I consider funny or silly in tone (which admittedly hasn't happened often), it has sold to the magazine. So while I can't promise you that passing along your funny fantasy means Shawna will buy it, I do have an excellent track record here. Basically, if you can make me laugh with a speculative tale, you're really doing something right, because generally speaking, the humor falls flat for me. I am a very tough sell here.
So that wraps up this issue. Next time around I'll put a cap on 2006 when I discuss the December 2006 issue. Until then ...
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