It's quite a pleasing thing to have someone else do a lot of work for you, and then sit back to appreciate the effort they had to go through. The two editors of this short story anthology have been through a number of fantasy fiction sources, on-line and in print, and brought together a collection that is better than most and tops their previous one, Year's Best Fantasy 3. For those readers who do not have the time (or especially money) to subscribe to or read fiction magazines, it's a huge benefit. This review is mainly going to focus on the stories which make up the highlights of the anthology.
"King Dragon" by Michael Swanwick kicks off the collection with a deliciously different tale that blends in steampunk elements. A psychotic dragon-machine crash-lands in a village, and Will, the main character, has to undergo a disturbing relationship with it. He is forced into this warped, symbiotic interaction with the living machine and made to become a spy. However, Will overcomes the violence turned against him as a traitor and resists the corrupting temptations of power coming from the inhuman monster. In the end, he does not turn down his responsibilities and there is a riddance of tyrants for the village (albeit a short-lived one).
"The Book of Martha" by Octavia Butler is a surreal story of a woman who is given a chance to have an extended conversation with God. In addition to this, she is offered the powers to be God herself for a while, in order for God to see how one person would go about making a world free of problems. It is a philosophical story but fortunately not a didactic one, as the main message seems to be that there would be no easy solutions. There is also some interesting play on what God would appear like, using racial and gender assumptions. The story is a meditative one and could have perhaps have had some more action inserted in it to maintain interest; although one could ask whether there is room in a short story for more than one dominant mood and it might have been disrupted. Another person might say any conversation with God would be enough to be regarded as the most interesting conversation possible.
The most bold, provocative story in the collection is "Catskin" by Kelly Link. She uses expletives, violence, explicit sexual allusions and coarse insults, literally letting the "cat of out the bag" for us. At the same time, however, the tale is playful, even confronting us at one point: "Are you still reading?" The main event is a series of strange, prolonged magical metamorphoses following the death of a witch. "A Quartet of Mini-Fantasies" by Arthur Porges is similarly a great little work, amusing and witty.
Pat Murphy's "Dragon's Gate" gives us a retroactive dose of a feminist perspective applied on an established male-imposed legend of dragon slaying. The main character is a female storyteller who discusses with herself the possible angles to use for describing the rape of a supernatural icewoman in an old legend. She sets out to save her ill mother, by confronting the dragon of the legend not as a heroic male warrior, but as a girl who listens. The dragon in turn is a woman cast as an evil monster, and tells her own revisionist story of King Takla and the icewoman. It is interesting to the very end, and questions the idea that only a (male) hero could defeat a formiddable opponent, like a dragon, by violence.
"One Thing About the Night" by Terry Dowling, an Australian writer, brings us an edgy tale about a little-known area of magic involving mirrors called Catoptromancy. Perhaps the only weakness in the story is its' dense, unclear beginning. However, it has been well-researched and becomes vividly realised as the narrator, Andy Gault, prepares to sit alone in the "psychomantium" at night, abandoned in suspicious circumstances by its previous owner. Things turn geniunely scary before there is a twist at the end. Brendan Duffy, another Australian, puts forward the most ambitious story in the collection, "Louder Echo". He lays forth an elaborate back story, a fantasy involving 300 years of Biology and reactionary Theology. Duffy asks "what if?" in regards to theological ties to the foundation of modern biological science in the 18th century. The main character is a creature called a homunculus, a miniature man created into being by a scientist, who raises theological problems merely by his very existence. His character is personable, peevish and strident, quite enjoyable to follow in his quest for revenge on his creator. Duffy also displays an extensive knowledge of the biological developments he is toying with.
We are taken into the exotic location of Honduras in the story by Lucius Shephard. "Senor Volto" is vividly told and visually sensuous, full of steaming latin atmosphere and characters teeming with passions and tempers. There is a magic realist overtone in the story, as if the main character, Aurelio, has seen something truly amazing and longs to tell it in his circus showman's manner and we are meant to question whether the miraculous final event actually occurred. However, it doesn't quite have the interest factor. It is a tale high on heady atmosphere and style, not plot.
One of the highlights of the anthology is "Basement Magic" by Ellen Klages. It is a fanciful domestic tale of a small girl, Mary Louise, and her "wicked" stepmother, Kitty. Between them comes Ruby, the negro maid who helps out in their upper/middle class American home, set in time in the year 1969. This setting is important, as most readers will know, as a turbulent period of civil rights arguments, and the story clearly shows "the times are a-changin'". Kitty makes plain her "evil" old attitudes, firing Ruby because of an automatic assumption that a black person would steal the drink of liquor. Because of this, the story could be seen as a racial come-uppance or revenge story. Ruby and Mary Louise hatch a plot in the basement involving charms or "hands" that will bring about Kitty's downfall. Ultimately, the girl who is nicknamed "Miss Mouse" gets her revenge on Kitty (the predatory cat) and her final wish comes true. One character becomes a mouse and the other is transformed into a cat (presumably). There is also an otherworldly sensuousness of magic in the story, which itself contains a "power that has seeped and puddled, gathered slowly".
There are also quality offerings in the collection by Robert Sheckley and Terry Bisson. The stories by Tanith Lee and Tim Pratt both have a driving narrative worth mentioning. At nearly five hundred pages, one gets the idea that Year's Best Fantasy 4 offers a generous condensation of a year's writing in fantasy. The diversity of the stories is definitely its strong point, and it illustrates the profusion of creativity and imagination that is available at the moment.
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