Robots vs Fairies
Edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe
Saga Press (384 pages, $16.99 paperback, $7.99 eBook, January 2018)
When I asked Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe, the editors of Robots vs Fairies, on Twitter if I absolutely had to decide between Team Fairy and Team Robot, I was hoping they’d let me off the hook. Here’s what Dominik told me instead:
Apparently, I have no choice. It doesn’t help that Team Fairy and Team Robot both offer up truly remarkable stories. I mean, take one look at the table of contents and you’ll see that this is a stacked deck of established legends and talented up-and-comers. That said, I have heeded the instructions of my overlords and picked a side.
Robinson won the Hugo Award for his novels Green Mars and Blue Mars. He won the Nebula for Red Mars, the first novel in the series, as well as for 2312 and for his novella “The Blind Geometer.” Red Mars also won a British SF Association Award, the Ignotus Award, and the Seiun Award. Green Mars won the Ignotus Award, the Italia Award while Blue Mars won the Prix Ozone. He won a World Fantasy Award for the novella “Black Air” and his novel Pacific Edge received the John W. Campbell Memorial Award.
“The Part of Us That Loves” was originally published in Full Spectrum 2, edited by Lous Aronica, Shawna McCarthy, Amy Stout, and Pat LoBrutto in 1989. Robinson included the story in his 1991 collection Remaking History and that same year it was translated into French.
The city of Zion, Illinois was founded in 1901 as a religious community. Although it has become a more traditional community over the years, Robinson uses its religious background as an effective setting for “The Part of Us That Loves.” The tale feels like two completely separate stories, though the first half provides the means of understanding the second.
The first half focuses on Naomi and Tom, two teenagers in the community band preparing for a concert in honor of two residents who are both celebrating their one hundredth birthday. The two are interested in each other, although they aren’t sure how to pursue that interest.
As promised, one Mage review is delivered right on the heels of the other one. Starting off, Kevin is still on the trail of the Questing Beast. He can see the Beast’s footprints thanks to some magic eye-drops that he got from a magic pot dealer last issue. When he finally catches up with it, he sees the Questing Beast communicating with a little devil-child (he calls it an “imp”). The imp and the Beast dash off just as the eye drops wear out, leaving Kevin nauseous and vomiting in a public waste bin.
Meanwhile, Magda is trying to shrug off the advances of the school superintendent, only to find out too late that he’s an incubus in disguise. It’s interesting that the succubi dress in little more than nylon body stockings, while the incubi seem to prefer tailored suits. Whatever draws the eye, I guess. Unfortunately, he recognizes her as Kevin’s wife (no idea how) and reports to the Umbra Sprite that he’s captured her.
By the time Kevin wakes up the next morning, his wife and daughter have been kidnapped. He arrives just in time to see his son lured onto a school bus with dozens of redcaps. While various monsters come and go throughout all three volumes of this series, the redcaps have been around since near the beginning and seem to be the go-to beasties when a villain just needs a nasty little army to do a quick and dirty job.
The issue ends with a green ogre destroying Kevin’s house.
So, in this issue, Kevin’s wife and children are kidnapped by the Umbra Sprite and his house is destroyed. Kirby’s dead and Joe’s made it clear that he won’t be helping on any further adventures. Kevin still has no idea about the third Mage’s identity. He has no home, no allies, and no idea what to do next. If he could put his ego aside, he would go to Magda’s two witch sisters (last seen in volume two) and ask for their help. But I’ve got a feeling that he’s going to try handling things alone.
Raymond Z. Gallun was born on March 22, 1911 and died on April 2, 1994.
Gallun was inducted into the First Fandom Hall of Fame in 1979. He wrote during a period when many authors focused on short fiction, and he did, although he also published several novels, including The Planet Strappers, Skyblaster, and Bioblast. His short fiction has been collected in two volumes, The Best of Raymond Z. Gallun and Anthology of Sci-Fi V4: Raymond Z. Gallun.
Gallun has collaborated with Robert S. McReady, Jerome Bixby, and he based a story on an outline by fan John B. Michel. In 1936, he participatws in a series novel with Eando Binder, Jack Williamson, Edmond Hamilton, and John Russell Fearn. Gallun has also used the pseudonyms Dow Elstar, William Callahan, and Arthur Allport.
“Magician of Dream Valley” was first published in the October 1938 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, edited by John W. Campbell. Forrest J. Ackerman and Pat LoBrutto included it in Perry Rhodan #71: The Atom Hell of Grautier in 1975 and in 1978 it was reprinted in The Best of Raymond Z. Gallun. In 1982, the story was translated into Italian for inclusion of a short collection of Gallun stories.
Jack Vickers in a reporter who had traveled to the moon to interview a recluse, Clyde Athelstane, also known as the “Magician of Dream Valley.” The valley, near Mare Imbrium, has a strange phenomenon known as Hexagon Lights. Vickers wants to learn what they are and what Athelstane might have to do with them.
