This is all a long winded way of saying there wasn't a lot of competition for Speculiction's novel and anthology/collection of the year. I read the “best” novel early in the year, and if it wasn't for bormgans, I wouldn't even have a “best” anthology/collection. <puff-puff> Let's blow the dust off the velvet curtain and see what they are.
The Fantasy Writer's Assistant and Other Stories by Jeffrey Ford – Despite being Jeff Ford's debut collection, the stories collected here show no sign of 'an up and coming writer'. Ford appears to be one of the few who emerged from the cocoon with butterfly wings. As with most Ford collections, there are a few highly memorable stories worth a read, with the surrounding material hanging close. “Creation”, the title story, “The Delicate”, and “At Reparata” are all proper good, with “Creation” being one of the nest I've ever read. If you haven't read Ford, this is as good a place as any to discover he is one of the absolute best short story writers of our time.
<sound of keys clattering>
Answer: no. The end. You can go enjoy a beer at your friendly local something2. Oh, more of a response needed? Ok, here goes...
The title story, “Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes”, is a tight, dynamic specimen of writing you find so little of these days. Perhaps more fantastical vision than proper story, Maggie nevertheless tells of a man beguiled by a slot machine in Vegas. Ellison's superb voice provides the meat, while the manner in which the man is beguiled provides the spice. “Kiss of Fire” is an overt confirmation of mortality in the face of life extending technology. Ellison mixes his devices a touch (aliens, extraterrestrialism, angels, etc.), but the imagery, particularly that in the final few pages, offers a nice touch. One of several pieces of flash fiction in the collection, “Fever” is a spot of forgettable flash fiction that tells what happened next to Icarus.
Things kick off with “Grownups”, a story capturing the worldview of pre-teens, often in subtly uncomfortable fashion. Peter Pan-adjacent (perhaps adjacent to adjacent), it tells of a boy growing up in the most bizarre, creepy social fashion, but is at heart looking at the awkwardness, dynamism, and occasional absurdity of becoming an adult. Magic realist in substance, Macleod presents the strangeness as quotidian. The tale builds to a bittersweet ending that hangs and hangs for its relatability, making for a difficult story to forget.
in true 'greatest hits' fashion (sorry, can't avoid the cynicism), Nowhere kicks off with one of Macleod’s most well-reviewed shorts, “The Chop Girl”. It is, rightfully, also one of his best. “The Chop Girl” captures a narrative voice and doesn’t let go in telling the exact opposite of a rabbit’s foot: a British WWII woman who seems to be the downfall of every pilot and airman she comes in contact with. She meet her match, however, a lucky pilot named Walt Williams (no relation to the poet, seemingly) and the fate of the meta-physical world is tested. From WWII to the vague future, “The Perfect Stranger” is an odd story not easy to get your head precisely around until you realize there are two different timelines overlapping the same location. Part trauma, part tragedy, and a polarized dystopia/utopia, it features the relationship troubles of a man and a woman in a single nutshell of time. The reader's like/dislike of the story will likely hinge on how well they grasp the structure rather than the content, which, is relatably human.
His Master's Voice is the memoirs of a fictional American mathematician, Peter Hogarth. Top of his class with Nobel potential, he is one of a handful of experts, natural to hard to social sciences, who are called in to examine, analyze, and hypothesize on an extraterrestrial signal intercepted from space. The group of experts come up with all manner of interpretations of the message, absurd to logical, in coming up with humanity's answer to the stars. But is it enough?
Vulkan Lives is told through two storylines which alternate back and forth in the narrative. One is the time pre-Istvann V, the time when Horus' rebellion was unknown to the wider universe and all the primarchs and legions still think of themselves as brothers. The other is directly after the events of Istvann V, the time of the disappearance of Vulkan, primarch of the Salamanders. Thought dead by what remains of his Legion, he is, in fact, in the captivity of Konrad Curze, primarch of the Night Lords. A Groundhog's Day scenario playing out, Curze tortures Vulkan through death and back again, that is, until the cycle breaks. What breaks is of interest.
Fear to Tread opens on an explosive, pre-Heresy moment. Horus and the Lunar Wolves storm the battlefield against a juggernaut of a foe that would seek to subjugate humanity (ironically in not so different a way than the Emperor). The battle more difficult than anticipated, the Blood Angels, led by their primarch Sanguinius, swoop onto the battlefield, swaying things distinctly in the Legion's favor. In the aftermath of the battle it's revealed some of the Blood Angels are suffering from a peculiar blood sickness, a sickness that causes a frenzied madness to overtake those afflicted and become aggressive and malevolent toward anyone, friend or foe. Seeming to want to help Sanguinius with his problem, Horus sends the Blood Angels to a distant planet to fight, promising them the solution to their blood problem lies in wait there. Trouble is, Horus has more planned for the Blood Angels than just a healing mission.
