December Story Update 3
Four stories I read earlier this year, exhausting all the one's I've written up, as of mid-October.
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Golden’s therapist is suggesting rejection therapy, confronting their greatest anxieties. Three times a day they must get rejected. The hard part is figuring out what it is they fear so much.
They ask three people for things, each time having to work harder for a rejection than they expected. And the third try might hold a key to unlocking their fear.
Read This: Brisk, entertaining attempts to get rejected
Don’t Read This: Silly and slight
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| Illustration by Miguel Santos |
Fat Foscari is the gatekeeper; he’s off duty when the merchant’s daughter is stolen. It’s the magician De Barbari, who has taken her to his Wailing Keep. Foscari volunteers to join the guards who ride out after her, the merchant refusing to pay the ransom. But he’s old and fat, they won’t let him. He’s armed only with a dagger.
The moneylender knows that he used to be someone else. So when he asks for a horse and a battleaxe, in return for service, he makes the bargain, though he drives up the price. Foscari is the son of a Woman Who Sees, and he sees himself, his tattoos telling him of the dangers and magic.
The daughter was kind to him, and talked to him and braided a leather bracelet for him. Foscari does not forget his friends and he always pays his debts.
An excellent piece of swords and sorcery, with a reluctant hero with hidden depths, underestimated by friend and foe alike.
Read This: Dark magic, resolve and daring escapes
Don’t Read This: Guy uniquely equipped to fight a wizard
fights a wizard
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| Illustration by Sidney H. Sime |
The village is plagued by demonic dreams and the magician can’t stop them. He realises this is the work of Gaznak, a magician who rides a comet and comes to earth every two hundred and thirty years. Gaznak cannot be stopped and has built himself a fortress so powerful that it is unvanquishable.
Unvanquishable save for the sword Sacnoth. Leothric, son of the lord, decides to get the sword, though it is part of the dragon-crocodile Tharagavverug. To remove it he will have to kill the dragon, and the dragon can only be killed by starvation, the metal skin is too tough.
Dunsany writes in his flawless faux-medieval myth or legend prose, re-creating the inevitability of those well-worn tales. Yet there’s a modernity to it, a spark of character, a plot that’s recognisable. An influential tale on modern fantasy.
Read This: The true flavour of heroic dragon-slaying,
wizard-defeating legend
Don’t Read This: The hero is told what to do to get his
sword, then it lets him vanquish the unvanquishable
John Kulkrek and Lie-Lip Canool are sailors, admired and feared in their home of Faring Town. Though they are brawlers and braggarts, drinkers and boasters, they ship out on the great ships that go far foreign, not just coasters like most of them.
John Kulkrek seduces Moll Farrel’s niece, puts her to shame. And when she goes missing he and his cronies stay drinking. And when she’s found drowned, he’s drunk and dismissive. Moll Farrel lays a curse on him. So no one is surprised when Lie-Lip Canool returns alone, with the news of John Kulkrek’s death.
A richly told story that moves from small town gossip to tragedy to inexplicable horror.
Read This: Powerful seafaring horror
Don’t Read This: Bad men do bad things and come to a bad end
in an overwrought prose
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