History as it is written is full of holes, of secrets and of omissions. The so-called “secret histories”, fictional or otherwise, are the stories of the forgotten and the suppressed, the stories of those who have been deprived of a voice to tell their version of the past. Ekatarina Sedia’s The Secret History of Moscow is not a story about Moscow per se, but rather a novel about those broken and maladjusted people who lack a voice of their own and who don’t quite “fit” into our modern world of progress, improvement and self-realization.

Galina is one of those people that don’t quite “fit”. She has a history of mental illness and is something of a disappointment to her mother and younger sister with whom she lives in Moscow. One day, her sister Masha suddenly turns into a bird and flies away, and Galina is determined to find out what happened and how to get her sister back. Her enquiries lead her to Yakov, a policeman who is unsuccessfully investigating a string of mysterious disappearances throughout the city. Yakov has in fact seen a man turn into a bird, but he distrusts his eyes - surely magic does not exist and people do not randomly turn into birds! Galina and Yakov cross paths with Fyodor – a homeless and alcoholic artist who seems to sense the existence of another world- one hidden beneath the streets of Moscow and beyond the reflections in mirrors, puddles and windows. Together the three enter into a hidden world in order to find out what has happened to the people turned into birds and who is behind it. In the world under and beyond Moscow, they meet a host of strange people and odd landscapes. Here reside people who have tried to escape their world, victims of political purges or personal sorrows. Yet the underworld is also a place for the things that have been lost during the course of history. Pagan deities and fairy tale creatures reside in this world of glowing trees, albino birds and icy waters – forgotten by the world above. Helped by some of these creatures and persons, they enter deeper into the hidden world of the lost and forgotten, searching for the power behind the disappearances in Moscow.

The Secret History of Moscow shares many similarities with Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, like Gaiman’s novel this book concerns itself with the people who fall into the cracks of society and are overlooked and forgotten. Yet where Gaiman portrays a fantastic and grotesque inversion of London, Sedia’s hidden Moscow is much more fluid. It is not really bound the city in the manner of an inverted mirror, rather it could perhaps best be described as a concrete embodiment of the cultural memory of a people, a memory that includes things that has been omitted from official history:

All societies have their memories, enshrined in official histories and reworked and repeated in popular memory, yet Sedia’s tale of the wreckage of history and the people alienated from modernity is perhaps particularly apt when it comes to Russia, a country that has had a very turbulent history during the 20th century as well as a long heritage of totalitarian regimes. One of the things that characterize totalitarian regimes is the impulse to control history, often to the point of re-writing it in order to reflect the ideology of the ruling class. This was especially pertinent during the Communist regime, where political purges often required a re-writing of history to the extent that even photos were tampered with. Hence, Sedia’s little novel of secret histories and broken lives has a particular resonance in relation to the story’s Russian setting – one of the aspects that makes it a book that is very different from Gaiman’s, similarities aside.

Sedia’s book is a slim one, which is partly due to her sparing yet lyrical prose, which imbues the narrative with dark and chilled atmosphere both fascinating and forbidding:

Although Sedia’s novel ostensibly is about Galina’s quest to find her transformed sister, this story isn’t really the novel’s central purpose – a reason why the ending feels rather anti-climatic. Rather, the novel is a collection of small stories which are knitted together by the frame that the hidden world provides. These are the stories that are forgotten and repressed, ancient myths, fairy tales and the stories of people persecuted and rejected by the society they have lived in. All in all, Sedia has written an imaginative, poignant and beautiful novel about lost histories – a book that I highly recommend to anyone who likes to stray outside the confines of genre.

Imagine Borges and Dali hanging out at Pee Wee Herman's playhouse, and you have a brief inkling of what Rosenbaum's fiction is like. The Ant King and Other Stories is Rosenbaum’s debut collection of short fiction, which features pieces have been that have nominated for genre awards, and have appeared in a slew of venues, from Interzone, Realms of Fantasy, and McSweeney’s. The content ranges from postmodern fables, flash fiction, pulp fiction, all told in precise and distinctive, if not exactly poetic, prose. The imagery—which is what propels the stories as much as plot—is always startling and surrealistic. Rosenbaum mixes literary forms and narrative styles like a DJ.

The Ant King. A California Fairytale. An absurdist piece about a dot com company owner in modern Silicon Valley searching for his girlfriend, who ahs been abducted by a hacker/being called The Ant King. As interesting as the plot machinations are (straight out of the Orpheus myth), the humorous Simpsons-like details are what make it a pleasure to read. Especially the character called Corpse.

Biographical Notes To ‘A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with Air Planes,’ by Benjamin Rosenbaum. Metafiction meets swashbuckling highjinks in a world of zeppelins. Philosophical speculation and the energy of boy’s adventure fiction clash and join in inventive ways.

Valley of the Giants. A widowed woman goes search for This has a fable-like feel, with the magical language being a perfect match for the mysterious events. (This story is available here, on this site.)

Start the Clock. Golden Age style science fiction, where childhood can last forever. The humor is still in the story, with its kids who wear business suits, but there’s a note of seriousness that creeps in.

Embracing-the-New. A high fantasy piece that could have been written by one of the pulp masters, like Clark Ashton Smith. An apprentice makes a new god that espouses a heretical philosophy. This story was unputdownable.

Falling. A flash fiction piece set in a nanotech future that has the depth and complexity of a novella. Romantic and beautiful.

The Book of Jashar. A vampire story set in biblical times, it uses biblical narrative techniques pitch perfectly.

The House Beyond Your Sky. A mosaic slipstream story that mashes together a tale of an abused girl with the story of a mythical being who watches over her. It’s a metaphysical heartbreaking story that avoids mawkishness. Rosenbaum captures the wonder and terror of children

Other Cities. A travelogue full of miniature descriptions of fantastical cities, seemingly inspired by Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities. From fantasy to allegory to science fiction, this travelogue features the best prose in the collection, with each word carefully chosen and placed. Rosenbaum is more like a jeweler here, than a DJ.

A Siege of Cranes. A mesmerizing fantasy horror story about a man who finds his village destroyed by an evil sorceress and his quest to avenge his family. The plot is truly unpredictable and like a rollercoaster ride.

Not all of the pieces in the collection worked for me. I found some pieces, like ‘The Orange’ too clever and the pastiche of Jane Austen’s ‘Sense and Sensibility’ went on for too long. But even these stories infectious, loopy wit and carefully crafted prose. The Ant King is highly recommended for fans of Kelly Link and M. Rickert.

History is usually written by the victors, which often means that certain facts are left out or certain figures are deliberately misrepresented. Richard III, who has the dubious reputation as one of the most reviled kings in English history, is perhaps the paradigmatic example of a history written by the winning side. He was reviled by the Tudor apologist Thomas More and immortalized as an evil and crippled hunchback in the play of William Shakespeare. It is, ironically enough, his notoriety that has attracted his most ardent apologists, most notably the Richard III Society - formed in 1924 by a group of amateur who believed that Richard III had been unjustly vilified throughout history and thus took upon them the task of defending his reputation (read more at www.richardiii.net). The revisionist attempts of Richard III’s supporters generally fail to elicit academic approval, yet this type of historical revisionism has been extremely successful within the genre of historical fiction where novels such as Sharon K. Penman’s meticulously researched Sunne in Splendour offers a portrait of Richard that is vastly different from Shakespeare’s infamous villain.

Freda Warrington’s novel The Court of the Midnight King is part of this particular tradition of Ricardian historical fiction, but she takes the revisionism a step further by intertwining the story of Richard with another secret history. Warrington’s representation of 15th century England differs from the conventional historical knowledge on several points. She paints a world where paganism hasn’t been entirely suppressed by Christianity. Alongside the world of men and priests thus exists a hidden world of goddess worship, here represented as a uniquely female brand of spirituality. Warrington’s novel thus also draws upon the “feminist” tradition of historical fantasy in the vein of Marion Zimmer Bradley.

