The Priests of Shalaz
Jay Barnson presents us with this story of a gateway linking
turn of the twentieth century earth with a far flung alien world populated by
almost humans. Our hero, Jesse, had been
marooned on a small island somewhere in the British Empire and survived for six
months by sheltering within a small village on the alien side of the
gateway. His forcible exile from earth
ends when a British ship happens past the island, but his rescue only
complicates his life. The brash and
cocksure British Naval officers do what comes naturally and assume that the
alien world is ready for British intervention, which triggers a confrontation
with the local powers. Those powers
consist of a forbidden temple operated by a secretive and cocksure
priesthood.
Two decades of exposure to historically illiterate fiction
and literary criticism has taught me to raise shields whenever British officers
show up in a new world scenario like this.
Barnson plays with the reader for a bit, setting up the standard,
“British colonials learn their lesson,” style tale, but at the last moment, he
surprises you by presenting the British as stoic and heroic in their own
fashion. They might be arrogant, but not
without reason, and their arrogance is leavened with more than a touch of
humanity.
If the story has one weakness, it’s that the alien world
feels small. For all that the story
takes place millions of light years away from earth and contains alien
splendors and threats, in the end it amounts to nothing more than two villages
and a temple. Understandably for a short
story, these are all that are required for a short story, but Barnson misses
a number of chances to make the world feel much larger with a few simple
additions – nothing big, just a reference here, a hint at the larger world there,
and it would have made the alien planet feel more like a full world. Barnson has the chops for this – his
description of the world’s skies and flora and fauna are brief, but they convey
a depth and feel of alien beauty that is as touching as it is terse.
The Last Dues Owed
Ancient Egypt stands as a much underserved fantasy setting. As the cradle of Western Civilization, its
ways are just familiar enough to need no explanation. Readers know of the centuries long cycles of
their histories, the roles of cats in their mythology, and the importance of
the Nile as life-bringer. At the same
time, the millennia that separates us means that all of these things bear
slight twists that provide a newness and oddness that evokes a mystery and
magic all of its own.
Christine Lucas takes full advantage of this strange yet
familiar setting in The Last Dues Owed. In it, a battle between assassins dispatched
by rival priesthoods opens up into something far more meaningful than a simple
back-alley brawl. In a brilliant display
of writing, Lucas uses the fight to show the character of the combatants and
slowly reveal their long backstory. At the
fight’s conclusion, the tale shifts to a rescue mission that takes on greater
import thanks to the patience and restraint Lucas uses in allowing the story to
unfold at its own pace.
A fight. A
rescue. Some magic and mystery. A satisfying (if not entirely happy)
ending. The world needs more stories
like The Last Dues Owed.
