Realms of Fantasy: June 2010 (Issue 94)
Part ninety-four in my comprehensive retrospective as I read the fiction in Realms of Fantasy and offer my thoughts, right up to the final issue. This time around I’m tackling the June 2010 issue.
The cover to this one features Marc Roland and Alan M. Clark’s interior illustration to “Fallen.” There is an interesting story behind this one, but I’ll get into that when I discuss “Fallen.”
A rundown of this issue’s nonfiction is as follows:
In the Movie/TV section, Resa Nelson examines how video games, comics, and classics inspire the spring fantasy movies; in Folkroots, H. Talat Halman writes about Hermes as a magician, messenger, and guitar god; in the Artists Gallery, Mia Nutick covers the art of Virginia Lee; in the Books column, Paul Witcover reviews Horns by Joe Hill, Empire in Black and Gold by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Bloodroot by Amy Greene, Petrodor by Joel Shepherd (which was moved to the website), and Matt Staggs reviews Mr. Shivers by Robert Jackson Bennett, Soulless by Gail Carriger, and Tails of Wonder and Imagination, edited by Ellen Datlow; in the Young Adult Books column, Michael Jones reviews I Kissed a Zombie, and I Liked It by Adam Selzer, The Iron King by Julie Kagawa, Firespell by Chloe Neill, Fallen by Lauren Kate, Undead Much? By Stacey Jay, Wish by Alexandra Bullen, Hearts at Stake by Alyxandra Harvey, The Dark Divine by Bree Despain, and Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore.
This issue also introduces a new column, this being Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Books. We decided to introduce this column because at the time both of these sub-genres (which crossover with each quite a bit) were exploding on the market in a big way. So while our other book column reviewers were not precluded from reviewing books in these sub-genres, we deemed it a good idea to introduce a column devoted specifically to these areas, thus ensuring they received enough coverage each issue. Credit the idea for this column to Publisher Warren Lapine, though he left the hiring process to me. I put an open call for the position to this one on my blog and the magazine website and received an absolutely phenemonal response. There were a number of excellent candidates, but ultimately I settled on Elizabeth Bear as our inaugural columnist. As to her inaugural reviews, she reviews Kitty’s House of Horrors by Carrie Vaughn, The Better Part of Darkness by Charlie Madigan, Spiral Hunt by Margaret Ronald, and The Sorcerer’s House by Gene Wolfe.
The Games column this issue was shifted online. In it, Matt Staggs reviews Runequest II, Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, Plane Below Sourcebook, and the RPG, The Cursed Chateau, and Tony Sims reviews Babel, an expansion to Heroes of Gaia, Bayonetta for Xbox360, and Torchlight for the PC. I assume the Graphic Novel column was also shifted to the website this issue, though my records here are oddly blank.
On to the fiction …
The lead story this issue is “Desaparacidos” by Aliette de Bodard, which marks her second appearance in the magazine. As mentioned previously, this was the first story we bought from her and was one of my slush survivors (my twenty-fifth), but her second story, “Melanie,” ended up getting published first in February 2010 issue. Sometimes publishing is funny like that. Mostly it comes down to matters of space in terms of word counts, though when an illustration is ready for publication also factors in. As to the story itself, we are presented with a contemporary fantasy wherein a young woman returns to where her lover presumably died in prison, but it turns out his soul (and many others) are still imprisoned and in desperate need of release …and so too is a grounded angel. Art to this one was provided by Rob Alexander. As I recall, Aliette was very happy with it, as she expressed an interest in acquiring the original art. I believe I provided her the artist’s email address, though I’m uncertain what came of this.
Next up we have “Sultana Lena’s Gift” by Shweta Narayan, another of my slush survivors. This is a rare steampunk story in the magazine, only our second and final by my count. As I’m not the biggest steampunk fan (said the guy who is putting the final polish on his steampunk novel), I find it ironic that of the more than 600 stories we published, I should discover one of the two stories we published in this vein. In this piece, a young shah struggles with whether to go to war and he relies on the advice of his clockwork bird. Most of the bird’s advice comes through the form of a story, wherein we meet Sultana Lena, who can grant wishes to any boy or man before her as long as it did not touch her in any way. Needless to say, this sort of power leads to some unexpected results. Art to this one was provided by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law, which marks her fifth illustration in the magazine. Interesting side note about the artwork in this one: when Warren Lapine bought the magazine, this story was stuck in transition. I had plucked it from the slush during the days of Sovereign Media as publisher and passed it along to Shawna for further consideration. It languished there for some time along with many other stories while Warren was in negotiations with Sovereign Media, and further months passed before we had need of enough new fiction that Shawna could do a buying run. At some point during this time, Warren put me in charge of overseeing the magazine’s artwork. Once he did, the very first thought I had was that if Shawna purchased “Sultana Lena’s Gift,” I wanted Stephanie Pui-Mun Law to illustrate it. I didn’t know Stephanie at the time, but I had seen a number of her earlier illustrations in the magazine, and I was seized by this instant association between her artwork and the way I envisioned the story. So when Shawna purchased this piece, when it came time to find an illustrator, I wasted no time contacting Stephanie. I didn’t even have a backup plan-I was convinced in my gut that this pairing was meant to happen. Thankfully, Stephanie’s schedule agreed with my gut. And I’m happy to add that her illustration pretty much matched up with how I envisioned she would tackle the imagery. This initial association between Shweta’s work and Stephanie’s skills created the template for how I would go about my story/artist pairings going forward. I’m a fairly visual reader, so when looking for an artist for a particular piece, I tried to find someone who illustrations were reminiscent of the imagery in my head. Of course, not all stories provide a lot of imagery, so in these cases I relied more heavily on matching up the feel of the story with the feel of the artwork.
