In a series of letters from a different timeline, Etinaye beseeches her father to save her from being murdered by her sister.
It says in the author’s bio that this is one story in a series and it certainly reads like that. While there are enough tantalizing hints about multiple timelines and “threadkeepers” to give us a sufficient glimpse of the setting, which looks very interesting, the characters themselves definitely get the short shrift. I just couldn’t bring myself to care about any of them which left me with just some magical mumbo jumbo and a standard plot twist.
Amber became a giant to free the fallen angels stuck in the Wall and nurse them back to health. Being a giant is painful, as Amber aches with every step she takes and constantly has to tighten the joints between her fragile, long bones with magical ribbons. But she loves being close to the angels. Then one day, one of the angels actually talks to her.
This story is an interesting meditation on having faith and holding on to that faith. It’s presented with some great, arresting imagery. The fragile nature of the patchwork giants hits just the right tone between pity and wonder. Good stuff.
When he torches her wedding dress at the altar, Bridget calls it quits with Helios, the Greek sun god. As Eilethyia, godess of childbirth, takes Bridget out to dinner to comfort her, Helios goes to a bar with Apollo to seek solace in wine and women.
The story’s subject and tone is similar to that of last month’s On the Finding of Photographs of My Former Loves by Peter M. Ball, also published in Fantasy Magazine. But while that story’s mythical romances served as a metaphor for our own troubles, Marrying the Sun looks at what a relationship between gods and mortals might really look like. As a result, it packs less of an emotional punch but nonetheless Swirsky offers up some interesting characterisations of the gods.
Sibley is the only person who can hear in a village of deaf people, though the trauma of a childhood accident and growing up there have made her mute. Every year, the mysterious but generous Silversack visits their village and brings gifts for the children. But when Sibley asks for her voice, Silversack has to abandon his own myth.
This story starts out promising as a look at the friction between myth and reality, seen through the lens of a Santa Claus analog. However, the story soon abandons this concept and turns into a rather formulaic love story. Even though it remained well written, it lost my interest at that point. I was also confused about why all the children were deaf, unless all genes causing deafness are recessive in this fantasy world.
When Margetta, a vestal dedicant, is visited by the Harper’s holy light before the Harper’s Bride dies her second death, she is slated to become His next Bride. And as His Voice lets her know, he is most eager to receive her. But something’s terribly amiss with the Harper.
Darja Malcolm-Clarke writes some great, disturbing religious imagery. The mystery of the Harper’s religion and what’s going wrong remains intriguing throughout this excellent story. The Harper’s treatment of his Brides is seriously creepy, as is by extension the general treatment of women in the story’s world. It’s not hard to read it as a critique of blind faith or the objectification of women in our society but it’s not laid on too thick.
Built from the physical artifacts of sorrow, locked in a cage of thorny vines and given life by the last of your magic, Sorrowbirds absorb all the grief you wish to feed them. But what if your grief is too much for your sorrowbird to stomach?
There’s some very nice, poetic imagery in this story but not much else. The main purpose of the second person narrative seems to be to camouflage the flimsiness of the plot, setting and characterisation. Fortunately, the uplifting ending makes up for some of these shortcomings but I can’t help think this story would’ve worked much better as a poem.
Deacon gets home to find a Dear John letter from his girlfriend. She’s left him after finding a hidden envelope with photos of his ex-girlfriends. Turns out they were all mythical creatures.
There’s an interesting, ambiguous mix of the fantastic and the mundane in this story. Deacon’s casual recollections of the mythical monsters stand in stark contrast to his girlfriend’s reactions. But though the story deals with Medusa and other monsters, it’s really a great look at the insecurity most of us have felt at one time or another about a lover’s previous relationships.
A woman is haunted by the ghost of her dead sister who tries to murder her in her dreams. When her dream sister’s shadow escapes into the real world, things only get worse.
This story just didn’t work for me at all. It’s all too dreamy and ethereal, with a very predictable twist at the end. Just not my cup of tea.
Carnival’s arrived in town but Sal is staying at home with Macey, her twin sister who’s bedridden with cancer. What little energy Macey has left, she spends spying on their weird old neighbour. He has many small animals locked in pens in his backyard. But whenever he takes one of them inside his house, it’s never seen again. With Macey off to the hospital after another bad seizure, it’s up to Sal to figure out the creepy mystery.
There were two small spots of bother with this story for me. I understood the carnival was a metaphor for hope, but it was so far removed from the actual story that it felt tacked one. And I never really doubted the moral character of the old man, though I think the story wanted me to. But these were just small problems which melted away before Holly Phillips’ masterful evocation of Sal’s depressive family situation and the painfully perfect ending.
A woman, recently released from a mental hospital, tries return to her normal life. But who’s looking back at her from her reflections?
A short, disturbing piece, beautifully written. You can read it as a dark fantasy or a glimpse into the mind of a schizophrenic person, but it works best as a metaphor for all the different roles each of us have to assume in our daily lives.