Athelstane isn’t what Vickers was expecting and the hermit immediately presses the newsman into his service to care for the Hexagon Lights, which Athelstane claims are being threatened by human lunar mining and may, in fact, be sentient beings. Even as Vickers realizes the Athelstane is insane, he works with him to try to protect the Hexagon Lights against possible destruction. In the end, however, Vickers breaks free from Athelstane’s spell, believing the Lights to be more dangerous than endangered.
Terry Dowling was born on March 21, 1947. Most of Dowlings fictional output is at short story length, although the stories about Tom Rynosseros are connected and have been collected in four volumes. Dowling has also published the novel Clowns at Midnight. He edited the anthology Mortal Fire: Best Australian SF with Van Ikin and worked with Richard Delap and Gil Lamont to edit The Essential Ellison.
Dowling has received four Aurealis Awards and twelve Ditmar Awards. In 1988, he won the Ditmar for Best Long Fiction for his story “For as Long as You Burn” and the Ditmar for Best Short Fiction for “The Last Elephant.” His collection Basic Black: Tales of Appropriate Fear won an International Horror Guild Award and the collection Wormwood received a Readercon Award. Basic Black was also nominated for the Bram Stoker Award, and Dowling has three World Fantasy Award nominations.
“The Last Elephant” first appeared in Australian Short Stories issue #20, published in 1987 and edited by Bruce Pascoe. In 1994, Paul Collins included it in his Metaworlds: Best Australian Science Fiction and Dowling has reprinted the story in three collections, An Intimate Knowledge of the Night, Antique Futures: The Best of Terry Dowling, and Make Believe: A Terry Dowling Reader.
Dowling tackles endangered species in “The Last Elephant,” describing the festivities and hoopla around Terrence Harm, whose job it is to inspect Caza, believed to be the last living elephant. While Harm cares about the creature and understands the importance of preserving it for as long as possible, he also understands the quality of life issues that come into play and realizes that the more humane course of action may be to announce that Caza is ready to die.
However, when Harm finally visits the last elephant, it is not quite the situation Dowling has prepared the reader for. The questions of ecology Dowling appeared to be setting up are not the issues that Harm actually faces, and Caza is important to the culture in a very different way. Dowling’s story shows that while preservation is important, it can be achieved in different ways, and although they may not be entirely satisfying, they carry their own significance.
So I picked up issue 7 of Mage this week and realized that I’d never gotten around to reviewing issue 6, so expect another review to follow this one very soon.
Issue 5 ended with Kevin and Joe spotting the Questing Beast. Upon seeing the pair, the Beast takes off. Kevin tells Joe that he’s got to follow it. Kevin thinks that the Questing Beast could show him the way to the Fisher King. Joe’s response is that he’s out of this whole hero/quest thing and then leaving.
When Kevin gets home, he finds Magda waiting up for him. What follows is an argument that touches on some things that I’ve been going on about in earlier reviews. We learn that Kevin hasn’t had a regular job since he was twenty-two years old and that he’s been relying on that magic debit card for most of his adulthood. No idea how that sort of thing generates enough money for them to afford houses without anyone asking where the money comes from … unless everyone just assumes that Kevin is a drug dealer. The fact that Kevin hasn’t really used his powers to help anyone in this volume of the series, only fending off monsters that have come looking for him, makes Magda seem less like a killjoy and more like a wise friend offering good advice. On top of that, we’ve seen that Joe’s given up adventuring with no ill effects, while Kirby’s dedication to adventuring eventually got him killed.
Meanwhile, the Umbra Sprite is testing the city’s resident handicapped population to see if any of them are the Fisher King in disguise. Of course, the “test” involves opening a handbag full of flying piranhas on them. Anyone whom the flying piranhas (OK, she calls them Sluagh Sidhe) DON’T eat is the Fisher King. Needless to say, this ends with a lot of bone piles and no Fisher King. While the plan of setting up shelters in order to look for the Fisher King makes sense, we understand as readers that he likely won’t be found in such a conventional, undramatic fashion, so these interludes are mostly excuses to show the various grisly acts that the Umbra Sprite and her Gracklethorns are willing to commit.
If I needed any more proof that there is a TON of fantasy being published these days, I need look no further than the case of D.B. Jackson, aka David B. Coe. He’s written nearly twenty novels, and the first time I heard of him was John O’Neill’s post about the book I’m reviewing today: Tales of the Thieftaker (2017). As Coe he’s written several epic fantasy series.
As Jackson, he’s written four novels about Ethan Kaille, a thieftaker and conjuror in pre-Revolutionary-era Boston. Historically, in a time before police forces, thieftakers were individuals who recovered stolen goods. By summoning up a spirit, conjurors have the ability to cast magic spells by drawing on “the power that dwelt between the living world and the realm of the dead.”
After his service in the Royal Navy Ethan went to sea as second mate on the Ruby Blade, a privateer out of Boston. His participation in a failed mutiny led to a sentence of 14 years penal servitude on Barbados. Upon release he made his way back to Boston. He has lost the woman he loved, lost his reputation, and as we learn in this collection, struggled to find a new purpose to his life.