The basic plot of The Court of the Midnight King spans the period of civil war in England, known as the Wars of the Roses, experienced through the eyes of Katherine Lytton and Raphael Hart. They are both children of Yorkist sympathizers and their families suffer because of the allegiance of their fathers. More importantly, both Kate and Raphael are children of women who travel the hidden path of the Earth Goddess, the Serpent Mother Auset – and both of them cross paths with Richard III. Raphael is orphaned by Lancastrian forces at a very young age, a trauma that leaves his without memory and open to visions when he is found by the victorious Yorkists. He forms an immediate connection to Richard, the young Duke of Gloucester and brother of Edward IV. He later enters the household of Richard of Gloucester as one of his most loyal and trusted knights.

Whereas Raphael is an orphan who makes Richard his family, Kate grows up in a household shaped by an ailing father and a strong mother. Like her mother, Kate is inducted into the mysteries of the Sisterhood of Auset and must therefore straddle two very different worlds, something she finds extremely hard to do. In order to avoid a distasteful marriage, Kate leaves her family home and enters into the service of the Neville family, one of the great powers behind the Yorkist regime. First as a lady-in-waiting to Isabelle Neville who is wed to George, the Duke of Clarence and brother of Edward. After Isabelle’s death in childbirth, Kate enters the service of Anne Neville who is married to Richard of Gloucester with whom Kate has an ambivalent and tension-ridden relationship.

It is through the eyes of Kate and Raphael that Warrington tells Richard’s story – a story that the astute reader will find significantly different from the “official” one yet still based on a thorough knowledge of the period and events in question. When it comes to the figure of Richard and the Wars of the Roses, Warrington’s narrative doesn’t deviate very much from historical fact – one event is decisively altered but she has otherwise simply presented her interpretations of some the unsolved riddles of Richard’s reign, fx the fate of the Edward IV’s two sons.

Warrington’s novel offers an alternate history in the sense that she creates a world suffused where women’s spirituality has not altogether been assimilated by the Christian Church and where women can wield spiritual and magical power, albeit in a hidden way, across the otherwise dividing lines of social class and political faction. Warrington presents the reader with a world animated by spirit, a world where nature is quite literally alive in the form of elemental spirits as well as the hidden world of Faerie. Warrington intensely descriptive prose borders on the “flowery” or “purple”, but it is quite suited to the strange and enchanted world that she has created – and it is precisely this atmosphere of “enchantment” that is one of the novel’s strongest points.

When it comes to character, Warrington’s work is somewhat uneven. Kate is by far the novel’s strongest and most engaging character. She is feisty, head-strong and passionate, which I found very appealing and if she sometimes sounded too much like a modern woman, then her status as a priestess of Auset makes her opinions and attitudes quite plausible in relation to the narrative’s inner logic. Richard remains a ubiquitous yet elusive character as the reader only experience him through the eyes of others. To Raphael, Richard is the embodiment of knightly virtue and the epitome of royal authority. Kate, however, has changing opinions of Richard, which helps the reader to discern the nuances and flaws the Raphael’s shining idolism cannot detect. Kate is at once attracted and repulsed by Richard, attracted by his obvious charisma yet repulsed by his fearful, priggish and judgemental attitude towards the Sisterhood of Auset and the hidden world.

Raphael is by far the weakest among Warrington’s characters. He doesn’t really seem to be distinguished by anything else than his honourable behaviour and devout loyalty. He is a rather bland and uninteresting character, which lead me to question his function in the story. As it turns out, Raphael and his visions has quite an important function in The Court of the Midnight King because Warrington does not only wish to write an alternate history about Richard III, she also wants to interrogate his infamous reputation. In order to do so, Warrington resorts to two different strategies. Firstly, she introduces a separate narrative, set in a contemporary college environment where a young female student becomes fascinated with the enigma of Richard III and quietly attempts to unravel fact from fiction when it comes to his reputation. Secondly, Warrington lets Raphael be haunted with a series of sinister and prophetic visions about Richard that essentially corresponds to some of the most infamous aspects of his posthumous reputation. The problem is just that Warrington handles these aspects of the narrative very clumsily. The sinister nature of Raphael’s visions are not really consonant with the story’s internal logic and they appear jarring, and in one instance, downright ridiculous. The contemporary narrative doesn’t work any better. For the most part it appears utterly unconnected to the central story and when the two narratives begins to intersect, Warrington’s writing disintegrates into a heavy purple prose and a florid and romantic form of mysticism that doesn’t suit the novel at all. She would have done better to stick to the central narrative of an alternate 15th century England and leave the interrogation of Richard III’s reputation well alone. As it is, her clumsy handling of Richard’s historical infamy remains the novel’s deepest flaw as it mars an otherwise fascinating narrative. Fortunately, the reader has the option of simply bypassing the contemporary narrative as it is largely unconnected to central storyline and enjoy the rest of the story.

Trine D. Paulsen

Since Modesitt writes most of these in pairs I decided to dive straight into the next Recluce novel. The 15th in the overall series and a direct sequel to Natural Ordermage. Like Natural Ordermage Modesitt does not radically change his approach to the series in this novel. In fact, while his choice of main character and setting are interesting give the series a certain new momentum in book 14, I feel he looses some with this novel. Perhaps a bit too much attention for the military campaign. It is still a solid entry into the series though, a bit above average for a Recluce novel.

Rahl, under the tutelage of former triad and experienced Ordermage Taryl, embarks on a campaign to end the rebellion that has sprung up in Meroway. While Rahl was busy surviving the iron mines of Luba and training to become a Mage-Guard the older brother of the emperor has raised an army to seize the throne. Although removed in disgrace as a triad some time ago, Taryl is not about to let that happen. He has plans to stop this rebellion and Rahl is an important part of these plans. He is not about to tell Rahl what they might be though, but given the state Rahl was in when Taryl found him there seems little choice but to follow his lead. Soon Rahl finds his order abilities tested to the very limit in preparation of a military campaign.

Because of the special nature of Rahl's order talents he often has to learn things the hard way. Where Taryl was once a gentle master, now there don't seem to be enough hours in a day to fulfil all the tasks Taryl sets him. Even his successes never seem quite enough. With each progressively more challenging obstacle on the way to the final confrontation with the rebellious imperial brother Rahl's powers grow. But so does his frustration at the increasingly high price the men around him are paying for his education.

As I mentioned in my review of Natural Ordermage, Rahl is an unusual hero of the Recluce books. Unlike most he has something of a mentor to guide him. Not there is much to guide Rahl in, despite growing up he still must find out a lot of things the hard way. Without a doubt Taryl is one of the most interesting supporting characters in the series. He has changes quite a bit by the end of the book. His motives remain unclear until the last moment, adding a bit of mystery to the book. In fact, you could say some of his back story isn't revealed at all. I liked Taryl quite a bit. Unfortunately he also brings some of Rahl's less endearing qualities to the surface.

By the end of book 14 I hadn't quite made up my mind if Rahl would grow up to be someone likeable. I don't think he has. Taryl mercilessly exposes Rahl's weaknesses at the end of the book I don't have the feeling he has quite overcome them. Perhaps that is one of the reasons he ends up where he does. A flawed hero as opposed to a modest one, as we more often see in Modesitt's work. A lot of people feel Modesitt repeats himself in his novels. He certainly uses and reuses certain themes in his books but he took it in a different direction. Something driven home by the connection with Lorn, the main character in Magi'i of Cyador and Scion of Cyador, Modesitt makes at the end of the book. Rahl does not quite measure up to that standard.

