Year's Best Fantasy. Not!

I’ve been reading (slowly) a collection called The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories: 9, edited by Arthur W. Saha. This was published in 1983 by Daw Books and I have to say that I’m disappointed with nearly every story in the anthology. In the first place, none of them seem to have much fantasy in them, at least not the kind I like to read. There’s a story about a guy who wakes up “in” the book Moby Dick (which won a Nebula, btw), a deal with the devil tale, and a tale about a modern guy who inherits a castle in Ireland and has to use voodoo to keep it.

That last story is “Square and Above Board,” by R. A. Lafferty and the editor introduces it with “…depend on the unique and puckish talent of R. A. Lafferty, himself of the Irish, to spin a tale that is anything but ominous.” That says it all, if you read “ominous” like I do to be “spirited,” “energetic,” “powerful.”

The problem with these stories has nothing to do with the writing, which is uniformly polished and professional. It has to do with subject matter. The writers here are, it seems to me, desperately striving for either literary merit or to provide a lighthearted distraction that doesn’t trouble anyone too much, that is for a feeling that is “anything but ominous.”

But I don’t read fantasy to avoid being “troubled.” I don’t read it simply for a light chuckle with my after dinner sherry. I read it for power, for emotion, for something damn well ominous.

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In writing news, I’ve sold a zombie western tale to the Bits of the Dead anthology, and my silly fantasy tale, “Mirthgar,” was published in Strange Worlds of Lunacy, which is out now, in print, and also as a much cheaper download. I just got my contributor copies and haven’t had time to read the other tales yet. Looks pretty good, though. Another of my humorous fantasy stories has just been published in Flashing Swords: Special Edition Summer 2008, but I don’t think it’s available for general purchase yet. The story is “Worms in the Earth: Barbarian’s Bane.” I’ve posted about both these tales before so forgive me if this sounds redundant.

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I’d also like to call everyone’s attention to Ello’s blog post on The Lolita Effect. This is an important work on how the media, and our entire culture, sexualizes girls at younger and younger ages. Ello will have the author, Dr. Gigi Durham, as a guest on her blog on Wednesday and she’ll be answering questions. Although I didn’t have a daughter, I see the kind of harm this pervasive influence is having on young women and I hope you’ll stop by for a moment to lend Ello and Dr. Durham your support.

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A Podcast and a Pub

I received a very nice, and I thought very accurate, review of “Swords of Talera” in a podcast from Dial P for Pulp. The mastermind behind “Dial P” is David Drage, who lives in Aberdeen, Scotland with his wife and son. David is a Pulp fan and advocate with a particular interest in Robert E. Howard. We made contact on one of the online Robert E. Howard fan groups. David really seems to know the genre well, and respect it, and he acknowledged both the traditional qualities of “Swords” and the strengths of how those qualities were portrayed. If you’re interested, the podcast is on “Show # 5,” but if you want the direct link it’s here. It will take a little while to load, or at least it did on my computer. The “Swords” review is about a quarter of the way along the podcast. But there looks like a lot of interesting stuff on the site.

In other news, Strange Worlds of Lunacy has just been released, which contains my story, “Mirthgar.” This is a big collection, with over 50 humorous stories. I haven’t even gotten my contributor copy yet so I haven’t read any of the other stories, although I know a number of the authors. It looks like a good collection. The cover is above. I posted a piece from my story before, but here’s another taste. Remember that a “pale,” which is basically a horrible, lingering fog, has fallen upon the fabled land of Mirthgar.

“Ill omens abounded. A question mark was found crop-circled into a farmer’s lotus field in Mirthdale, while in Mirthhedge an albino Irish setter was born to a pair of bluetick coon hounds. In the very halls of the Queen’s palace, the infamous ghost of King Hornrey the First was seen to slip on an ectoplasmic banana peel and do the splits with an expression of considerable pain. The habitual hilarity had already fled from the people of Mirthgar, and now hope joined hilarity in exile.”

And, BTW, I recieved the following award from Anna-Lys. I really appreciate it since it's something I hope to do in my blog. Thank you!