Posted by Nicky Drayden on Apr 30, 2010 in
Reviews Author Website: http://www.alexdallymacfarlane.com
Published by: Fantasy Magazine, March 2010
Photo by Paula Ouder, courtesy LSGCP Creative Commons
The Story:
A British newspaper columnist named Sasha travels across the country, hoping to snag an interesting story on a curious city whose entire industry revolves around lobster. Tourists flock in droves during the summer, delighting in succulent whole lobster, curried lobster, lobster pasta, grilled, on a bun, or with veggies. The recipes seem endless, but the summer is not. No one knows what goes on in the city in the winter months, when the tourists leave and the city’s gates shut behind them.
The Craft: World Building
SPOILERS
The classic fish out of water (lobster out of water?) point of view is a great way to introduce the details of a world without being artificial. We get to see The City of Lobster through Sasha’s eyes and experience its wonders from a fresh perspective. Sasha arrives and takes the city in, smells the salt air, walks along the seafront, sees a woman dressed as a lobster welcoming people back to the city. It’s unremarkable to Sasha in the beginning, not quite living up to her expectations of this wonderfully weird place. But as she settles in, she learns more about the city’s history and legends, like how during a festival that happens once every five years, the entire city dresses up like lobsters. There’s also a tale of a lobster-maid — half lobster, half woman — who leaves her home in the sea on an occasion so rare, it won’t happen twice in any person’s lifetime. Legends and history are not only interesting tidbits for the reader, but also help bring the city to life, cementing it in a timeline that exists beyond the story itself.
After a conversation with the woman dressed as a lobster, Sasha begins to wonder about how the city’s inhabitants live after the tourists have gone. She herself grows tired of eating lobster and seeks out other meats: chicken, crab, mussel. Unfortunately, one of those delectable morsels sends her stomach churning, making her so ill she requires hospitalization. The city’s gates close while she’s still hooked up to IVs. When she’s well enough to venture out, she sees that all traces of lobster have been scrubbed from the town. Sasha stumbles upon a festival on Anchorage Street with people dressed in all manners of costume, not a single one of them a lobster.
Sasha faces a delima on how to present her article. Clearly these people value their privacy, keeping their lives outside of tourist season a secret. For those summer months, everything goes into maintaining that facade so that they have the resources to be themselves for the rest of the year. But if she doesn’t report all that she’s learned, her article will be nothing more than a half-truth. The city wears two skins, Sasha decides, leaving vague hints in her article for those who dare to see them, and perhaps seek the truth for themselves. And as readers, we’ve seen a glimspe of these two skins and the mysteries that live between them — opposite sides of a coin, but both rich and full of delicious details.
Tags: Fantasy Mag, world building
Posted by Nicky Drayden on Mar 27, 2010 in
Reviews Published by: Fantasy Magazine, March 22, 2010
Photo by Peasap Creative Commons
The Story:
Molimus, a great giant so broad it takes four men’s shirts stitched together to clothe him, lives under a bridge collecting flotsam for trade. From his vantage, he witnesses the assassinations of marvelous, colorful animals, beaten to death by the sticks and swords of children. Molimus can’t believe how cruel these children are, taking pleasure in the kill, then plundering the prizes that tumble out of the animals’ carcasses — prizes like caramels and toy rings.
When Molimus finds a vibrant little horse that had somehow lived through a savage beating, he decides to nurture it back to health. Though it’s full of holes, the horse remains in good cheer, but beyond bandaging up the wounds, Molimus knows nothing of how to give life back to the horse. So he sets out to see the White Ma’at, an old, old woman who knows all and sees most.
The Craft: Character Arcs
SPOILERS
In the first part of the story, Molimus’s character comes off as gentle and compassionate, yet spiteful. Despite his size and strength, his occupation is one of quiet and patience, sifting through the flotsam passing under his bridge for objects of value to barter. Molimus has a strong sense of morality, and feels strongly about the atrocities the children bring upon such magnificent creatures. He opens his heart up to one such creature, a horse struggling for survival, and takes it upon himself to nurse his Gleeful Horse back to health.
Molimus’s compassion and spite are shown again later in the story when he visits the White Ma’at. Even though she tells Molimus that the children are not to blame, for they do not see the animals as living as they do, Molimus hangs on to his hatred of the children for their vile acts. However, he’s sensitive enough to realize that something is troubling the White Ma’at, and he knows that she must be tired of the prison she finds herself in, trapped in her home by Prince November. Molimus feels for her, and he wants to save the Gleeful Horse, so he makes a deal with the White Ma’at that will help them both.
