Spec Fic Recs From June

Again late, but this time for obvious reasons. I was at the beach! Thanks to all my well wishers– it was indeed a lovely little weekend with the family (apart from the traffic and the sunburn inherent in going to Virginia Beach and being extremely white, respectively). But what are traffic and sunburn when you get to spend time on the beach reading Neal Stephenson? (It’s Extreme Reading, yet another Thing White People Like!) Yes, I actually took some time off my non-fiction binge to try and wrap up the Baroque Cycle. Not there yet, but it won’t be too long now…

Well, it might. Lots of research reading going on this month and last, because as anyone who’s been here recently will know, I’m an idiot who can’t stop writing historical… er, dark fantasy. Or whatever the hell it is I keep turning out. Anyhow, that’s what I’m blaming for my lack of reading things online this month. Since I got bored with all the games I own– hey, I can’t be writing or reading all the time, and god I hate TV– I started playing a certain MMORPG again, and it’s had me craving delicious fantasy. So that’s what we’re about today.

Rec #1: Another End of the Empire by Tim Pratt, from Strange Horizons last month. Yeah, you know that name– it’s the guy with a Hugo under his belt. This takes all the typical fantasy tropes of the Dark Lord and does truly funny things with them. If you’ve read a lot of fantasy in your life, this is for you. Well, even if you haven’t, it might be, since you’ve surely seen Conan and/or Lord of the Rings.

And if you haven’t, please don’t tell me. It would shake my already diminished faith in humanity too much. I’m too fragile to take it!

And it’s not just clever and funny, it’s an excellently written, genuinely good story– complete with characters that’ll make you smile. I love fantasy that takes these stereotypical elements and turns them upside down, or uses them to make something new and entertaining… but still kind of acknowledges them for what they are. Yeah, there’s irony, but there’s also celebration.

Says the girl with a tattoo in Elvish– Quenya, before you ask– that is not intended to be the least bit ironic. Ahem.

Rec #2: Iron Boots by Autumn Canter from the last Reflection’s Edge. I swear, I love that ‘zine (and not just because they published me once, hush!)– their literary/fantastic aesthetic is always so dreamy and fairly tale, but not without a certain edginess that pushes it just a little further. If you haven’t been in a while, check it out; they’ve had a recent redesign and it looks rad.

Sorry about the alliteration. It was unfortunate, but unintentional.

This story is definitely a fairy tale, but in a very comic book way. Changelings, demons, and it has almost a Runaways feeling to it. The beginning hooked me with the characters and their weird powers and provenances, and it carried right through to the end. The storytelling is straightforward in the best possible way; she takes the time to give those little details that cast the right spell without overdoing it like some who go for a fairy tale feeling. It’s a strange line to walk, writing this of otherworldly fiction, and I think this is a shining example. Plus, fun. Loads and loads of fun.

I planned to leave it at that this time around since, like I said, it’s been a month of much research and little pleasure reading for me. However, I really need to point to Catherine J. Gardner’s contest, celebrating the publication of the truly lovely Trench Foot at Fantasy Magazine today. (And I do mean lovely. I’m not using the word lightly, y’all.) I don’t know why I’m telling you this, frankly, because the more people who enter the crappier my chances are of winning Awesome Pirate Booty, and that should make me a sad panda…

But it doesn’t. It’s that good!

What’d I miss last month?

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