Quite a bit of attention throughout the novel is devoted to Rahl's love interest Deybri, a healer from Nylan with a thorough disliking of Hamor. Their relationship is complicated to say the least. One of Modesitt's peculiarities is that he does not write explicit sex scenes ever. At least I have never read any and I have read close to thirty of his books. After the first kiss the camera always discretely fade to black. Most of the romances he describes are a very deep connection with two people that often crosses oceans and overcomes years of separation. While we all like to believe in love like that it was rather refreshing to have a character in the books who is not above getting horny. It keeps this romance at least as being as sickly sweet as the one between Justin and his druid in The Order War. A book I consider a low in the overall series.

One area where this novel hits an absolute low is the cover art (although the cover of The Death of Chaos is a good second). I am not a huge fan of Darrell K. Sweet's covers, although I did mention the cover of Winter's Heart favourably. This one however is simply an eyesore. Sweet likes using very bright colours but the green of the grass and the purple clash. At least to my eyes. And that is without getting into the artistic quality of the image itself. One of the worst fantasy covers I have seen in a great while.

Don't let the cover discourage you however. Mage-Guard of Hamor is a satisfying conclusion to Rahl's story. It adds some interesting titbits on Cyanor's influence on the development of the Hamorian empire. I am not aware of any plans to write more Recluce novels but Modesitt certainly leaves himself some options. After a rather weak two books on Karl, Rahl's unusual qualities managed to renew my interest in this series.

I don’t know what the phrase “extreme fantasy” means. To me the word “extreme” was best defined in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle : white water rafting in a convenience store, hang gliding off a cliff, drinking Mountain Dew and lastly listening to Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler. The editor of The Mammoth Book of Extreme Fantasy defines extreme as “stories that took a basic idea, whether simple or complicated, and developed it to some extreme, beyond what the reader might normally expect.” That doesn’t sound too bad, but I like Harold and Kumar’s definition of extreme better.

For this review, I will give a brief synopsis of each story, followed by what I thought about the story and then finally the rating I give it out of 5. There are 24 stories in total making this one meaty, or mammoth if you will collection. Onto the first story:

1) Senator Bilbo by Andy Duncan. First published in 2001.
Story : A descendent of Bilbo Baggins fights for political power and immigration control in the fantasy land of the Shire.
Thoughts : Boring and overlong. Duncan is usually a good writer, but the characters in this are simply unsympathetic caricatures of Tolkien’s. I mean Gandolf-like magicians interacting with turn-of-the-century senators? Come on! Not a great way to start of a short fiction anthology.
Rating : 1/5

2) Sandmagic by Orson Scott Card. First published in 1979.
Story : A young boy watches his parents die of murder and disease and vows to seek vengeance upon the ones that caused his pain.
Thoughts : I liked the way Card expresses the concept of magic and the consequences caused by using something far greater than any one being. This story is very nicely done— heartbreaking and dark all at the same time. Now if only Card could keep his mouth shut and stop spouting his religious views on the evils of American Democracy and the Satanic undercurrents of homo-sexual marriages.
Rating : 3.5/5

3) Dream A Little Dream For Me… by Peter Crowther. First Published in 2000.
Story : A young man dealing with writers block travels to Germany to unwind and finds out he may be the key to saving God’s one true dream.
Thoughts : Crowther may be better known as the publisher of the great small press publishing house, PS Publishing. However, it also turns out that he is one heck of a good short story writer. This is a tale of how dreams can tempt us, rule us, and ultimately destroy us; how hope can turn to sorrow and regret in an instance. This one has a dreamlike melancholy feel to it— like dreaming of bunnies frolicking while your girlfriend breaks up with you.
Rating : 3/5

4) Lost Wax by Leah Bobet. First published in 2006.
Story : A young boy dreams of magic forbidden and learns that not all things wished for are beneficent and wanted.
Thoughts : A simple story with an abrupt ending. This one could’ve been more descriptive and a tad longer, but still was fun. Nothing much more to really say here, although I could never imagine myself collecting discarded wax shavings.
Rating : 2.5/5

5) Save A Place In The Lifeboat For Me by Howard Waldrop. First published in 1976.
Story : A bunch of old-time film comedians search for their destinies/purpose?
Thoughts : This is absurdist to the extreme. I don’t mind absurdist when it’s done well, like with Beckett, but this was not done well at all. Can comedy really save the world? I don’t know, but if it can, this ain’t it. If anything, this type of comedy will set things back by centuries.
Rating : 1.5/5

6) I Am Bonaro by John Niendorff. First published in 1964.
Story : A man who can turn into anything he wishes loses his mind in more ways than one.
Thoughts : An odd and short little story. This one is quite striking and will stay with you for days— or maybe like Bonaro, you’ll forget it. What wonder!
Rating : 2.5/5

7) The Old House Under The Snow by Rhys Hughes. First published in 2004.
Story : Two friends become trapped in a mansion surrounded by ice which slowly sinks, sending them deeper and deeper into a bottomless world.
Thoughts : The editor of this book, Mike Ashley, promotes this story as a nightmarish version of Alice in Wonderland, and I couldn’t agree more. This was quite the surreal one. Rhys has a definite way with words that will leave readers itching for more. I am officially a fan of his.
Rating : 3.5/5

8) Banquet of the Lords of Night by Liz Williams. First published in 2002.
Story : In a world of darkness where any concept of light means death, one man struggles to bring light to his life and save the world.
Thoughts : This is a short yet suspenseful story. Each word read is filled with more and more dread, reaching a crescendo that explodes of the page. Liz Williams always creates interesting worlds and this is no exception. Reminded me a lot of the tall creepy things from Dark Crystal and Mirrormask .
Rating : 3/5

9) Charlie the Purple Giraffe was Acting Strangely by David D. Levine. First published in 2004.
Story : A purple giraffe becomes aware that he is in a comic book and wonders if there is existence if there are no readers.
Thoughts : A story that can be read many ways: of our cultures obsessions with being famous, of peoples need to feel, well, needed— or perhaps it really is just about a purple giraffe. I’d like to live in a world where comic characters have found out the truth and Batman’s pretty pissed off at us. We can all dream.
Rating : 2.5/5

10) Master Lao and the Flying Horror by Lawrence Person. First published in 2005.
Story : In fantastic ancient China, a demonic evil starts taking the heads of villagers to build its floating head army, and it’s up to a lustful temple acolyte and his aging mentor to save the day.
Thoughts : Clearly Mr. Person has seen many Chinese horror/comedy movies, because this story is like reading the movies I grew up watching in the 80’s. He is rather funny with his turn of phrases and uses them for many laughs. It also seems like there’s more stories set in this world— gives me something to look for. This one is very reminiscent of The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox by Barry Hughart, which I entirely love.
Rating : 3/5

11) Using It and Losing It by Jonathan Lethem. First published in 1990.
Story : A man who wishes to be apart from society makes himself forget the language of words, but soon finds out that like all animals, words aren’t the only ways to express.
Thoughts : Admittedly, I am not the biggest Lethem fan, but this was quite interesting. The concept of repetition to forget actually blows my mind and makes me wonder if it can work— another odd-ball tall from Lethem. Maybe I’ll have to re-read Glass Soup . Wait, that’s a different Jonathan. Hmm. Still, both Jonathan’s were enormously boring on NPR the other day, so I stand by not liking either Jonathan.
Rating : 2.5/5

12) The All-At-Once-Man by R. A. Lafferty. First published in 1970.
Story : A man seeks immortality by living all ages at once.
Thoughts : This one reminded me of the Great Gatsby . I can’t really pin-point the why but the main character of this story had a “Gatsby-ness” to him, and that’s brilliant. What bogs the story down is that it try’s to explain the “how” of immortality but doesn’t do it well. I wish the author just left it ambiguous. Still, a nicely thought out and quirky piece— the ability to live all ages at once is an remarkable concept.
Rating : 2.5/5

13) Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachthani by William Hope Hodgson. First published in 1919.
Story : Translated to mean, “my god, my god, why have you forsaken me.” This is the story of a scientist who while trying to initiate an experiment attempting to recreate the biblical Crucifixion finds more than he bargains for, with Lovecraftian results.
Thoughts : This is by far the oldest of the stories, and it really shows— the dialogue is painfully prolonged, while the explanations are devastatingly lengthy and esoteric. Another problem I had with the story is the many shifting narrative view points. This can get a bit confusing at times and every time one of the characters reads “I said”, I was left wondering who in fact was talking. This is not old-time good like Lovecraft, but rather old-time bad like Edward E. Smith.
Rating : 1.5/5

14) Boatman’s Holiday by Jeffrey Ford. First published in 2005.
Story : Everyone knows that when you die, you put a coin under your tongue to pay the ferryman to take you across the river Styx. But what do we know about the ferryman? Tired of ferrying people across for centuries on end, the ferryman decides to use the holiday granted him once a century to escape hell, if only for a week. But can there truly be escape when hell is just a concept?
Thoughts : I liked this one a lot. It’s like Dante’s Inferno mixed with the “cosmic.” The question has always raged: did man create hell or did it always exist? This story tries to answer that question through one man’s journey into himself. This one reminded me of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis as well.
Rating : 3.5/5

15) The Detweiler Boy by Tom Reamy. First published in 1977.
Story : A detective searches for the murderer of an old friend but instead finds a string of murders leading back to something disturbingly cruel.
Thoughts : This one genuinely hit the spot. I question if this belongs in a collection of “fantasy” stories, but I really don’t care. It was a nice break and a damn fine story. More crime-horror than fantasy, but not totally without since all horror contains some sort of fantastical events. Like a side-show coming to town, this one’s a can’t miss. Total Recall anyone?
Rating : 3.5/5

16) The Fence at the End of the World by Melissa Mia Hill. First published in 2002.
Story : Two young girls are told never to leave their yard for fear of falling off the edge of the world.
Thoughts : This is the shortest story in the collection and being so short tells more of a tale than a story. This is about the children we forget that are locked up from the world by parents who are more dictators than family. I feel that there could be more to this tale, but it was in the middle of blossoming before it was cut off.
Rating : 2/5

17) Elric at the End of Time by Michael Moorcock. First published in 1981.
Story : Elric finds himself stranded at the End of the World with his soul sucking sword out of energy and trapped at the mercy of bored immortals.
Thoughts : Besides the previous story by Howard Waldrop, this is the probably the most controversial choice for this collection. Elric has always been a polarizing figure in the fantasy community, and as I get older I tend to come across more people that hate him rather than love him—I for one am a huge fan. The Elric series were the reason I started reading fantasy back when I was 13. Of course I was far too young to understand the underlying themes at play in each Elric tale, but I enjoyed them nonetheless. So the Elric stories always hold a special place in my heart. Kafka may have gotten me to start taking literature seriously, but it was Elric that made reading “fun”— so much so that I own this story in probably a dozen different collections. This is one of Elric’s later, more playful tales, and is in its own way probably the most assessable of his stories— perhaps that’s reason enough to include it. As the editor of this collection, Mike Ashley states, “it was impossible to compile this anthology without something by Michael Moorcock.” I couldn’t agree more.
Rating : 4/5

18) Cup and Table by Tim Pratt. First published in 2006.
Story : A secret society searches for a holy cup that, predating man, will allow them to talk to God and ask him any question, any plea. And only a junkie who can see through time knows the true plea that all of mankind truthfully desires.
Thoughts : I’ve been a fan of Pratt’s since his short story masterpiece, Impossible Dreams — it’s the nearest any story has gotten to a dream after my own heart. This one is another home run. I love the way Pratt shifts through time, layering more and more questions with more and more answers. He does in 18 pages what lesser writers take whole books to do. Love this guy and love his work. Buy everything he does people!!
Rating : 4/5

19) I, Haruspex by Christopher Priest. First published in 1998.
Story : In the early days of the 20th C. a man consumes the flesh and maladies of the dead in order to maintain a balance, keeping demons from overrunning the world.
Thoughts : Most people know Christopher Priest for his novel The Prestige , but he has had a prolific short story career for over 30 years now. This story starts off really slow and builds to a slow finish. Maybe it’s just me, but I felt that this story really slowed the flow of reading the overall collection— like the editor was reloading for something exciting to come so he needed a lull to fill the space. Not one of Priest’s better stories, but it had an interesting, if at times confusing and entirely disturbing, premise.
Rating : 2.5/5

20) Radio Waves by Michael Swanwick. First published in 1995.
Story : The ghost of a man seeking understanding and remembrance is chased by an “entity” in a dead world surrounded by radio waves.
Thoughts : This is an existentialistic story about choices. How even after death, the pain we caused and choices made still ripple against the tide. Can we forgive ourselves even long after the ones we hurt no longer care? This one is a nice, albeit surreal, look at death that reminded me a bit of the Japanese movie After Life .
Rating : 3/5

21) Tower of Babylon by Ted Chiang. First published in 1990.
Story : After centuries of building, The Tower of Babylon is finally finished, and a group of miners makes the 4-month trek to the top, attempting to dig upwards into the vault of heaven. But what they find isn’t exactly what they were expecting.
Thoughts : Besides the Elric story, this was the only other story I had read previously. This is the story of the nature of faith— the accepting of truth when there has never been any proof. Much praise has been heaped on Chiang and this story and deservedly so. What’s even more astounding is that this is Chiang’s first published story? What?!! It’s like finally making the majors and your first career at bat is pinch hitting in the bottom of the ninth in a game seven of the World Series and hitting a grand slam. Again, what?!! This has been discussed and dissected for years in the literary circle and I’m always amazed that by each re-reading of it I find out something new— some new layer previously undiscovered. It’s that good!! What I like most about this story is the way Chiang describes the agriculture surrounding the tower as one goes higher. Since whole communities live along the tower, mini-towns have sprout up and the need for food is ever prevalent. The mid-parts of the tower where water is scarce can only grow onions, while higher up where there is rain, they grow beans and fruits. It’s the little details that show how much care Chiang took into creating this world. Utterly brilliant.
Rating : 5/5

22) Jack Neck and the Worry Bird by Paul Di Filippo. First published in 1998.
Story : A day in the life of Jack Neck (at least I think that’s what it’s about).
Thoughts : This story is just odd. The reader is constantly getting smacked around by words and phrases that are made up and make no sense. I’m sure to Di Filippo, the words made sense in his mind, but since I don’t have the fortune to rent real estate there I didn’t get what’s going on. It’s truly like reading a story in a foreign language. You can maybe pick out every 100th word. Di Filippo is usually such a strong and defined writer. I think for this story he was given too much free reign and probably created a story he has been carrying around since childhood. It’s like reading a Dr. Seuss story if Dr. Seuss didn’t rhyme and made less sense. I have to give it to the magazine that first bought and published this story. That took a lot of guts, and good or bad, the future of short stories needs more of that.
Rating :1/5

23) The Dark One by A A Attanasio. First published in 1994.
Story : A young barbarian is gifted with power and immortality from an ancient sorcerer. Through centuries the barbarian walks, searching for his peace known as darkness, which eventually he hopes will lead him to destroying the world.
Thoughts : The one thing that stands out about this story is that it tries way too hard. Its message of spiritual bliss is laid on pretty thick, like syrup on a stack of pancakes or lotion on a fat guy’s belly. The message of this story is that no matter how much time changes, all things remain the same: empires will always rise and fall, man will always be greedy and selfish— and only darkness is the salvation. This story is all about how religion is faith and that is good, while science is truth and truth is death— how the worst invention ever founded by man is science. I was waiting for Keyser Soze to suddenly appear and say, “and another thing: the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world that he didn’t exist.” I mean it’s like reading some “emo” kids poetry. However, what really bothered me about this piece is that towards the end there’s a huge shift in POV which is extremely jarring, I thought I suddenly was reading another story— like I had skipped the ending or something. This is sadly not the worst story in this collection, but it’s brutal to get through nonetheless.
Rating : 1.5/5

