Bards and Sages Quarterly, October 2011

This is another magazine or collection of short stories which I found on ereaderiq.com. In this collection are 17 short stories. Now, when I downloaded it, the title of the quarterly kind of led me to believe that this would be a magazine filled with stories of magic and witch craft. A quick browse amongst Google's search results reveals that this magazine is after 'speculative fiction.'

Courtesy of Wikipedia.org, which is, thankfully, back up and running, speculative fiction is "an umbrella term encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as related static, motion, and virtual arts." Apparently this is information gleaned from Margaret Atwood. So, that is quite a variety of different genres mixed into one.

This magazine suffers from the same formatting problem as Beat to a Pulp: Hard Boiled. You cannot tab quickly between the stories. This is something that I find, over-and-over, is just enough to render a mediocre-good bit of reading entirely unpleasant enough to navigate through that one wishes he or she had never purchased it in the first place, regardless of the quality of the stories within.

Having dipped my toe, so to speak, into the magazine, I can honestly say that this is neither Kansas nor Oz nor any other fantastical place. There be zombies! "Zombie prostitutes give the worst blowjobs..." greets me on the third 'page' of my ebook. No, this is definitely not in the neighbourhood of the great and esteemed J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth. This is somewhere entirely different.

Breakfast, Ben Godby

This first story, my toe dipping so to speak, is basically the zombie story inside of a hospital told from the perspective of a zombie. Reminds me of my own zombie tale. It's an attempt at dark humour. The zombie who is telling the tale doesn't realize he's a zombie.

He's locked up inside of a hospital with his friend. One remarks that the other looks terrible. The other agrees and says that the narrator looks awful. They try to escape the hospital, but it's been barred up. The narrator believes it's to save them from zombies that are trying to get in from the outside, but in reality they're being kept inside.

Although we had a small clue that the narrator was a zombie, it becomes confirmed when they begin to dine on the remains of the dead in that room.

A soldier and a nurse run into them. While the soldier is able to rekill the narrator's friend, the narrator himself manages to kill and consume the brains of the soldier while the nurse runs off screaming.

The Moon and Her Mother, Douglas T. Vale

This very short tale, a single paragraph in fact, reminds me of the type of story that might belong in a classic fairy tale collection like from the brothers Grimm. It's just a story where the moon becomes personified. The moon constantly changes, and despite the requests of the moon to her mother to make for her a dress, the mother simply cannot since the moon keeps changing sizes so much.

Gingerbread Delirium, Julia K. Patt

This story carries on where "Hansel and Gretel" leaves off. Where the witch was about to eat the children, but the children escape, they do not escape with all of their wits and souls.

The sister becomes a baker. There are many customers. But, these customers are children who are loud and obnoxious. After a short while, she simply wants to eat them. Her brother, on the other hand, cannot eat any more. He grows thin, he loses his hair. Finally, his sister puts him into a cage and bakes a cake for him. She yells at him to eat, and he complains, "You sound just like her." In essence, she has become the witch.

The Eyes of Illiat, Shawn White

I went searching around for the significance of the name Illiat, but I could not find much other than mention of a village in France of the same name.

The setting is a tavern, perhaps several centuries ago. In one corner, a teenaged boy named Garann sweeps and cleans, in the other and sitting at a table, a wealthy poet named Andore. Andore is depressed. There is a girl whom he loves, adores, and worships. However, when trying to pen a poem as a testament to the girl, Illiat, he fails. Thus, he is getting himself drunk on expensive wine.

Misery loves company, but the other patrons of the pub have all given him space as if he'd suffered from leprosy. The only one interested in him is Garann. Drinking together, the poet tells voices the muse to his depression.

Wilber and Samantha, Geoffrey C. Porter

Two murderers met in a bar. Samantha had just finished killing her very large husband and is enlisting the help of a man who is also in the habit of killing his wives. Thus, they are like the black widow and black widower together.

She's just murdered her husband. She needs help cutting him up into pieces to get rid of him. Of course, it's a little silly, since tracking down a serial killer, or a pair of them, who only kills spouses would have to be easy to do even for the RCMP. However, that doesn't happen. Of course, she does mention the fact that maybe he chose his name. She wonders why he didn't choose a better name than Wilber. Perhaps that means he's gone by many names, as has she.

In any case, Wilber helps her cut up the body into disposable pieces.

There does seem to be quite a variety of stories in Bards and Sages Quarterly. So far I have seen horror and fantasy/fairy tales. This one reminded me of the noir fiction I read just recently in Beat to a Pulp Fiction: Hard Boiled. The detailed gore and care-free murder seemed to fit that profile.

Bata Scoir, Kathy L. Brown

A long time ago, Ireland spoke more Irish than English. That was a long time ago, I believe. Well, this story is written in the time before that metamorphosis into an Anglophonic island. It goes into the classroom within that nation and a particular classroom.

Master Enoch, as he's called, uses the old stick to turn his rowdy students into complacent and obedient students. The tale takes us to one particular day when a particularly strange girl happens to join the class. She speaks the old Gaelic. She's got slightly blue skin. The other students are very careful with her, and give her a wide berth. The teacher is not superstitious. However, this is his undoing.

As he tries to walk to his home, he is swallowed up by a very thick fog which entirely obscures the road ahead. He calls out for some kind of guidance, but only hears the clacking of sticks. He follows that sound, but it leads him to the edge of a cliff, and then past the edge where we are to assume he falls to his death. I suppose he didn't have a walking stick.

