Amal El-Mohtar, “The Truth About Owls.” Strange Horizons, January 26, 2015 (originally published in Alisa Krasnostein and Julia Rios (eds.), Kaleidoscope, Twelfth Planet Press, 2014).
A trio of fantasy stories this time, the first being about a Lebanese girl transplanted to Scotland, who becomes fascinated with owls, The Mabinogion and the Welsh language. Anisa has a secret, a power she can unleash when she’s angry with somebody, a power that can hurt and harm them, a power that makes no distinction in whom it hurts.
It’s the sort of magical thinking we’ve all sometimes have worried about, that if you’re angry at somebody you love and in the heat of your anger, you curse them one way or another, that if something bad them happens to them, it’s your fault. For Anisa this seems to be reality, rather than guilty feelings, all bound up with being a stranger in a strange land because of her curse being able to win some grudging acceptance or at least wariness from her class mates. Whether or not the magic is real here isn’t the point; that Anisa believes it to be is.
A very humane story and the resolution has all the feels.
Ruthanna Emrys, “The Litany of Earth.” Tor.com, May 14, 2014.
This is a story I’ve read before and put on my mental shortlist for the Hugos. It’s still there.
There’s been an ongoing controversy/debate about Lovecraft, his place in horror/fantasy and the desirability for a major fantasy award to be named after a notoriously racist writer. It’s not just that he held disgusting opinions in real life, but that his racist attitudes form the core of his horror fiction, with all its degenerated and inherently evil races of subhumans plotting to bring about the end of the world. This story is an answer to this racism, by imaging how the people of Innsmouth would’ve been treated in the real world of Japanese-American internment camps, Jim Crow laws and the Trail of Tears.
K. M. Ferebee, “The Earth and Everything Under.” Shimmer #19, 2014.
A slice of life story of a witch dealing with her grief at the death of her husband, in a world where witchcraft can get you killed, who attempts to contact her from beyond the grave. A quiet story, told with little drama, set in some part of what looks to me the American countryside, sometime in the past century. As such it fits in perfectly with that whole tradition of matter of fact American fantasy, where it’s rooted both in the traditions that European settlers took with them from their home countries and the day to day life of living in a new country.
I hadn’t heard about K. M. Ferebee before, but based on this, she’s an author I need to find more of.
MC
February 11, 2015 at 10:25 pmThese were all good stories, but I really, really liked “The Earth and Everything Under.” The imagery was just too great and the language so careful. So I googled the author to look for more stories, and I was floored when I found out she played violin in the band Beirut! I like them so much that I’ve seem them play live twice, though I’m afraid that even with pictures I wouldn’t recognize anyone but the singer. I haven’t read it yet, but I also found her MFA thesis online–it’s a collection of ten stories, including the one here. I have modest expectations for anything submitted as schoolwork, but I’m looking forward to more from this author regardless. What an astonishing career already for someone so young.
Cat
February 13, 2015 at 10:43 pmI really liked “The Litany Of Earth” too. I obviously need to check these other short stories out–thank you for posting this.