24) A Ring of Green Fire by Sean McMullen. First published in 1994.
Story : A peasant with a penchant for the ladies is cursed with his “member” being surrounded by a green ring of fire. After spreading his wanton onto hundreds of unsuspecting women, a group of men newly infected hunt him down to make him pay.
Thoughts : This one is quite interesting. One of the notable aspects of this story is how beautifully it progressed: from the inanely comedic to the tragically possible— like a message surrounded by a lollipop. I’ve always been a fan of stories that say something profound while still being entertaining. This story is about how even to a healer, some wounds can never be healed; how only through pain can many of us find compassion and hope. This is a fantastic way to end a short-story collection. Heartbreaking and completely spot on.
Rating : 3.5/5

So that’s the end of the collection. I hope that at least someone was interested with what I had to say and will pick up this one up. While this was not by any means the best collection I have ever read (that honor goes to Haruki Murakami’s Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman ), it was still quite good. There were more interesting and excellent stories than there were of dreadful ones. Generally what I find from collections that contain numerous authors is that the overall quality dips pretty low—since every reader has different tastes, some editors try to meet all expectations within a single book, which is frankly impossible. Still, surprisingly enough, this collection worked. There were around 6 stories that I found were poor, 10 that were average to good, and 8 that ranged from great to incredible. Those might not seem to be great odds, but generally in short story collections, the poor stories far outweigh the good ones and the average stories in this were still better than most. The one complaint I had with this book is the “extreme” tag the editor chose. I know I have a different definition of extreme, but none of these stories felt particularly excessive. What would have been better would have been to call this collection, The Mammoth Book of Fantastic Stories to Read While Cliff-Diving or Parasailing — or maybe not.

Mirages are images without substance – sometimes sensory illusions, but they can also be hopes and illusions that never can be realized. Heart of the Mirage is the first instalment in Glenda Larke’s trilogy The Mirage Makers, and it offers a narrative that explores the nature of the illusions and delusions that can make and unmake a person. It is a story about the sometimes illusory nature of identity, of loss and betrayal and of the possibility of redemption.

Heart of the Mirage is first and foremost the story of one woman’s journey towards self-discovery and of the recovery of her heritage, hidden beneath layers of callous deceptions. As a young child Ligea Gayed was stolen from her people by its conquering enemies. Adopted by a high-ranking general, she is raised as a citizen of the Tyranian Empire and employed in its service as a member of its fearsome secret police The Brotherhood. When rebellion breaks out in Kardiastan, the land of her birth, Ligea seems the obvious choice to hunt down and eliminate the Mirager, the mysterious and elusive leader of the rebel insurgency.

Upon her arrival in Kardiastan, Ligea devotes herself to her mission with patriotic zeal and ruthless cunning, but the deeper she infiltrates the leadership of the rebellion, the harder it becomes for her to maintain her disciplined self-image as a loyal Tyrianian citizen. There are deep secrets in Kardiastand, secrets that intimately defines the land and its once ruling elite, the Magor. These secrets are also the key to Ligea’s forgotten heritage. As she learns more about her people and her unique heritage, Ligea begins to question the values of her upbringing and her very identity in an ever increasing degree. Ultimately, she is faced with a difficult choice between the values of her upbringing and the nature of her birthright. It is a choice that not only will affect her sense of self, her loyalties but also the future of two nations.

Glenda Larke creates a vivid and exotic world that departs from the more conventional pseudo-medieval settings of fantasy fiction. Thus the Tyrian Empire displays many similarities with the Roman and Byzantine Empires of the Mediterranean world. It is a civilization with a highly sophisticated culture, but it is also an aggressively militant culture, built upon conquest and slavery, a culture where racism and casual cruelty is the norm and where ruthlessness and corruption is rewarded above decency and compassion. Kardiastan is in many ways the direct opposite to Tyrans. Where Tyrans has a Roman or Byzantine “feel”, Kardistan is more reminiscent of Arabian or North African culture. The Kardis are a desert people, hardy and fierce but also very generous and trusting when it comes to people other than their Tyranian oppressors. In the entire Empire, the Kardis are unique in their refusal to bend their neck to their oppressors and assimilate their culture and values. They cling to their own culture and mores with a fierce desperation that quietly disrupts the administration of the Tyrian occupiers. The Magor, the Kardi aristocracy, exists as a unique culture within the larger Kardi society. Set apart by their magical abilities and closely connected to the land, they live by rules and values that are significantly different from those of the ordinary Kardi people. After the invasion, the Magor has retreated to the Mirage, a mysterious and inaccessible piece of land in the heart of Kardiastan. The Mirage is a strange place, where the landscape constantly changes and it leaves a lasting imprint upon Ligea’s soul.

The Mirage is the heart of the Kardi insurgency and the source of the Magor’s powers, but it is not the only mirage in this story. Narrated in the first person, Heart of the Mirage is essentially the story about the illusions and deceptions that has shaped Ligea’s life and person. Structured in four parts, each section titled after the various names that Ligea is given or assumes throughout the story, Heart of the Mirage is ultimately a novel about the illusory nature of identity itself.

With Heart of the Mirage Glenda Larke has written a very enjoyable and utterly compelling story that unflinchingly probes into the psychology of a person who has been robbed of her family, her people and her culture. Ligea’s origins have been stolen from her; her heritage has been denied her - a crime that is compounded by the fact that she has been raised by the very person who has killed her family. Larke has obviously been inspired by real events, mainly the Disappeared Ones of Argentina and the Stolen Generations of Aboriginal Australia, a fact that imbues Ligea’s story with a deep-felt resonance.

Characterization constitutes the novel’s greatest strength. It is Ligea’s character that drives the plot and Larke takes the time necessary to build up Ligea’s personality as well as the events and experiences that prompt her to question herself and her values, thus making the manner in which her character evolves plausible. When it comes to characterization, Larke’s work reminds me very much of Robin Hobb. Like Hobb, Larke uses a first-person narrative and she takes the time necessary to build a quite complex character. And like Hobb, Larke is never shies away from revealing bare the less savoury aspects of the protagonist’s personality. Ligea is in many ways not very likeable. Throughout a large part of the story, she comes across as arrogant, self-centered and cruel, but as Larke slowly reveals the forces that have shaped her one can’t help to feel for her. Likewise, the experiences that cause her to change and mature as a person ring absolutely true.

Heart of the Mirage is a very strong novel that offers a multi-facetted and deeply flawed protagonist as well as a well-paced and deeply compelling story about betrayal and identity. Larke has a fluid prose that often emphasizes sensuous detail and if she sometimes veers towards the overly descriptive then this is a very minor complaint. Likewise, the rather ridiculous names – gorclacks and shleths - are but a minor quibble. The only thing that detracted a bit from an otherwise wonderful reading experience was that the novel failed to elicit that “tingling” sense of wonder and enchantment that I associate with truly great fantasy. This is, however, simply a matter of personal taste and it certainly won’t prevent me from recommending it highly.

Trine D. Paulsen

Ghostgirl is a sweet little tale about a high school girl who just wants to be noticed by the cutest guy in school, unfortunately for her, she dies before this can happen. What is she going to do now? How will she be able to dance with Damien at the Fall Ball? Can gummy bears really be that dangerous? All these questions arise and are answered in Tonya Hurley’s fable of teen angst. Published in an elongated hardcover with a flashy front cover and spiffy interior page designs, this book is designed to be noticed and desired.

Having been enticed by the spiffy dressing, I was just a little disappointed with the story itself. This was a generic high school caste conflict including the requisite handsome jock with the heart of gold as the love interest, the snooty cheerleader as the nemesis, the Goth outsider as the best friend and the end of the year dance as the ultimate goal. While the story is complicated in that the lead character is dead for nine tenths of the story, this only lends a touch of interest to a familiar tale.