Tales of the Thieftaker collects eight stories, two not-quite stories, and a novella. Except for the last, all the pieces were previously published. Most star Ethan and the rest focus on other important series characters. Despite one drawback, it serves as a fine introduction to Jackson’s character and his world.
The opening story stars Sephira Pryce, Ethan’s ongoing series antagonist. “The Cully” introduces Sephira as the twelve-year-old scout of a pickpocket. There are none of the supernatural elements that typify the later stories; here is a study of Boston as a city of significant divisions between rich and poor.
“The Tavern Fire” takes place before Ethan has returned to Boston and tells the “true history” of the Great Fire of 1760. It stars another series regular, Janna Windcatcher, proprietor of the Fat Spider tavern.
While the first two stories are well done, my unfamiliarity with the series’ characters meant they didn’t carry as much weight as I imagine they do for veteran readers. That was not the case with Ethan’s origin story, “A Memory of Freedom.” Ethan has only recently come back to Boston and is a bit of a broken man. He’s taken employment with an ill-tempered and unpleasant tavern-keeper. Fourteen years of enslavement have turned him into a subservient and extremely cautious man.
Pamela Sargent was born on March 20, 1948. Sargent edited the Women of Wonder anthologies, which explore the work of women science fiction authors. She has also edited three Nebula award anthologies. Her own fiction includes the Venustrilogy, the Seedtrilogy, and the Watchstartrilogy. Stand alone novels include Climb the Wind, Ruler of the Sky, and The Shore of Women. She has co-written Star Trek novels with her husband, George Zebrowski.
Pamela Sargent’s story “Danny Goes to Mars” received the Nebula Award for Best Novelette and was also nominated for the Hugo Award and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. Her novel Climb the Wind was nominated for the Sidewise Award and she was long listed for the James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award twice. In 2000, she and Zebrowski received the Service to SFWA Award and in 2012, she received a lifetime Pilgrim Award from the Science Fiction Research Association.
“The Broken Hoop” first appeared in Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine in its June 1982 issue, edited by T.E.D. Klein. Josh Pachter selected it for his 1985 British anthology Top Fantasy and Pamela Sargent included the story in two of her collections, The Best of Pamela Sargent and Eye of Flame.
There’s magic in the linked short-story form. A series of interrelated short fictions can examine a setting from many angles, build a character through a range of perspectives, establish a set of overlapping histories, and create a whole world with multiple centres: many heroes, many protagonists, together making a world bigger than can live in any one of their stories. Claude Lalumière’s Venera Dreams is the most recent example of the form I’ve seen, an exploration of the past (and future) of a mysterious island in the Mediterranean not far from Italy that’s home to a range of powerful and subversive artists — as well as the mysterious sacred spice vermilion, and a variety of myths and goddesses including the fabled Scheherazade.
I know Lalumière well (so well I’d never normally refer to him by his last name, but such is the nature of a book review), and interviewedhim for Black Gate seven years ago; as he was already engaged on the Venera Dreams project back then, the interview’s surprisingly relevant. He’s edited or co-edited seven anthologies, and had two collections of his own short fiction published (Objects of Worship in 2009 and Nocturnes and Other Nocturnes in 2013). In 2011 his book The Door to Lost Pages came out, a set of linked stories revolving around a magical bookshop. That store tuns up in Venera Dreams, notably in the opening story, but the first book is in no way necessary reading for this one.
The subtitle of Venera Dreams proclaims the collection “A Weird Entertainment,” and that’s accurate in just about every sense. It is strange and it is entertaining. But it’s weird in a more profound way; weird in the way of the pulps, in the way of Weird Tales. And it is an entertainment in the way the first English version of the One Thousand And One Nights called itself The Arabian Nights’ Entertainment. It’s a series of reveries about storytelling and art, about ecstasy and myth, about cities and history and yearning. About Venera the venerable: about venery and veneration.
John Gribbin was born on March 19, 1946. Gribbin has published both fiction and non-fiction, including non-fiction titles The Jupiter Effect with Stephen Plagemann, In Search of the Big Bang, and The Science of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials with Mary Gribbin. His own novels include The Sixth Winter with Douglas Orgill, Ragnarok with D.G. Compton, and solo works Timeswitch and Father to the Man.
“Something to Beef About” was first published in Interzone 49 in July 1991, edited by David Pringle and Lee Montgomerie. In 2016, a revised version of the story was reprinted in the anthology Existence is Elsewhen, published by Elsewhen Press.
Gribbin opens “Something to Beef About” by falling into the trap described by Mark Rosenfelder in his satirical “If All Stories Were Written Like Science Fiction.” He describes the mundane aspects of David Jenkins’s life in an attempt to set up a future society in which Jenkins lives, but for the most part it comes across as telling the readers something they should already know. Instead of setting the scene, it makes the reader very aware that the story is a construct.
