Happy New Year, Fantasy readers! Welcome to 2008. With the holiday season finally over we’re breathing a sigh of relief and getting back to normal life. We have a lot of great stuff coming up in 2008, both in the fiction and non-fiction departments. On Wednesdays, we’ll have more interviews with authors and artist spotlights, plus articles, roundtables, and a podcast (starting in February).
But first, we’d like to know what your favorite Fantasy magazine stories of 2007 are. Either from the print issues, the Fantasy Sampler, or our online offerings. Take our poll below and choose up to three stories. Voting will be open until the end of January.
To view the results, click here. Discuss your favorites in the comment section.
What about my favorite story, “The Comb”?
It’s up there, now. We overlooked it, initially. Our mistake.
Marly Youmans rules!!
LOVED The girl with the blueberry eyes the best!!!
I disagree about ‘The Comb’, whose language disappointed me terribly: ‘the ravel of red sprangling over us’ is only one example amongst many.
It is normal, well and good to respectfully agree to disagree, but I will leave the readers with my quote of year in defense of my hero, who took the time to drop the most concise and beautiful piece of wisdom on a sad insignificant internet wanderer:
“You may not be able to live always enveloped in love, but you can remember that you did for a time. In the dark, just don’t forget that light–it was, and you were swimming in it. Sometimes that has to be enough.”~~Marly
I agree that those words tell us something significant about Marly.
I’m glad that people are passionate about their fishing in the great sea of stories. Whether tossed back or kept, my fish are as I meant them to be–or as like the dream-fish in my head as I can manage.
For a little context, that quote in the comments was about the death of a parent–written for someone who had the joy of a strong bond.
And here’s a definition: sprangle v. i. to spread out tortuously. “The streams sprangle in every direction like branches of mountain laurel.” (“Smoky Mountain Voices: A Lexicon of Southern Appalachian Speech.”)
Marly, the problem is that every writer can claim their prose is exactly as intended. There are surely other criteria as well.
And I have no issue with ‘sprangle’ as such, and have even been known to coin a word upon occasion. It’s the impact of the whole which I’m addressing. Naturally, this is in part a matter of taste – what one person finds lyrical, the next will consider mawkish.
But this may not be the place for such a conversation, and I’d be happy to continue it – with genuine respect – elsewhere, or privately. Often disagreement can lead to growth on both sides, and my only interest is learning to read, and to write, with ever increasing sensitivity, skill, and depth.
“Swan” is one of those rare stories that has enough realistic content to hold one’s attention to the page and flights of fancy that satisfy the urge for fable and all that is “constant and enduring” in the best of literature.
“Swan” by Eilis O’Neal is one of those rare stories that speaks to all that is “constant and enduring” in the best literature.