Even though these story underpinnings were not new territory, this normally would not have hampered my enjoyment too much, but they were accentuated by some distracting affectations. My biggest complaints about this book are the moralizing that starts each chapter; and the sense that there were parts of the story missing from this final draft that should have been left in. There were some areas of the story that seemed to skip months or weeks without even a mention of such – so when the reader realizes later that this is obviously later in time than the page before, it can be a little jarring and distracting. There was some information about a past event given – but not enough to come to the conclusions that the characters did, making it seem as if there had been a description that was left out after the final edit. There was even one point in the story where a character alluded to a previous scene that was not included in the story and there was no background given or clues to what it could have been. It was similar to being part of a conversation where two others are telling inside jokes that you are on the outside of.

All that being said, it was not a bad book, and it certainly was attractive and easy to read. The book is also quite liberally sprinkled with references to punk, rock and alternative music groups and artists that were popular decades ago and I am not hip enough to know whether they are back in style now or not. For a quick, light summer read for the younger set, Ghostgirl would certainly fill the bill.

Natural Ordermage is the 14th novel in Modesitt's best know series, the Recluce Saga. The Recluce Saga is somewhat unusual because it published well out of chronological order, with the first novel The Magic of Recluce being the second to last chronologically. The author insists they are to be read in order of publication and I agree with him. At least until you have read the series once. Another unusual aspect of this series is that is shows both sides of the conflict. Modesitt write from the point of view of both order and chaos wielders, elevating the series above the standard good versus evil story. Natural Ordermage and the immediate sequel Mage-Guard of Hamor are chronologically between Colors of Chaos and The Order War. Even if you do not wish to follow the publication order when reading this series Natural Ordermage is not a good point to enter. You'll quickly get confused in the history of the world and the conflict between order and chaos.

This conflict is the basic theme for all the Recluce novels. Although the origins of the conflict are shrouded in mystery the story seems to start about a century and a half before the events in Magi'i of Cyador, to date the first book chronologically with the founding of the chaos driven empire of Cyador, later to be balanced/oposed by order based nations such as Westwind and Recluse. Order and chaos are carefully balanced and cancel each other out when the free chaos and free order collide. The magic of Recluce seems to be inspired by a number of physical phenomena, one of the more obvious ones being the duality of light, but don't quite follow the rules of physics as we know them. Any use, or overuse in order results in more free chaos being available for those who are attuned to that kind of magic and vice versa. The balance ensures that the use of order or chaos must be carefully weighed against the consequences of upsetting the balance. Spectacular uses of either power usually results in an equally spectacular backlash.

Some six centuries have passed since the founding of the state of Recluce, a haven for those who follow order. It has become something of a power in the word, especially after the founding of Nylan as related in The Magical Engineer. A council mages carefully sees to it that those who show chaotic tendencies or who misuse order as exiled. Rahl is a young scrivener's apprentice who is very aware of the fact he has certain order talents. He is very careful to hide them so as not to attract the attention of the council wizards though. Still, he finds his talents useful in being more successful with the local girls and that is what gets him in trouble. He gets one of the young women he has his eyes on pregnant and her family demands they marry. Events soon start to turn heated and after a fight in which Rahl uses his order abilities to defend himself he finds himself facing the council. The verdict is exile to Nylan. In the port city of Recluce's engineers they handle order differently. Maybe he'll fit in there.

Rahl soon finds out that he cannot be taught to master his order abilities satisfactory at Nylan either. He is what the mages call a Natural Ordermage. His talents are intuitive, he can do things that takes other mages years of study to accomplish without really understanding what he is doing. This lack of understanding makes him unpredictable. The mages even consider him a danger to his surroundings. All efforts to teach him seem to be futile and after an incident involving a rather big explosion the rules of Nylan order his exile form the port city. He will be sent to Hamor.The powerful, continent spanning Hamorian empire has quite a different view on order and chaos. But again Rahl manages to get into serious trouble. This time it may cost him his life.

The Recluce series has had it's ups and downs, there's a couple of good books in this series and a few I didn't enjoy so much. After the 12th and 13th book in the series, Ordermaster and Wellspring of Chaos, both dealing with the Ordermage Karl, I thought Modesitt didn't have much more to add to his overall history of Recluce. He explored some continents we hadn't visited yet but Karl doesn't seem to have been involved in one of the defining moments in the history of Recluce. In this book we get a few interesting hints though.The story of Rahl seems to be connected to a comment made by the Ordermage Cassius in The Magic of Recluce (the same Cassius as in the story included in Viewpoints Critical). I'll have to read the next book to be sure but he appears to be referring to the same rebellion mentioned in Natural Ordermage. There are also some hint of a connection between Hamor and the ancient Cydoran empire toppled by Nylan in The Chaos Balance. Hamor is proving to be much more interesting than Nordla and Austra.

The main character of this book and the next, Modesitt has written a lot of the Recluce books in pairs, is somewhat unusual choice for Modesitt. Most of them are somewhat likeable. Not Rahl though, at the opening of the book he is the type that is too clever to lie but cannot to be trusted anyway. If your teenage daughter brought him home you'd try the cleaning-your-shotgun-while-having-a-nice-chat routine on him. If you let him in at all. Rahl grows throughout the novel though. As I mentioned above Rahl is very difficult to teach. He has to find things out for himself, usually the hard way. It shapes his character. I'm not sure if I like him at the end of Natural Ordermage but he certainly did grow up.

When I read the synopsis of Natural Ordermage a while ago I was a bit disappointed that Modesitt chose to write another Recluse book from the point of view of an Ordermage. Only four of the 15 books in the series are written from the chaos point of view. Which leaves a lot of the history of that side of magic unexplored. Both the founding of the White Order and that of Cyador remain a mystery for instance. I enjoyed the chaos books quite a lot so I had hoped Modesitt would add a chapter to those. That being said Natural Ordermage didn't disappoint me in the least. Unlike the previous two books, which gave me the impression Modesitt was done with the Recluce books, this book is a solid entry into the series. I can think of a number of Recluce novels I enjoyed more and it certainly doesn't contain any surprises in style, choice of subject or main character, it does add some interesting things to the overall story and sets us up for what could be a very interesting continuation of Rahl's story. Mage-Guard of Hamor has been released last month in hardcover. I will try to get it reviewed as soon as I get my hands on it.

Peadar O Guilin takes the reader out of their comfort zone with The Inferior. This is the story of a young man who learns the hard way that things are not always what they seem, and you should be careful what you ask for because you might just get it. Stopmouth, so called because of his stutter, is a strong young hunter whose only ambitions are to make his family proud, find him a wife and start a family of his own. Holding him back are several things, his stutter is always a stumbling block, making others not take him seriously and making him less interested in social interaction. Stopmouth also has more attraction to his brother’s new wife than is seemly. Additionally, his brother’s latest reckless scheme has created a rift between them that may never be mended. But, O Guilin obviously feels that there isn’t enough stress in Stopmouth’s life because there is tossed in the arrival of beautiful stranger and some radical changes in the world around them.

O Guilin is exploring many things in this story. To begin with the title, The Inferior, this could be a comment on the fact that the characters do not agree on who is inferior to the other. This occurs with the two main characters, Stopmouth and Idriana who each believe that the other is their inferior. This could also be a comment on the idea of inferiority itself – depending upon the definition you put on the word, you could consider the Diggers (which would be the overwhelming evil of the story) to be superior to all the characters because eventually they will be all that remains, thus making all of the ‘human’ characters their inferior. Additionally, playing with the word inferior, the author could be saying that those observing from outside should not presume to judge that because they are not the observed, that they are superior. This could also apply to the reader – we are duly cautioned to not judge others unless we could take a walk in their shoes.

