Posted by Nicky Drayden on Aug 8, 2010 in
Reviews Author Website: http://www.inkfuscate.com/
Published by: Fantasy Magazine, August 2nd, 2010
Photo by Jurvetson Creative Commons
The Story:
Jacinta has spent her days working in the cocoa groves of Venezuela since she was a child, collecting the beetles that hatch from the trees and slicing off their legs and proboscises with a little knife attached to her thumb. The lifeless beetles resemble beans, and the world is not ready or willing to think otherwise. There was a time when the children would go out and race beetles in the evenings as their parents got drunk on the black, blood wine of their harvests. But those times are gone now. There are no children being born in the Shining City anymore. The women only give birth to dull, lifeless stones, and life is changing all around them.
The Craft: 20 Master Plot – Metamorphosis
SPOILERS
This is such a lovely metamorphosis story since there are so many levels of change. Life and death, childhood to adulthood, stone to stem to bone to stone. But the cycle is broken, and Jacinta is worried about her future and that of the Shining City. With no children being born, there will soon be no one left to harvest the beetles. Already there are no nimble-bodied little ones to pick up the cocoa beetles that have slipped to the ground.
Jacinta gave birth to a stone once, and not even a pretty one. Now, this world of hers is falling apart — dogs are giving birth to gemstones and caterpillars fall to the earth and become seeds. Jacinta gets it fixed in her mind that she wants to become a mother again, and since none of the men she knows would curse her with the pain of bearing another stone child, she goes into the city and tricks a man into impregnating her. Again she goes through the metamorphosis of motherhood, bearing a stone, but it is her stone, her child, her love, and her emotional journey is fulfilled.
There’s so much awesome in this story, I don’t even know where to start. The writing was superb, and the story sucked me in with its inventiveness and fully fleshed out world. The characters had depth, and I could easily feel for Jacinta’s plight. It’s simply a beautiful story, beautifully executed.
Tags: fantasy, Fantasy Mag, literary, master plots, motherhood, must read
Posted by Nicky Drayden on Mar 18, 2010 in
Reviews Published by: Strange Horizons, March 15, 2010
Photo by Suzie T Creative Commons
The Story: Annie has a goblin for a friend — a short and well dressed fellow with yellow, hungry eyes. He leaves her gifts of golden trinkets, but when Annie’s mother learns about this green-skinned friend, she begs Annie to tell him to leave her alone, scared he’ll steal Annie away. But Annie likes the goblin, so she only banishes him to the far end of her bedroom instead of out of her life completely.
And so he watches her, silently. Day after day. Waiting for her to change her mind.
The Craft: Character Arcs
SPOILERS
If characters made sensible decisions, then there’d never be a story. Annie is no exception to this. She’s presented with a series of choices involving her interactions with the goblin, fueled by her shaky relationship with her mother, and eventually her daughter, too. As a child, Annie is enamored with the shiny trinkets that the goblin provides for her. She calls him a friend, though evidence of that is somewhat lacking. She’s friendly to him, yes, but their relationship seems to be a bit on the opportunistic side. Annie gets what she wants from him as a child and a teen — trinkets and companionship — but the goblin never gets what he truly wants.
It’s no wonder why Annie uses the goblin so. She finds out that her own mother had promised Annie to the goblin in exchange for success, which maybe explains a little why the goblin seems to be intent on marrying Annie. She banishes the goblin for good this time, then pursues her own life so she can buy her own trinkets, acquiring a family along the way. Her marriage dissolves, and when motherhood momentarily drives Annie to her wits’ end, she again calls upon the goblin and asks him to take her daughter away. But he doesn’t want the child. He wants Annie. Too late, she banishes the goblin again, and although her daughter is perhaps too young to understand what has happened, a great rift opens up between them. Annie carries out her motherly obligations, as well as she can raise a child that hates her. And at her daughter’s high school graduation, Annie sees her goblin, her tool, standing near the bleachers as he always has. There she kisses him, a kiss that paints her invisible to the world and her obligations, free to be the girl she’d meant to be.
I liked that this story chose the road less traveled, the character whose nature does not change. Annie uses the goblin in the beginning, and is still using him in the end, stringing him along, getting everything she needs from him and offering him nothing in return. For a brief moment in her life, she does try providing for herself, so driven to be something better than her mother that she alienates her husband and daughter in the process. Annie follows through with her motherhood obligations, but at the first opportunity regresses back to that carefree girl dancing, twirling.
Tags: character arcs, fantasy, goblins, motherhood, Strange Horizons