The Primarchs consists of four novellas, and four novellas only. Each focuses on one of the titular demi-gods. For those counting, that's four of the eighteen known primarchs. The first is ”The Reflection Crack'd” by Graham McNeill. The story follows a swordsman named Lucius of the Emperor's Children as he begins to suspect Fulgrim's demonic possession. Suspicion converting to vested interest, he begins tailing Fulgrim in his private life to learn the truth. Lucius does discover the truth, but in hindsight perhaps would rather have not... McNeill's strong writing is (mostly) on display, but that cannot rescue this tale from the redundancy of Angel Exterminatus. A repeated concept, the novella is really only for major fans of Fulgrim and the Emperor Children's storyline.
Armageddon Rag channels 60s and 70s arena rock in fantastika fashion. Think Black Sabbath with a spark of the occult. It's told through the eyes of Sandy Blair, a former journalist at a small-time version of Rolling Stone called the Hedgehog. It's now the 80s and Blair is writing novels rather than articles. He Blair gets a call in the opening pages from his former editor at Hedgehog with a gig offer. A famous music promoter from one of the 60s biggest bands, The Nazgul, has been murdered in a remote Maine cabin and the editor wants Blair back on the payroll to cover it. Mystery, as they say, ensues (with a big splash of rock-n-roll).
Drood centers on the (late) lives of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. But where the story is told through Collins' eyes, it is Dickens, and Dickens' inner demons (or maybe not?), which are the story's focus. The novel begins after Dickens survived the Staplehurst Rail incident. A near-death experience, Dickens half-consciously wanders the wreckage of his train, lending survivors aid and lamenting the dead. At one point Dickens is approached by a man who identifies himself as Edwin Drood. Cloaked, shadowy, and with slits for a nose, he makes a distinct impression on Dickens, such an impression in fact, that Holmes—I mean, Dickens—goes looking for the mysterious figure in the days which follow the train crash. Devolving into an obsession, Dickens, accompanied by his close friend Wilkie Collins, start digging deeper and deeper into the identity and intentions of one Edwin Drood.
Androne is the story of Paxton Vare. An everyday Joe, he spends his time as a mechanic, repairing ground-based war drones (what the military calls landrones) and preparing to be a father. Short of experienced operators, however, the military calls Paxton up to perform a month-long shift as an androne pilot. Bipedal mechwarriors operated virtually, Paxton straps his arms and feet into the control booth of an older model called the Spartan. The world is still reeling from an event dubbed the Ninety-Nine, a mysterious phenomenon which wiped out 36% of the world's military infrastructure and instantaneously destroyed twenty-seven of the world's major cities. Everyone knows the source of the destruction is not aliens or AI and assume it must be have been done by an invisible enemy. In these ambiguous times Paxton is given strict parameters for his androne's desert patrol route. But things start to fall apart when a fellow operator gives him a metal marble that bypasses security protocols; Paxton can now take the Spartan anywhere. But where? The answer changes his and humanity's lives forever.
Slay the Spire is a card game that takes the idea of a standard deckbuilding game and adds to it the possibilities available only in digital format. Think Hearthstone, but in a single-player, campaign-based experience. In each campaign, players start with a basic deck of cards. It features a few attacks, a few blocks, and a couple cards with special powers. The campaign starts at the first level of a spire, with each level of the spire featuring enemy encounters, from garden varieties to elites to bosses. In an encounter, players use their cards to to reduce the enemy's hit points to zero while preserving as much of their own hit points as they can. Beating a level results in the possibility of adding a new card to your deck, as well as potions and other buffs, and thus potentially having a stronger deck to fight enemies. On their path up the spire, players will likewise encounter merchants and treasure chests that can grant powerful relics and allow players to refine their decks. The overall campaign is divided into three acts, with a boss waiting at the end of each act. Defeat all three bosses and you win. Sounds easy, right? Right....
