A collection of short fantasy stories from Terry Brooks, George R.R. Martin, Diana Gabaldon, Orson Scott Card, and Elizabeth Haydon. I skipped the Martin one since I had just read A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and Martin’s entry was one of the Dunk and Egg stories.
The Yazoo Queen by Orson Scott Card
I’ve heard of Orson Scott Card, but haven’t previously read anything from him. I was really impressed with this story for getting away with two elements that tend to bear a lot of cringe. These are magic people in a world where that’s normal but not common and re-imagined history based on real places. I really thought I would hate this story because it’s written in a thick early American South dialect and there’s a river. Any time an American writes about a river it seems to go on forever, like everyone wants to try out their own version of Huck Finn. Not the case here. The magic elements are pretty rational and seem to require some kind of apprenticeship. The main character was apprenticed by a blacksmith and his “knack”, as it’s called, is the ability to sense the functional workings of an object, an element like water, or a person. As far as the alternate reality, it wasn’t all that extreme. Mexico is called Mexica, it’s ruled by the Aztecs and engages in a forever war against the white man. New Orleans is Nuevo Barcelona, which isn’t that jarring considering the historical changes in the possession of the territory. It’s less a what-if plot premise, like The Man in the High Castle, and more of a way to disassociate real America from alternate magic reality America.
Lord John and the Succubus, Diana Gabaldon
I respect this author for the greater Outlander series. Time travel is a tough element to juggle and fisting it into an erotic romance would typically scream Pulp Smut, but she does it well. Not enough for me to read the series, the woman is an absolute fetishist and her sexual violence reaches a level of grotesque that I can’t imagine a male author would get praised for. However, this is a short story and it keeps the homoerotic rape scenes (I’m not being hyperbolic here) to the most minimal degree this woman can apparently muster, (there still is one, but it is more of a vague remembering by the narrator in passing than viscerally depicted over the course of several chapters). The story is entertaining enough, though too much of it is walking the reader in a circle for the sake of building tension. What I admired about the story was the writer’s knowledge and execution of military terms. There are very specific ranks, battalions, and formations used here that the author handles well without burdening the reader with the whole “Well I learned all about this topic for this book so now you do too,”.
Threshold, Elizabeth Haydon
I had never heard of this author. The premise of the story is fantastic. It gets to employ all the fun of a post-apocalyptic setting while using high-fantasy elements and the glories of self-sacrifice for a kingdom. The short story is apparently part of a greater series, which I can’t speak to the quality of. Frankly, the quality of the story isn’t great. The writer used “numbly” twice on one page to describe a character looking at a scene. But the story had decent teeth and the names aren’t irritating in that over-voweled fantasy way. The main character is a young guy from a lesser line of the King. He has volunteered to stay behind in a homeland that has been emptied by exodus. An apocalyptic event has been prophesied to occur soon, as shown by the king in a dream. The young man is left behind to keep the king’s peace among those that refused to leave and to hold the fort in case the prophecy proves inaccurate. He is joined by four other volunteers with various personal connections to the character. They go around burying people who have starved or informing the stragglers who approach them when the very last ship will arrive to take refugees. The details that build the world are introduced cleverly, using moments of nostalgia among the main characters. There’s a lot of time spent kicking around in the dust, something I appreciate if the setting is strong enough, then there is a very sneakily introduced shifting of the plot which allows the story to end on a climax that seems to hit a bit above its weight in terms of a short story.
Indomitable, Terry Brooks
I knew this guy’s name going into this collection, but I couldn’t think of any of his titles. I looked him up and nothing sounded familiar, so I probably only know it from working in libraries for years. Either way, it sucked, it just completely sucked. The lazy, “Oh the world has ended and now there’s somehow mystical stuff and non-humans and oh they didn’t know what to name themselves so they chose names from old books they found so my druid isn’t wrong just because it’s nothing like druids.” What an asshole. The story is stupid. A phenomenal teenager who has achieved and experienced things far beyond his years is once again summoned to aid the little people. His sister destroyed the Big Evil Item after all, and it vaguely broke her spirit, so who now is there to call on but him? But oh, Oh! He’s just so unsure of himself, so unsure of his age and his build and if the other teenager likes him or not, and if his magic is strong enough even though he’s been practicing it. Worry not, he gets to the place, heroically drugs his companions so he may enter alone, successfully uses his dumb, unexplained magic that allows him to look like anyone or thing, including a wall, then he destroys that last fragment of the Evil Item in a single page, and slips out in another half page, back to his sleeping companions before sunrise. But wait, the lesson is that his magic frightened him. He learned it is strong and scary, just like he remembered his sister cryptically warning him.
If there is a positive thing going for this story, it’s that I know never to pick up anything by Terry Brooks.
The reading is concluded. All in all, I wouldn’t tell someone not to read this collection, but it’s not going to be what comes to mind if my opinion is ever solicited in that regard.
Buy a copy here.
The Normal Times 
Leave a comment