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One of the things that bothers me about a lot of fantasy is that the worlds are strangely static, like we invent all sorts of contrived circumstances to keep them from progressing naturally, because we want stories of a certain type.
Ultimately, I realized I was writing a story about three people who are trapped in different versions of hell: the three damnations in the title. None of the three has the strength of character to break free.
When people stumble into the pirate world—like drunken sailors stumbling into a seedy dockside tavern—they do it for one reason, the same reason that men and women became pirates in the golden age of pirates: Pirates are cool.
There’s evidence that quite a few women disguised themselves and took the seas. Fast Ships, Black Sails included quite a few stories about women pirates. Should I bring up Cutthroat Island? No?
Quenya, Tsolyáni, Láadan, Klingon, Kesh, Na’vi, Dothraki … this is not a magic spell, nor a litany from some ancient prayer book, but just a few just a few of the invented languages that have made it into print or onto the screen.
What strikes me now is how much like Pratt I am, in a way—devoted to hardening my shell of ignorance, and operating within it, even if it isn’t so small as his.
Steampunk as a genre is about traversing the edge of that level of technology. Characters have weapons and gadgets that are conceptually similar to things we have in the modern day, but work in entirely different ways.
As the story went through revisions, I reworked some of the lessons (and sometimes changed them back again!) to be sillier and less predictable. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was tempting to fall back on “true love conquers all.”
Welcome to issue fifty-three of Fantasy Magazine! Here’s what we’ve got on tap this month … Fiction: “Lessons from a Clockwork Queen” by Megan Arkenberg, “Using It and Losing It” by Jonathan Lethem, “The Nymph’s Child” by Carrie Vaughn, “Three Damnations: A Fugue” by James Alan Gardner. Nonfiction: “Steampunk and the Architecture of Idealism” by David Brothers, “The Language of Fantasy” by David Salo, “Ten Reasons To Be a Pirate” by John Baur and Mark Summers, “Feature Interview: Brandon Sanderson” by Leigh Butler.
Thanks to a tireless awareness campaign on behalf of folklorists everywhere, the dangers of your standard wishes are well-known these days. In the wrong hands, we all know, a wish can go terribly wrong.
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This issue's cover art by
warmtail / Adobe Stock Image.
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