Dracula is the story of, unsurprisingly, Count Dracula. But what may be surprising is the fact the famous vampire is rarely presented from his point of view. Stoker chooses to tell the vampire's tale through the eyes of those around him, starting with a London solicitor named Jonthan Harker who, in the opening pages, takes an overland journey to the mountains of Romania to handle paperwork for one Count Dracula who is in the process of purchasing real estate in England. Things steadily twisting surreal for Harker, he is forced to escape, only to discover that the fanged Count has followed him to London.
Horus' character was the focus of the first three HH novels. But the novels since have significantly spread out, showing how wider events in the galaxy both set the conditions for his rebellion as well as inflamed it. Vengeful Spirit is a return to Horus as main character. It is a check-in to see how things are going for the rebel and, in video game terms, give him an upgrade.
Betrayer is a novel set in the midst of the massive battle between the Ultramarines and Word Bearers after the events of Know No Fear. Lorgar asks the World Eaters for assistance subduing the Ultramarine world of Armatura, and Angron, battle axes in hand and blood in his eyes, gladly accepts. Behind the scenes, Argel Tal, Erebrus, and other Chaos-infected Word Bearers play games with the knowledge they've gained from the Warp, all the while while Ultramarine ship captains look to position the fleet to absorb the Word Bearer and World Eater's attack. It's a savage fight, both between enemies and among supposed allies, and by the end major characters have fallen and a new phase in Horus' rebellion has been reached.
In Redline, as with most expandable card games, two players build decks prior to play and sit down for a duel. Decks are 60 cards in size and are comprised of cards a player would expect to find in such a game: efreets (mechwarriors), upgrades (cannons, lasers, missiles, etc.), resources, and tactics (event cards for one-time effects). Spread out between the players is the 'redline': five missions drawn randomly from a deck of twenty. Each is unique, with its own capture value and bonus effect, meaning every game is different. The player's goal is to control all five missions, but they can also win by razing their opponent's HQ to zero (eliminating all cards in their deck).
Aztec Century is set in what was Evan's present day (early 90s), but with a major twist. Centuries ago Cortez was unable to subdue the Aztecs, and in the time since they have evolved to become an aggressive, global power. Occupying all of South and Central America and a lot of North America, the kingdom of Mexica, as they call themselves, sets its sights on Europe at the outset of Aztec Century. Taking England and Wales quickly, the Mexica force the British royal family to flee, including Princess Catherine. Despite being a woman with a backbone, she finds herself hiding out for months in a Welsh cottage, together with her sister, husband, and servants. But when the Aztecs learn their location and send gunships, Katherine is forced to flee, again. Trouble is, she doesn't get far.
The stories bookending Wounds are its highest quality content as well as inter-related. The left bookend is “The Atlas of Hell”, a bloody, dark, Weird tale of the occult in the back alleys and bayous of New Orleans. About a rare book dealer who dabbles in old magick, his business dealings find him in over his head as a powerful buyer wants one of his artifacts returned. A trip to the deep swamp needed, things twist, then twist again. Savage, unflinching, and chilling in its skulls, candles, and encounters with the inexplicable, it nicely tightropes the fence between existential and body horror.
If the Horus Heresy is a tree, then Angel Exterminatus is a Fulgrim branch, with leaves of Emperor's Children, the Iron Warriors, Salamanders, Raven Guard, and Iron Hands. Set after the events of Fulgrim, it sees the narcissistic leader of the Emperor's Children approach Peturabo of the Iron Warriors looking for help locating an ancient weapon of immense power. The weapon located in a seething riot of Chaos in space, Peturabo agrees to help but keeps to himself his own secret plans for the weapon. Meanwhile, an assassin from the Raven Guard tracks Fulgrim, looking for an opportunity to avenge the death of his primarch.
There are only five stories in Lovedeath, but all are at least novelette-length, a couple being novellas, and one practically a novel. More importantly, each is sharp, distinct, and with a strong eye to character and story. The collection kicks off with a downer of a tale written in Simmons' smooth, effervescent voice. “Entropy's Bed at Midnight” tells of an insurance adjuster who has suffered a little more fate than the average person. From Vietnam to parenthood, the exigencies of life have dogged him, giving him a cynical view of the world. Save for one fine moment.
