Summary: Fantasy Magazine, 2008

Fantasy Magazine published (or is planning to publish) its last print issue this year, but it is now primarily an online venue. I counted 59 stories, all short, four short-shorts. About 216,000 words. The Senior Editor is Sean Wallace and Cat Rambo is the Fiction Editory (with K. Tempest Bradford serving as Managing Editor). (I should note that I previously contributed reviews to the magazine and website (though not recently) and that I have an editorial relationship with Sean Wallace.)

My two favorite stories this year were "The Small Door", by Holly Phillips, a very moving piece about a girl whose sister is dying of cancer, and the man next door whom they suspect of mistreating animals; and "Turnipseed", by Erik Amundsen, a mordantly amusing tale of a troll confronted by a knight complaining about the depredations visited upon a nearby village. Other strong stories include "Nora", by Becca de la Rosa (sweet tale of a witch and her protege and the protege's child); "Yell Alley", by Nicole Kornher-Stace (about palindromes and a pair of friends who are, I suppose, sort of palindromes); Rebecca Epstein's "When We Were Stardust" (a woman recovering from a rape which resulted in pregnancy); Kelly Barnhill’s "Notes on the Untimely Death of Ronia Drake" (a fraught tale of a woman abandoned by her husband after the manipulations of another jealous woman), and Stephanie Campisi’s "Painting Walls in the Town of N---" (an arch, almost surrealist, story of a couple who move to the title town and take a job as painters) Also, two Willow Fagan stories: "Cockatrice Boy Meets Statue Girl", an affecting tale about the understandable attraction between the title characters, plus "Scatter and Return, the Eyes of the Princess", another (but still effective) reworking of sexual abuse as a fairy tale. Alex Rose's "The Plagiarist" is a nice Borgesian story, about a man realizing that he is a character in a novel he chances upon on the bus. Jennifer Westwood's "The Banyan Tree" is a dark tale of wishes and rival sisters, and another strong, bitter, tale of sisters in conflict is Michael Greenhut's "Watermark". Von Carr's "The Black Iron Drum" is also dark, about a survivor of war and the ghosts that follow her. Darja Malcolm-Clarke's "His One True Bride" is another dark story, of a woman chosen to be the bride of a god. Not so dark, quite funny in fact, is Rachel Swirsky's "Marrying the Sun", about just that. Rose Lemberg's "Geddarien" is a strong story of Jewish musicians, living cities, and the Holocaust. And finally, Carole Lanham's "Keepity Keep" is a sweet and amusing story of a fairy and the brothers who make friends with her as a child, only to, perhaps, forget her has they grow older.

Another good year for a strong literary fantasy oriented production.

Statistics -- no SF stories (no surprise!). And I count 25 of 59 stories by men. That's about 42%. (Last year only 17% of the stories were by men.)
 

Tags: 2008, magazines, yearly summaries