"A Tower With No Doors" by Dennis L. McKiernan

It seems to be the "in thing" in Fantasy literature over the last few years to take exisiting fairly tales and folk tales and give them a new twist. I'm not sure who started the trend, exact, although the works of authors like Neil Gaiman (Stardust, American Gods), Sherri Tepper (Beauty), and Gregory Maguire (just about everything he's written), certainly all had a hand in its popularization.

Dennis L. McKiernan's short story is a particular good example of a retelling of a fairy tale. Told cleverly from the perspective of an immortal who claims to have seem the true events first-hand (you'll get a bit of a laugh once you find out who the immortal is), this is a fairly straightforward retelling of Rapunzel, with a bit of a twist that isn't uncommon to these sorts of stories. As usual, not everyone is exactly who the reader expects them to be, and the story doesn't exactly occur in the way you'd expect. The narrator, who, I think, is the best part of this story, also takes some jabs at some of the aspects of the traditional version of the story, like the idea that Rapunzel would have been give to the witch by her parents in exchange for some parsley (he notes that no parent would be that stupid). In the end, like many of these types of stories, it isn't an incredibly deep or challenging story, but it is fun.

"The Following" by P.D. Cacek

Cacek's ghost story is one of my favourite types of ghost story, because it's really more about the lives of the people involved in the story than about murderous ghosts and cheap scares. The story is a slow, psychological examination of its main character, Lydia Terrell, who has the special ability to capture souls. Essentially, she's a ghost exterminator. But this isn't an episode of Supernatural*, or a similar ghost adventure/horror stories that happen to involve ghosts. It's more about how Lydia copes with her powers and their terrible after-effects.

I think this is really what the best ghost-stories, or stories in general, for that matter, do. They help the reader learn about the characters involved in the story. You get to know them, to identify them; watch them change and grow. So many stories of this genre are wrapped up in interesting conceits or scary sequences that they lose this idea that a story should really be about the characters. It's refreshing to see that Cacek doesn't fall into this trap.

*As a side note, I'm not disparaging Supernatural here. I love its comic-book take on horror and ghost stories. Plus, I think it ofter does just what I'm talking about here, revealing complex stories and characters beneath the top layer of action and gore.

"Fallen Angel" by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

Modesitt, Jr.'s story is a unique take on angels, the Devil, and Heaven. The main character, Lucian deNoir (ostensibly the Devil), is called to heaven to work a spell of attraction. Because he is the only fully fallen angel, the only one to have willfully embraced darkness,he is the only one that can create this spell, which is required to, wait for it, encourage other angels to move into the new villas past the Elysian Gardens in order to maintain "ecological an aesthetic balance." So, basically, Real Estate.

The fact that Heaven in Modesitt, Jr.'s story works more like a modern city than God's paradise is, quite surprisingly, actually one of the smallest deviations from a traditional view of Heaven and Hell. In his cosmology, other angels are able to fall, and be redeemed. They seem to have a free will of their own, and act a lot like human beings. They also seem capable of sex and desire, which is a switch from the more traditional sexless servants of God. Oh, yes, and God. That brings me to the biggest change. In Modesitt, Jr.'s story, God is called the Maid, and, apparently, takes the form of a woman. Like God in most stories, the Maid herself doesn't actually appear in the story, but she is always referred to in the feminine sense, and she has priestesses instead of priests, in a obvious flip from Catholic traditions.

The overall effect of these changes is a distancing of the story from it's Judeo-Christian inspirations. Now, I hope that this is in an effort to allow readers to empathize with the character of Lucian (who, incidentally, is well fleshed out and nuanced). However, the cynic in me can't help but wonder if it was in an effort on Modesitt, Jr.'s part to create some plausible deniability for himself in the future. A way to say "see, that's clearly not the Judeo-Christian Heaven, so you can't give me slack for taking liberties with the details." Now, maybe Modesitt, Jr. felt that it was necessary to create a fantasy Heaven as a setting to the story in order to free him up to tell the story he wanted to tell. And maybe that is true. I, however, don't think it was entirely necessary. Sometimes I even found the effect to be a little jarring, as terms or names would be just slightly different from what you'd expect.

Despite this one complaint, I really did enjoy this story. It has great pacing,
wonderful imagery, and, as I mentioned earlier, the character of Lucian is brilliantly compelling. Overall, definitely worth the read.

"The Silver Dragon" by Elizabeth A. Lynn

"The Silver Dragon" reads a lot like an except from J. R. R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion. It's really more of a legend from the fantasy world Lynn has, and much less of a coherent story in itself. It overtly chronicles the life of "Iyadur Atani," the titular "Silver Dragon," who was a powerful lord in Lynn's world and a changeling that could take the form of a dragon, although the true locus of the story is Iyadur's wife, Joanna Torneo Atani. It follows the trials and tribulations of the couple over the years, and hits many of the stereotypical high fantasy plot points. For example, Johanna grows up strong-willed and learns sword fighting instead of traditional "womanly" pursuits. She pretends to be a messenger to get close to Iyadur, and tells him at their first meeting that they will marry. Later, when Joanna is kidnapped, Iyadur , must make a deal with a sorcerer to get her back, not realizing the true cost of his deal, etc, etc. . .