Starting off the collection is one of Marusek's best received, and indeed best pieces of short fiction, “The Wedding Album.” A fractured narrative for a fractured reality, it is the story of Ann and Benjamin, ostensibly a newly married couple. Set in the late 23rd century, the couple have been making virtual copies of themselves at various points in their lives, and now that they are married, have agreed to make the copies available to one another. The variety of virtual selves covering a span of evolved technology, some pass sentience tests while others do not, and each is only half-certain of the difference between the virtual world they live in and the actual happenings in the original’s life since the last time they were copied or reset. A splintered view of life the result, Ann and Benjamin’s personal lives collide in virtual reality to the point their lives in reality are affected. Perception of identity and self-identity fractured enough as it is, the story is brilliant commentary on personality and identity in the digital age. (Longer review here.) A companion piece to “The Wedding Album” found in this collection is “A Boy in Cathyland”. An age-old human story about suppression (regardless by tech or something else), it is a brief tale but packs a proportional punch.
Ocean's Eleven with cultists and something Eldritch waiting to be stolen from the casino's vault, “Fortune & Folly” is a rollicking, sophisticated bit of heist fun. As investigators, players are tasked with staking out the casino in part 1 of the scenario, trying to get as many advantages as possible, then executing the heist in part 2. Gambling an integral part of gameplay, players will be spinning the roulette wheel, hedging bets at the baccarat table, and playing poker on their way to stealing the strange Wellspring of Life artifact.
Mark of Calth kicks off with the origin story “The Shards of Erebus” by Guy Haley. Telling how the eight Chaos daggers came into being, it is a glimpse into the evil machinations or Erebus, and an explanation how Cor Phaeron escaped the end of Know No Fear. On top of being a solid opening, it likewise frames the anthology, specifically the role said daggers have to play in several of the stories which follow. Second story in the anthology is not only the best piece of Warhammer short fiction I have read (admittedly a relatively short list), it is also begging to be a movie. “Calth That Was” by Graham McNeil is a sub-layer of Know No Fear. Where Know No Fear focuses on the fight on Calth's surface and in its atmosphere, “Calth That Was” occurs underground. It is centered on Ventanus and his defense of the underground arcologies where the citizens of Calth have migrated due to the Word Bearer's attack, and runs an excellent gamut of scenes as the Word Bearers try one last trick up their sleeve to once and for all wipe out the planet. It ends on a massive, silent bang that will have the reader—at least this reader—exhaling hard. While a lengthy story (half a novel), it presonifies the crunchiness of what Warhammer and Horus Heresy have to offer. Twisty, turny, climactic, great HH stuff.
The collection kicks off with a nicely voiced story which ends on a note that reminds the reader this is old school sci-fi (or enhances the story, depending on expectations). “You Triflin' Skunk!” is an excellent mood piece built on bayou heebie jeebies of the uncanny variety. It tells of a scrappy loner and her son living in a swamp as a storm sweeps over their rickety home. Prior life choices (corn squeezin's!) come back—not to haunt the woman, but to challenge her. “The Will” is a heart-touching tale about a boy named Kenny with an illness doctors cannot cure. In love with a tv super hero named Captain Chronos, Kenny slowly becomes more obsessed with a cure existing in the future, and despite his parents protestations, is determined to get there. The ending rips your heart out with the claws of hope.
Gaze Long into the Abyss tells of the cross-country journey taken by an old man and boy to challenge a mysterious evil. Set in an apocalyptic setting swathed in darkness, the two's foot quest has eyes in the shadows, strange noises, and an air of cosmic evil hanging over it. Their interaction full of contention, the pair attempt to come to terms with one another and their histories as they walk. It all leads to a black place where nothing is certain.
Picking up directly where Glassing the Orgachine left off, Consider Pipnonia opens with the world in uproar. The “little nudge” having failed, the rogue planetoid is still on a collision course with Earth. People are fleeing the lower 48 for Alaska, and local town leaders are taking the opportunity to implement new rules, rules that are harshly authoritarian resulting in civil bloodshed. The strange alien presence telling Jace he needs to go on an out-of-body trip to the planetoid to change its course, he recruits Deut Prophecy, and hand in hand in the pair take a trip into the unknown to try to save the world from Jace's bedroom.
A cooperative game for 1-4 players, Earthborne Rangers uses the base model of almost all expandable card games (deckbuilding, resource management, heroes, events, upgrades, etc.) but injects its own identity in a few key ways. First is the emphasis on storytelling. Where Lord of the Rings and Marvel Champions are primarily about using the game's mechanisms in effective and intelligent fashion, Earthborne Rangers gives players open-world choices for the direction in which they want to take the game/story. Like Choose Your Own Adventure, each round in the game is a day in which players encounter various beings, features, and obstacles as they try to complete main and side missions. Yes, Arkham Horror is also a narrative-based cooperative card game, but Earthborne provides more of an open world feel. It also places more emphasis on exploration and discovery.
