Continuing review of Year's Best Fantasy 3 - Part 4

 "Sam" by Donald Barr - A man finds himself fading out of existence after being fired from his job and forgotten.

Fantasy? Yes, shading into a weird kind of horror, but yes. Well-written? Yeah. Good story, creepy. Not political message fic.

Although it's not presented this way, it would be easy to tweak this into terrifying horror.

"Persian Eyes" by Tanith Lee - A high-ranking Roman in the imperial period finds a new slave girl much more than he bargained for, to his destruction.

I haven't read much Tanith Lee, but I've heard high praise of her. This is a) very good and b) actually fantasy, transporting me to another world both in terms of time frame and in terms of supernatural threats. Subtle and creepy. Very good.

"Travel Agency" by Ellen Klages - Very feminine. Very self-indulgent, self-insert. Barely qualifies at fantasy at all. Makes a metaphor literal at the very end. *le sigh*

Every single time.

"A Fable of Savior and Reptile" by Steven Popkes - A talking turtle (whose special qualities were not explained as far as I had read) finds and befriends Jesus as a child. He makes it very clear that Jesus is the son of Joseph by a shotgun wedding (crossbow wedding?). John the Baptist is a teenaged sadist. I quit because I see no reason to subject myself to further abuse.

Yes, you're very brave satirizing Christians, who are the target of the monsters in power. You're so very clever telling this from the perspective of a talking turtle.

Once again. This was the "best" of this year?

"Comrade Grandmother" - From the introduction, I was expecting this to be awful. I was expecting Mary-Sue feminist bullshit. I was pleasantly surprised.

This is a story of a woman trying desperately to defend her homeland from invaders and slowly selling herself to an ancient witch to do so. In many ways, it feels like a real fairy tale. It's not easy. It's not pretty. In some ways, it may have been a terrible idea.

The only thing that makes this a little annoying is that the homeland is communist Russia and the invaders are, of course, the evilest people in all history (history history story ory), the Nazis. But, to an ordinary Russian, it was still their home, and it was still an invading army, so I can't really blame them for that.

"Familiar" by China Mieville - An urban horror story. It's never made clear exactly how different this world is from our own. A small-time witch in London summons up a familiar. He soon finds it is not remotely what he expected and is costing him far more than he bargained for.

Fantasy? Check. Intriguing, in a gross and disturbing way? Check. The best point in its favor is that it genuinely has an old-world fairy tale kind of feel: Play around with dark powers and you are going to end up somewhere you very much don't want to be. 

I can't honestly say I liked it, but I also can't say it was poorly done.

"Honeydark" by Liz Williams - A man flees a high position in politics into anonymity in a small village. He finds both a safe haven and a terrible secret.

This feels like it's part of a larger story, like there's a novel or series of stories it's connected to. It's not that it's incomplete, but the scale of the implied background seems to say there's a lot more to this world and it's not a standalone story.

Is it fantasy? Yes. Is it poisonous political propaganda? No, or if so only a bit. It reminds me just a little bit of the story of The Wicker Man. No, I haven't seen it, but I know the basic plot.

I didn't love it, but it also didn't repel me. For this collection, that's a win.

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There are six more stories (125 more pages) left, so my next update should be the last.

It's really sobering to realize this was 20 years ago and the trajectory has been only downhill since.

It's also sobering to realize that until fairly recently, although I didn't much of this stuff, I didn't recognize how it fit in terms of a larger picture.

The people who have done this to our storytelling are evil. Flat out, no sugarcoating, no excuses. These people are evil. If you are a sane, decent Christian, they hate everything that matters to you.

We can't accept this. We have to take our storytelling back.

Continuing review of Year's Best Fantasy 3 - Part 3

"Social Dreaming of the Frin" by Ursula K. Le Guin - A quasi-sociological report on the people of the "plane" (which term is quite vague) of Frin who share one another's dreams. An actual fantasy story, and actually well-written.

There's no overt political messaging. If I didn't know previously know about it, I don't know if this would occur to me, but Le Guin was interested in Buddhism, and this does have significant Buddhist overtones. But it's not grotesque message-fic. It's a good story which also conveys the author's values. Even if I don't agree with those beliefs, I cannot say this is badly done.

"Five British Dinosaurs" by Michael Swanwick - I can't really call this a story. It's five separate tiny vignettes about dinosaurs. Some are fantasy, kind of. Some are just stories. There's barely enough in any one to actually call it a story. This seems more like a gimmick than fiction.

"The Green Word" by Jeffrey Ford - On the positive side, this is a fantasy story. On the negative side, this is ham-handed message fic. It is about mean, evil Christians in the middle ages persecuting wise, decent pagans. The pagan witch is a Mary Sue with unexplained fantastic physical abilities. The evil Christian king is literally named King Pious. He has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. He is stupid, selfish, hypocritical.

I can read well-written stories by people I disagree with, even appreciate them. This is trash which a reader will only like if he already agrees with the message.

"The Comedian" by Steve Chapman - This is an actual fantasy story about a family with a variety of psychic talents. It's not bad. It's very character focused, in a way that to me, smells a little of someone who wishes he were writing "literary" fiction but has decided that it's easier to get published in genre.

Actually fantasy, not overtly offensive. On the high side for this book.

"The Pagodas of Ciboure" by M. Shayne Bell - A very sick little boy in France (apparently leukemia, although not named most of the story) goes with his mother to the countryside to recover. While there, he meets some magical creatures called pagodas who, legend says, have healing powers. They help him and he ends up helping them, and growing up to be someone quite important.

Really good, actually. Again, no political nonsense. Almost an old school fairy tale. This may be my favorite story so far.

"From the Cradle" by Gene Wolfe - A young man who works in a book shop becomes interested in a rare book that is for sale on consignment. Although he can only see a page or two at a time, he becomes fascinated by its stories, which turn out to be a trail of breadcrumbs leading to . . . something else.

An odd mix of fairy tale and science fiction. Wolfe doesn't provide a complete picture, but a series of dots, and trusts his reader to find the whole. I'm quite certain I missed some things the first time through and should re-read this.

Excellent story.

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So, I am currently halfway through by page count and just over halfway through counting by stories. What's the score so far?

Out of 15 stories:

Stories that are not fantasy or only maybe fantasy if you squint at it the right way: 6

Stories that are toxic political propaganda (some overlap with previous): 4

Just plain good fantasy stories? 5

Was this the best short fantasy fiction of 2002? No. I'd bet my life no. If I could still find it, I'd bet I could find stories written by nobodies on the internet from that year that were far superior to most of those published here.

It's stunning to me now, to see how far things had fallen already 20 years ago, and I hadn't even noticed it. And, as far as major publishing houses and such go, it's only been downhill since.

We can't accept this, and we can't wait for someone else to fix it. We have to create and support the culture we want.

Speaking of, you might take a look at my own book: The Mayor of Christ Mountain.