What else could the author be exploring? The nature of relationships across cultures is one theme. The strength and capriciousness of familial bonds is another. The author takes a simple coming of age story and gives it so many obstacles that poor Stopmouth is quite lucky that he comes of age at all. And this he certainly does. He puts his life on the line for others who not only consider him to be inferior, but to be repulsive. Since they need his knowledge and experience, they cannot refuse his offer of help. With simple honor, respect and integrity, Stopmouth shows them that inferiority is in the eye of the beholder.

Did I truly enjoy the story? Certainly I was rooting for Stopmouth and wanted him to prevail, but at the same time I both pitied him and was revolted by his actions. This is where the problem arises when you take the reader outside of their comfort zone. They are no longer comfortable. They are forced to think, take sides, and make personal choices from poor options. Once we are there, we are more focused on how we react to the story than how the story is played out. The story was well written, and considering the secret the author was keeping that was probably a much more difficult task than it would be for a straightforward story. I only found one point I would have quibbled with the author over and it was not a major one. Other minor issues were just with background and scenery and truly did not affect my connection with this novel. I can think of two major influences that could have inspired this novel and while they were both well done, I feel that Peadar O Guilan took it a step further and made the reader both uncomfortable and thoughtful at the same time. This book is designed for a younger audience and while there are some instances of violence and some rather gruesome imagery, I find that it still fits for both a younger and older audience. For a good story and a more extreme take on an older idea, I give this one an 8, though I doubt that I will be rereading this one any time soon.

Jo Graham embarks on an ambitious project with her debut Black Ships. In this, her first novel, Graham reinterprets the story of The Aeneid, re-locating Prince Aeneas and his quest for a new homeland to the late Bronze Age of the Mediterranean world.

While The Aeneid functions as the primary frame of reference for the narrative of Black Ships, Graham has relegated Aeneas to a supporting character. Instead, the story is told through the voice of Gull (who is later re-named Linnea, Pythia, Sybil), a girl born into bondage by her Trojan mother. Gull, a child of war and rape, is born in Pylos on the Peloponnesian Island. She and her mother are slaves to the king of Pylos, the spoils of the war that left Troy (called Wilusa in the novel) in ruins. As a young child, Gull becomes the victim of an accident that leaves her crippled and her mother gives her into the care of Pythia, the local oracle and priestess to the Lady of the Dead. When Pythia discovers that Gull has the gift of prophecy, she takes the child as her acolyte, training her to become Pythia after her own passing.

Gull’s first true vision ("black ships and a burning city")turns out to be of supreme importance in her own life, setting her on a wholly different course than what she had expected. Years later, Gull makes an important choice when nine black ships, captained by an exiled Trojan prince, enter the harbour of Pylos to avenge yet another raid of Wilusa-That-Was. Acting as the voice of the Lady of the Dead, Gull chooses to join Aeneas (or Neas as he is affectionately called) and the remainder of her mother’s people to search for a new home. The Wilusan refugees suffer many dangers, both on sea and on land, before they find a temporary haven in Egypt, the super-power of the Ancient world. Here, Aeneas enters into a love affair with the princess Basetamon, the sister and vice-regent of Pharaoh Ramses III. Egypt is a tempting place, a land of wealth and peace that can offer the Wilusans a safe home. However, their journey is not yet at an end. Driven by visions from the Lady of the Dead and the increasing madness of Basetamon, Aeneas, Gull and the rest of the Wilusans embark upon a sea journey that ultimately will lead them to the lands of Italy and the founding of city (Rome) that one day will become the ruler the Mediterranean world.

Jo Graham has set herself very difficult task by engaging with one of the masterpieces of Western literature. Luckily, she manages to successfully re-cast The Aeneid as a more intimate story of one woman’s journey across a world in turmoil. Virgil’s epic poem was authored in the 1st century BC as homage to the Augustan Empire, providing a found myth of Rome. Since then, it has become a classic of Western literature. Though The Aeneid is the primary inspiration behind Black Ships, the novel only engages with it on a rather latent level. Graham has retained the central characters as well as the bare bones of the original tale, but she shifts the epic perspective of Virgil’s poem to the more intimate perspective of a female protagonist. Furthermore, the story’s events has been adapted to a Bronze age setting, informed by recent scholarship on the ancient Mediterranean world. To a large extent, Graham adopts Marion Zimmer Bradley’s approach in The Mists of Avalon and The Firebrand. Like Zimmer Bradley, Graham takes a well-known heroic myth and makes it her own by re-telling it from a woman’s perspective, in the process subverting and re-defining the heroic in terms both more mundane and accessible yet every bit as remarkable. It is a strategy that not only allows the author to explore and hypothesize about life and spirituality in the Bronze Ages but also offers some interesting possibilities for characterization.

Black Ships opens very beautifully in a prose, reminiscent of Jacqueline Carey, which establishes Gull’s violent heritage and hints at her future destiny in concise and measured cadences:

As an effect of the first-person narrative, Gull naturally functions as the absolute focus of the story. Black Ships is first and foremost her story, and only incidentally the tale of Aeneas and the foundation of Rome. Gull is in many was a character that stands apart from the people around her, something that repeated is emphasized by the fact that people mostly addresses her with her title (Pythia, Sybil) and not with the name her mother gave her. As the story progresses, that name becomes a mark of intimacy and affection, a mark of emotional bonds beyond her responsibility to the group. As priestess to the goddess of Death, Gull has been set apart from ordinary people at a very young age. Not only does she have the burden of prophecy, but her wows also place her under certain restrictions; she is, fx, forbidden to marry. The fact that she ritually serves as the incarnation of the goddess functions as another barrier. She is marked by a deep sense of isolation and one get the feeling that her life very easily could have kept her aloof from the joys of life if not for the arrival of Aeneas. From the very beginning, Gull connects most deeply to both Aeneas and Xandros, his right-hand man. She serves not only as oracle and priestess to the group, but also as a trusted friend and advisor to Aeneas. In many ways, the outward journey of the Trojan refugees also functions as an inward for Gull as a human being. As the story and the journey progresses, Gull evolves as a person that is more than a human link to the divine. Her strength, courage and compassion is tested by much hardship and her relationships with both Aeneas and Xandros slowly and gradually draws her into the joys and sorrows of life. One of the strengths of Black Ships is, in fact, Graham’s ability to depict complex characters and deep-felt relationships. Apart from Gull, Graham also delivers a fine portrayal of both Aeneas and Xandros. The first, a man of great courage and moral integrity – a reluctant prince, who feels a great responsibility towards his people. The second, a man of quiet strength, strong passions and unswerving loyalty – and wounded by a great loss. Graham portrays the relationship between these three characters with both subtlety and feeling, yet I cannot help but feel that the novel would have benefitted immensely if she had tried to push these characters a bit harder.

Another of the novel’s strengths is the meticulous attention to historical detail that Graham exhibits. She paints a vivid picture of a world in crisis, a world where almost all of the ancient powers have fallen. Mighty cities - Troy/Wilusa, Thera, Knossos and Ugarit – have been destroyed and only Egypt exhibits economic stability. This sense of loss and crisis remain constant throughout the story. In this context, the short stop that Aeneas’ ships make at the Island of the Dead – Thera That Was – marks a quite important point in the story, both structurally and character-wise. Thera (Santorini), a once thriving civilization laid waste by a volcanic eruption, prompts Gull to speculate the state of the world around her, to wonder why old and strong cities are falling and populations are dwindling. Structually, Thera also marks the point in the story where it is decided that they should search for a new home. It is metaphorically in the place of Death that the hope of a new home, a new beginning is born. The theme of rebirth from death is pervasive throughout the novel, both literally and symbolically. The refugees quite literally build a new life from the ashes of their old life, and Gull’s Lady of the Dead is also a goddess of life and rebirth (a much older deity than the Greek pantheon), her holy places in the earth understood as both tomb and womb.