The architects of Horus Heresy fiction have done their best to change up the formula with each book so that the series does not devolve into repetitive bolter porn. Know No Fear follows the lead and changes things up by offering a book length battle. A battle from beginning to end, it tells of the destruction of the planet Calth. On top of this, Abnett writes in the present tense to give a sense of urgency and action to the scenes. And further still, the narrative changes point of view many, many times, giving readers a massive, widescreen view to the downfall of Calth.
Children of the Night starts in Romania in the time immediately following the Ceauescu regime and its concurrent fall with the iron curtain. An American blood scientist named Kate Newman is visiting the country's orphanages for research. But her work soon turns to motherhood as one of the infant children strikes her heart and she decides to adopt the boy, naming him Joshua. In a parallel storyline, Dracula, now a rich aristocrat, is aging. Making the decision to end his reign, he foregoes feeding, thus beginning the process of becoming mortal, and names an heir. And still further uncanny machinations are afoot deep in the ancient mountains and castles of Romania, leading to a clash that will decide the fates of all.
And so where the first three books published in the Horus Heresy series describe how Horus started his rebellion, its origins lie beforehand in The First Heretic. The novel opens on the Word Bearer's planet Khur where the Ultramarines have been sent to raze it by the Emperor's command for reasons of heresy. The boys in blue allow one communication to leave the planet, describing their actions and why, then destroy it. Feeling wronged, Lorgar and his fellow Word Bearers set their sights on understanding why the Emperor has betrayed them and getting revenge. And when you want to get revenge on a larger, stronger opponent, desperate tactics are needed. Just what effect said tactics will have in the long term, however, not even the Word Bearers can foresee.
This is Part II of my photo post on my family's vacation to Romania this summer. (Part I is here.) This time around, castle, of which Romania is not lacking.
1. We'll start with a minor castle—one of many gypsy palaces we saw, in fact. A unique contributor to Romanian culture, it never grew tiring seeing their colors and panache. The horse and buggy are a major contrast to the home (and the Porsche and Land Rover just out of view).
2. This is Corvin's Castle. Unlike most castles I've been to, visitors to Corvin have access to the majority of the grounds. Set in a picturesque place (and secure from barbarians), it was a nice afternoon of exploring knights and ladies (and torture).
The following is the first of two posts capturing some of the photos my family took during our summer holiday in Romania in August this year. (Part II is here.) Despite spending 10 days and covering about 2,000 kms (1,250 miles) in country in a camper, there were many things we missed: castles, Brasov, and Bucharest among them. But we did meet many nice people and see many nice things. I've broken the content into two things we saw the most of (besides asphalt): the countryside and castles.
1. Romania's population is organized in a fashion I, as an American living in Poland, am unaccustomed to. Clumped in villages, towns and cities, there are very few homes outside these areas. There are minimal houses and buildings in the countryside, leaving the country feeling a little wild. Here is one of the villages: dense and quiet.
2. For those familiar with Romania, this is the region of the transalpina highway. Picturesque, it invited us out of the camper for several day hikes. This is myself and the kids on one of the hikes.
They say the army is the only non-democratic organization in the West, and “Rule of Engagement” Graham McNeill puts the idea to the test through the primarch mastermind of Roboute Guilliman honing his Ultramarine’s battlefield command. Unfortunately, a story that can be read only once, it's also a story that fulfills my concerns about blaster porn and then some. The second story, "Liar's Due" by James Swallow, is a Horus Heresy version of a KGB operation on a backwater planet. Swallow could/should have spent more time on scenes depicting the human element of the story's morals, but it remains a decent spot of atypical space marine fiction with a nicely gray conclusion.
A Korean corporate conglomerate called LK is building a space elevator on the fictional island of Patusan in southeast Asia. The elevator's counterweight already in orbit, workers are connecting it to Patusan via a spider line. But things are not going smoothly at LK. The CEO died under abnormal circumstances just a couple years ago and the company's intellectual property is under constant attack from competitors. Industrial counter-espoinage is thus a critical company department. Things kick off when a senior LK ecurity consultant named Mac witnesses a strange incident on Patusan in which a rival corp seems to have made an attempt to infiltrate LK. Particularly fishy is one of the people involved who seems a little too perfect. And so Mac decides to dig a little deeper into them. Events escalating until the elevator itself is involved (natch), Mac gets caught in a tangled web that touches everything in his life, corporate to personal.