Molimus is tasked with filling the Gleeful Horse with treasure to restore its life, but the White Ma’at tells him that it’s not the trinkets that spill from the treasure animals’ wounds that he must find. He needs to collect starlike pieces, which are only found in living things, most abundantly in children. Molimus, who’s been full of compassion and virtue up until now, starts to feel something else — shame. The shame, now tangible in Molimus’s throat, gets coughed up, and once he’s rid of it, he’s able to go on his journey. He steals life from children and splits it between the White Ma’at so she can build power to escape Prince November, and his Gleeful Horse which devours the life quickly, requiring Molimus to harvest more and more.
While Molimus’s intentions are good, he goes from a gentle giant to a monster, and in the grand pursuit of saving one life, he’s forced to take the lives of countless others. Maybe Molimus beleived deep down that the children were innocent of their cruelty. Maybe that’s why he had felt qualms about the deal he made with the White Ma’at. The possiblities are fun to think about, and I like that the truth is not explicity spelled out. I enjoyed sharing Molimus’s journey with him, though I’m grateful I could do so without sharing his fate.
Tags: character arcs, fantasy, Fantasy Mag, horses, piñata
Posted by Nicky Drayden on Mar 13, 2010 in
Reviews Published by: Fantasy Magazine, March 1, 2010
The Story:
In Bearing Fruit, a sixteen-year-old girl bathing in a river near her home finds herself smitten with a mango bobbing in the current. By the time it’s had its way with her, the poor girl finds herself suddenly with child. Of course no one believes her story, and she can barely believe it herself. She doesn’t know much about how babies are made, but she’s pretty sure that fruit isn’t involved. Even though her closest cousins vouch for her chastity, the girl is still subtly shunned by her family and neighbors, so she sets forth on a journey upstream to find the father of her unborn child.
The Craft: Character Arcs
SPOILERS
If there’s one thing that will change a young woman, it’s getting knocked up by a frisky piece of fruit. Not only is her body going through a rapid change, but so are her relationships, her perceived value to her village, and her own self-esteem. At the beginning of the story, she’s innocent, virtuous, and carefree. Once the prettiest girl in the village, the pregnant girl finds that her prospects have dwindled, and the boy cousins who once safeguarded her virtue are now given more useful tasks, such as building a shelter for the family’s livestock.
It’s at this point that our young heroine departs from her initial character setup, no longer so innocent, virtuous, or carefree…at least in the eyes of her family. They’re relieved to be rid of her when she announces that she intends to set out on a perilous journey into the wild to find the father of her unborn child. With the company of her closest girl cousins, and armed only with sticks and their sharp tongues, they travel upstream not knowing what to expect. She’s quick to accuse the first soul they happen upon: a young boy attending a mango tree for an old widow. It turns out that he’s not the culprit, and though he does offer to escort one of the weary girl cousins home under suspicious pretenses, our heroine has learned she is no longer fit to judge other people’s choices.
Her physical changes quickly escalate after a brief encounter with a handsome thief using the trunk of a mango tree to stash his stolen goods. As our heroine makes her way further up the now tumultuous river, her pregnant belly weighs heavily upon her and she’s cursed with morning sickness as well. She comes upon an old man tending a mango tree, though our heroine is too disgusted with mankind to afford him any sort of respect. She discovers that indeed this man knows how her pregnancy came to be — that the mango was set forth on a journey to find his shy son a wife. Swept up in a lavish lifestyle, our again fair maiden has the opportunity to reclaim her respectability, though at the cost of her self-respect. The son never receives the tongue lashing she’d been saving for him, and though the life he offers her is not a bad one by any means, her thoughts circle back to that handsome thief and the life she might have had with him.
Bearing Fruit is a great, quirky tale with a bittersweet character arc. Going from innocence, to driven by fierce resentment, to settling for a life that isn”t her choice but is good enough. If she hadn’t found her drive, she would have remained at home, shunned. If she hadn’t decided to barter her self-respect for stability and comfort, she would have remained poor. But through her changes, she reaches an ending she can live with, even though it’s not her happily-ever-after that fair maidens are often promised.
Tags: character arcs, fantasy, Fantasy Mag, folk tale, mangos, must read, pregnancy, second person