Black Ships is a novel that is rather difficult to categorize. It paints a detailed and quite accurate picture of the Mediterranean world during the late Bronze Age (circa 1200 BC), yet it is not a straight-forward piece of historical fiction. Gull is clearly guided by supernatural force of some kind, but there isn’t really any presence of magic as in the more traditional fantasy novels. Although Gull in a few instances interact directly with a supernatural being (and those sections are, IMO, among the less successful aspects of the novel), the presence of the divine is mostly rather intangible. Black Ships is, in the author’s own words, set in a numinous world – that is, a world suffused by spirit. This is perhaps the best way to describe the manner in which Graham’s novel differs from the traditional historical novel.

Neither fantasy nor historical fiction, Black Ships is a novel that first and foremost engages in a dialogue with the workings of myth. It unravels and re-casts well-known myths and explores their possible historical roots while at the same time hinting at folk/cultural memory as a place where momentous events are retained, embellished and transformed into legend and myth. Jo Graham has taken a now legendary story, unravelled its possible historical roots and re-assembled it as beautiful and poignant tale of loss, courage and hope. Black Ships is an enchanting and deeply moving novel, and Jo Graham is an author to watch.

Trine D. Paulsen

Storms of Vengeance is the debut novel of John Beachem. It is the first book in his fantasy series, “The Lorradda Stone.”

The story is set in the Kingdom of Faranin, a state comprising many formerly independent nations brought together by centuries of war, now enjoying an uneasy peace for the first time in generations. Magic is forbidden, and those tainted with magical power, the Marked, are hunted and destroyed without mercy.

Faranin’s short-lived tranquility is shattered by a daring late-night raid on the capital city. A band of mysterious attackers, aided by magic, penetrate the vast complex of the royal palace and manage to get out alive. In the aftermath, a prominent legislator is found murdered in his chambers. He had many enemies who would have liked to see him out of the way, but what seems at first like a political killing is soon realized to be more. Witnesses reveal that while the assassination was taking place, some of the raiders were busy searching a completely different part of the palace. The speed and efficiency with which the mysterious raiders struck makes it clear that they knew exactly where to find their victim. So what else were they up to?

Into this mystery are thrust two young palace guards. Calton Relanas is a young man of peasant origins, eager to prove himself. His friend, Ratel Eresgot, is the scion of a wealthy aristocratic family who desperately wants to show that he can succeed without his powerful father. Assigned to assist with the investigation, they find themselves faced with a deadly conspiracy with tendrils reaching into the palace itself, and an evil with designs on far more than the life of a single politician.

I found Storms of Vengeance to be a frustrating book, because it keeps showing flashes of potential to be better than it was. After a successful attention-grabbing opening, things slow down badly, meandering dully for a number of chapters, punctuated by attempts at greater excitement that came across as forced. Then, about a third of the way through, things start to pick up, and I was fairly interested by the end. There’s some good stuff here, but it’s a bit of a slog to get to.

The characters are a mixed bag. The main protagonists, Calton and Ratel, were not effective for me, and seemed neither emotionally engaging nor otherwise interesting. Unfortunately, the reader spends a great deal of time with them. On the other hand, some of the antagonists are a good deal more interesting, though again there is a pacing problem: the reader must wade through some rather unsatisfying parts before these characters start to become more intriguing. I also liked the character of Faren, the commander of the palace guard who leads the investigation of the attack. Beachem does a nice job of taking a very boring, stick-in-the-mud sort of person and making him an interesting and sympathetic character. The brief appearances by the King of Faranin were also effective, defying the common clichés for fictional monarchs- heroic guardian of the people, ruthless tyrant and oppressor, or ineffectual buffoon. Instead, he comes across as a well-intentioned man who is just unbearably tired, ground down by a lifetime of crushing responsibility.

The setting is more or less a typical medieval fantasy kingdom; for the most part it is serviceable but not remarkable. It does have one prominent virtue, however. I greatly enjoyed the book’s portrayal of elves- or “forest demons,” as most people in Faranin call them. In an enjoyable break with the common fantasy clichés that have turned elves into little more than pretty long-lived humans with a fondness for trees and shrubbery, Beachem’s elves truly seem uncanny and inhuman, frightening and inscrutable creatures of folklore.

Overall, I would describe Storms of Vengeance as a disappointment. Beachem shows a number of flashes of potential, but the reader must put up with a good deal of much less interesting material to get to them. I think his work shows future promise, and I’m curious to see how Beachem develops, but overall I can’t recommend Storms of Vengeance.

Al-Rassan is a land in turmoil. For hundreds of years it has been ruled by powerful Khalifs, and had prospered, sending raiding parties to Esperana in the north for treasure and supplies. But now the last Khalif has been murdered, at the behest of newly proclaimed King Almalek of Cartada. The warring kings of Esperana see the opportunity to regain the land, and a plot is hatched to join forces and retake Al-Rassan. In the midst of this upheaval, four people from vastly different backgrounds are drawn together by circumstances beyond their control, and together they forge a bond stronger than the armies warring around them.

Religious fervor runs high between the two warring factions. In the south are Asharites, who worship the stars, while in the north are Jaddites, who worship a sun god. Caught in the middle are the Kindath, wanderers who worship the moons and who are mistrusted by both lands. Ammar ibn Khairan, an Asharite, is notorious in Al-Rassan - after all, he killed the last Khalif. He is known as both brilliant and cruel, and is a close confidant of King Almalek. He is also a poet, who wishes nothing more than to live a quite life with his writing. Betrayed by the king, Ammar disappears from public life, only to resurface in a coup that puts Almalek's heir on the throne. Rather than showing gratitude, the new king exiles Ammar, who flees to Ragosa to join the mercenary ranks. Also in Ragosa is Rodrigo Belmonte, a Jaddite, the famous warrior of the north. After publicly humiliating the brother of the Constable, Rodrigo is banished from his king's service for two years. Alvar, a member of Rodrigo's band of soldiers, is in his first year of service to the king. He is honored and a little confused at being chosen to ride with Rodrigo, and experiences the horrors of war for the first time. Jehane bet Ishak is a Kindath physician, almost unheard of for a woman. She is in Ragosa to escape from the slaughter in her home town, and has been made physician in the king's court. Ammar, Rodrigo, Alvar, and Jehane begin to trust each other, and form a complex loyalty between the four. As tensions in Al-Rassan grow, the newly formed friendships are quickly tested. Urged on by religious fanatacism, the political upheaval soon becomes all-out war, and the four find themselves forced to decide between friendship and country.

Kay is truly a master of historical fantasy. In The Lions of Al-Rassan, he has created a world that is clearly modeled on medieval Spain. Readers will easily recognize the three religious groups as based on the Moors, Christians, and Jews of the time. The character of Rodrigo is based on the famous Spaniard El Cid, and the story draws on the historic fall of Grenada, the last Moorish state in Spain. While Kay has used these historical elements to ground his story, the world he creates is all his own. His ability to create complex social and political scenarios makes the story completely believable. He draws the reader into his narrative slowly, allowing one to get accustomed to each new setting before moving to the next. His book is also beautifully written, with an extensive vocabulary that requires the reader to engage with the words on the page, reading carefully to not miss anything. And yet he includes plenty of action, so the reading never seems slow, and the 500+ pages literally fly by.

Each of Kay's characters are unforgettable. They are real, flawed people, who want to be good but quite often do very bad things. Jehane is a physician, who truly believes it is her duty to bring healing and light whereever she can. She also allows a man to be killed in front of her eyes for revenge. Ammar is an intelligent poet and diplomat, and yet he himself has killed on many occasions because it served his purpose at the time. Rodrigo is perhaps the most consistant to his ideals, but in the end he makes a choice to turn his back on his friends. Even Kay's secondary characters have depth - from a deeply pious queen who is a slave to her husband's carnal desires, to a silk merchant who transforms himself into a new man, Kay breathes life into each of the people we meet on these pages. He also allows them to grow and change - when we first meet Alvar he is young and terrified, and w