Then we have “The Well of Forgetting” by Meredith Simmons. This was another story that got caught in transition hell after the magazine’s closure, and I remember that when Shawna decided she wanted to purchase it, for whatever reason we had a devil of a time getting in touch with the author. We were just about ready to give this story up for lost when we finally tracked her down. As to the story itself, this one is a high fantasy. In it, we are introduced to the Well of Forgetting, a place where people go to forget their darkest dreams, memories, thoughts, etc. Enter Hepta, a young girl who is plagued by far darker thoughts than anyone her age has a right to be. When her mind is purged, she is forced to return again several years later. This pattern repeats itself several times until it’s discovered that she’s a living well, a person able to perform the same function as the Well of Forgetting. She has been unknowingly absorbing the darkness of her fellow villagers. She is sold into a life of prostitution, but despite her beauty her true value is her function as a living well. Over time, so much absorption of others’ darknesses begins to take its toll on her. But she is able to use this very thing to gain her freedom, for in absorbing such darkness, she is also learning people’s darkest secrets. Art to this one was provided by Carol Heyer, which marks her tenth illustration in the magazine.
After this we have “The Hearts of Men” by T.L. Morganfield, another one of my slush survivors. This one is swords & sixguns piece that delves into Aztec mythology. The heyday of the Aztec empire is long over, and America is in full expansionist mode during its Wild West period, as the clues dropped by the author seem to indicate this piece takes place not long after the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848. In this piece, the Aztec god Huitizilopatchli-also referred to as the Blue Hummingbird of the South-is reborn to continue his endless battle with his sister, Coyolxauhqui, who has once again stolen the moon. With the aid of a young Aztec boy, he must seek out his sister and stop her, all the while fighting his mounting desire to feast on the boy’s heart, for human hearts are the only thing that can sate his otherwise bottomless hunger. I worked with T.L. on a revision before passing this one along, and while we worked rather well together, it’s safe to say that it was an unusual experience for both of us. While reading this, I found myself reminded of my own piece published in Interzone a few years earlier, “Feelings of the Flesh.” By no means did I think that T.L. was in any way imitating my story-the world-building and themes were entirely from my own, as were the characters. But every so often in the plot (which was also pretty different from my piece), the characters did something that made me think of my own piece. It was all surface stuff, but I couldn’t shake this feeling. So anyway, while I enjoyed the piece, I thought it could benefit from a few revisions. So I reached out to T.L. and asked her if she would be amenable to this. Naturally, she was. (I say naturally because we had actually worked on a revision to a previous submission of hers to the magazine, called “Morning Star Falling,” and the editorial process here also went very smoothly. Shawna almost bought that one …and I’ll also add that T.L. has subsequently published a novel called The Bone Flower Throne that incorporates aspects of this story). Since we knew each other a little bit already from the last time we worked together, I couldn’t help but remark to her that her story reminded me a little bit of my own. T.L. confessed to me that when she’d read my story in Interzone, she had also noticed some of these surface similarities, and that it actually made her hold off on submitting this particular piece to Realms of Fantasy. I can understand her thinking here, as she realized her story would have to go through me first, which would be …for lack of a better word, I’ll say weird. Regardless, at some point she decided to submit to us anyway, and I’m obviously glad she did, as it led to a story for the magazine, it led to T.L.’s first pro sale, and it led to a friendly acquaintaince becoming a friend. As to the revisions I requested, I was very conscious of trying to remain as objective as possible given the perceived similarities. This was T.L.’s story, not mine, so I wanted her to realize her vision of this story without my own piece coming into play. Thankfully, none of the revisions I requested concerned any parts of the story that shared any similarities with my own piece, but I remember reading over my notes to her quite a number of times before passing them along, because I wanted to remain absolutely certain I maintained my objectivity. I even explained all this to Shawna, because I wanted her to let me know if anything seemed off thanks to my editorial tinkering. But I’m glad to say all was well in the end. Artwork to this one was provided by Kurt Huggins and Zelda Devon, which marks their third illustration in the magazine. This illustration was another piece that was inherited from Sovereign Media. It was also selected for inclusion in the Editorial section of Spectrum 17: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art.
Finally we have “Fallen” by Bruce Holland Rogers, which marks his twelfth story in the magazine. This one is a rather short piece about giant angels falling from the sky, and the lengths to which people are going to eat their flesh when it’s discovered that doing so is a form of luck. Art to this one was provided by the aforementioned Marc Roland and Alan M. Clark. For Alan, it marks his second illustration in the magazine. The interesting story I promised about this illustration is the following: this artwork was actually submitted to the magazine with the story. Since Bruce was a client of Shawna’s literary agency, he submitted the story directly to Shawna, along with the artwork, so Shawna saw both pieces before I did. So she decided to purchase the story, at which point she passed along the story and accompanying artwork to me, explaining that she already planned on taking the story and thought we should take the artwork as well. The artwork struck me as pretty gorgeous, but to be sure that I wanted it I read the story in question. Afterward, accepting the artwork was a no-brainer. During my six and a half years with the magazine, this marks the only time a story and illustration were submitted in conjunction to the magazine with both leading to an acceptance. It’s possible this had happened earlier in the magazine’s run, though you’d have to ask Shawna.
So that wraps up this issue. And my favorite story? We have a tie between “The Well of Forgetting” by Meredith Simmons and “The Hearts of Men” by T.L. Morganfield. And my favorite artwork? Stephanie Pui-Mun Law’s illustration to “Sultana Lena’s Gift.”
Next time I’ll dive into the August 2010 issue. Until then …