Now, I don't have problems with an author using standard fantasy plot points. Many of these kinds of points have been around since fantasy was called "romance" in the middle ages, or, even earlier, in the days of what we've come to call "epics" (back in their day, I'm sure they were just called "stories), which, to me, means that they have some sort of resonance with people. But it bothers me that Lynn doesn't really do anything original or interesting with these plot points. I basically knew where each one was going from the moment it began. Also the "chronicle" feel of the story makes it so that many or the characters seem very flat and uninteresting and two-dimensional. The "good guys" are good, the "bad guys" are bad, and everyone acts exactly as you'd expect. In the end, I just couldn't bring myself to care about anyone in the story or anything that happened to them.

You know what really bothers me, though, is that I can't kick the feeling that some of the characters in this story, if they had been given space to breathe and grow, could easily have been compelling. In the end, this short story feels like it should have been a novella or even a novel, if only to give the author more time to develop her characters so you cared about what happened to them.* As it is, it feels to me like I was only getting a sketch of the overall story. To me, this story could have been so much more.

*After a bit or research on Lynn's work, it does appear that the world this story is set in is the same world she uses for her most recent series of novels, which doesn't surprise me at all.

"[Jagged Lines] : Six Hypotheses" by Joyce Carol Oates

I have to say, I was surprised to find a story by Joyce Carol Oates when I flipped to the next story in the current anthology that I'm reading (Flights: Extreme Visions of Fantasy). I thought to myself "what is her work doing here? She's not a fantasy author, right?" Now, I'll freely admit that I've never been too familiar with Oates' work, other than to know that she's been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize a few times now and that she's incredibly prolific. Now, perhaps, if I did know more, I wouldn't have doubted why she was being included in the above anthology, but, as it was, I had no idea that any of her work could be classified as fantasy.

That's why I was surprised to not only find the short story included in Flights collection, but also to find that it was so good! In fact, probably the best story of the Collection so far. Oates crafts a wonderfully creepy story here, chronicling the a single family's descent into madness under the influence of, well, something. Through the six sections of the story, the six "hypotheses" for how the "Thing" invades the minds of the family and subsequently drove them to madness, Oates really gets the reader into the heads of the characters. You can feel their sanity falling apart, and their frantic reactions to the threat of the "thing" as the story progresses. The final effect is a very, very creepy story that leaves you tense and drained. In short a perfect psychological, supernatural horror story. I'll never doubt that Joyce Carol Oates can write a work of fantasy again.

"Pat Moore" by Tim Powers

Maybe its because I'm still recovering from this damnable cold (shakes fist futily in the air), but there were large parts of this story I just didn't understand.

Tim Powers short story deals with a man (the titular Pat Moore) who is haunted by his wife's suicide (also the titular Pat Moore). In addition, this wife ends up haunting him as a sort of guardian angel in order to protect him from a third Pat Moore. This third Pat Moore has discovered the key to immortality, which involves becoming a ghost and then taking over another Pat Moore's body. The plot also involves some weird physics that I don't even pretend to understand, the idea that ghosts exist outside of linear time (and thus exist at every point and every place at once), and a chain letter. See what I mean?

Ultimately, the central thrust of this story, once you strip away all the creepy, confusing, surrealness of it, is to explore Pat Moore's coming to terms with his wife's death and his possible role in her suicide. This part of the story is quite touching and human, and acts as a great counterpoint to the creepy, insane Pat Moore ghost.

Overall, this is possibly the strangest short story I've read so far in this challenge, although a few others come very close. Serves me right for reading so much Science Fiction and Fantasy of late.

"The Edges of Never-Haven" by Catherine Asaro

"Straight Edges could take your soul."

the core of Asaro's story hangs on this incredible opening line. Through the course of this story, Asaro explores the idea that succumbing to hardship and fear can slowly make you less than human, and that you are only able to overcome hardships (the metaphorical "edges" of life), by facing your fears and coming to terms with your doubts. By adapting to and accepting the reality of your life, without letting it drag you into despair. This is expressed in the story itself through the threat of the Edger Demons, who, in my mind, are allegorical expressions of the "demons" that plague the "edges" of our lives -- i.e. our doubts and fears.

To make things even stranger, Asaro uses the idea of linear vs. non linear mathematics as a basis for the Edger demons' magic and their ability to control humans. The demons draw power from straight lines, or rather the equations that define these lines. The only way that the main character, Denric, can escape these demons is by using non-linear mathematics, the math that defines curved lines.

I know, it sounds dumb so far, but bear with me. The idea that non-linear math trumps linear math because it is of a "higher order" bears out into the overarching theme of the story. By not only using curves, but by embracing what they represent (flexible, yielding, soft), Denric is able to overcome the linear magic that traps him. Ultimately, the idea here is that flexibility, adaptability, and the willingness to face adversity overcomes the unyielding, yet also horribly rigid, strength of the Edgers. He gains his freedom by being adaptable enough, yielding enough to face his own inner fears and doubts, which in turn allows him to overcome the influence of the Edger demons.

Apologies if none of that made any sense. I'm still fighting off a bad cold, possibly the flu, so I don't think I'm on top of my game (not that my "game" is very high, but nonetheless).