The occult and fairy tale seem to be emerging as common themes within Bards and Sages Quarterly.

A Thanksgiving Tale, Spencer Koelle

This story is another exploration into the mythology of folklore and brings it to life in a sort of modern way. It is modern because the title is 'Thanksgiving.' Tammy Knocker, the protagonist, is a miner. She's in a cobalt mine with a guy named Timothy when there's a partial collapse of the mine. As a result, Timothy is nearly killed, but also in grave danger of dying.

Tammy herself is rescued by a supernatural creature which saves her and guides her out of her predicament. At the end, she swears that she will sacrifice more wine in thanks for the help. I can't help but think that such miracles are decried by the theists. That it's a snake rather than an angel is merely a matter of expectation in the illusion caused by the traumatic experience.

One Man's Famine, Douglas J Lane

This story follows along the line of 'post apocalyptic' genre mentioned in the definition provided by Wikipedia. The world has virtually come to an end. There is no real explanation. In fact, the people who no longer live in the world for the most part have mysteriously vanished. It is mysterious until the end of the piece when one man clubs another for his meat. Cannibalism is the only way for men to feed themselves.

There is no mention of whether there was a war or plague or any other such thing. It does seem to implicate that cannibalism is a fad that takes hold of the population, but in a quiet secretive way so that it was not evident to the character whose limited third person narrative we follow.

Games Gods Play, Devyani Borade 

This is a kind of cute mythology behind the creation of the universe, the battle between good and evil, and various other elements which make up existence as we know it on earth.

The author tries to use some of the King James English, but is not consistent, and she makes a few mistakes. Perhaps the editor isn't particularly familiar with the grammar of this particular epoch. It detracts mildly from the tale.

This "Genesis" is a somewhat entertaining mixture of pagan and Christian motifs. The entire story is about the moon, it turns out. It is an explanation for solar and lunar eclipses. Fairy tales invented to explain natural phenomena can be quite interesting.

Dessert, Ellis Bergstresser

It's not entirely clear what kind of world this story is set in. Bergstresser only exposes the reader to a sliver of it.

There are two classes revealed: the many poor who live in the terrible heat of a desert, and the other which has its creature comfort.

Where on one side, the tables are full of extravagant dishes, infinite bottles of champagne, fans and gentle mist of water meant to lower the temperature contrast with the growing slums. The elite of this group discuss how to rid themselves of the poor. One suggestion is made that a war could be arranged with a neighbour, and that in this way they could have many of the poor killed.

In the ghetto, close enough to be within earshot of the conversations, is Mai. She is a servant. She had lost her son. When she had found this out, as she was in the presence of the aristocrats, she let out a sound which angered her superiors. She promises to apologize to them. Fortunately for her, the ice cream which she made was popular, and it's believed that her apology will be accepted.

You don't need the story to be set in some science fiction or post apocalyptic or semi-post-apocalyptic setting. There are places around the world where just such a scene could possibly exist: contrast wealth with poor. Those who have everything with those who have nothing.

Utter Fail, Billy Wong

A woman or girl is interested in a magical medic. To get his attention, she pretends that a small wound is a large wound. A consequence of this is that Ike, the magical medic, can only cast this spell every so often. So, when an elder comes in who is really dying, he cannot help.

Perhaps there's supposed to be a lesson here: don't fake a great hurt to get the attention of a magical medic because he can only cast so many spells at a time.

Quick Fix, Gitte Christensen

This story's characters are some kind of hyper advanced culture. They have landed on a rocky planet with too much gravitation for their ships to escape. To escape the gravity, the cadet in training is told to figure out a way to escape. Their bodies are like vaporous gases. Time is almost irrelevant to them. When they watch the life cycles of animals and plants, their growth and destruction happens within moments. The cadet comes up with the idea of using gases to cool down the planet to allow them to escape. He comes up with the idea of cooling the planet down so that it's more like home. This will allow the ship's environmental controls to conserve energy so that they might lift off the planet.

The idea to work will require a few hundred thousand years. But this idea is said to be 'a swift and elegant solution.' The consequence is that many inhabitants of the planet will die. 'many of the native solids will cease to metabolize...'

The normal method for taking off of a rocky planet is to 'blow it up and ride the shock waves back into space.' The sensitivity to substantial creatures is derided. Of course, this is pseudo earth history: a story created to explain the ice age.

We'll All Be in the Arms of Our True Loves Before Long, A.J. Sweeney

This story is written in the form of a diary that is found. The diary speaks about a woman who appears to a doctor. He goes in search of her and finds her frozen. Gone madly in love with her, he does what he can to bring her back to life. He even tries to infuse his own blood into her body, but this fails. All he does is die trying to give her his blood.

When his colleague goes to his house, he discovers a room that was prepared for the woman as though she would have been revived.

There is one thing that kind of detracts from this story. It's told in first person. Many beginning writers have a problem with using 'I' too much throughout their first person stories. This story suffers from that. For every sentence, there seems to be an average of one 'I'. I am surprised that such a story wouldn't have been revised until that problem was taken care of.

Tintinnabulation, Jacob Edwards

This story seems to be a modern reinvention of the Perseus and Andromeda. But the main character is named Percy. Andromeda is never named, and is referred to only as Cassiopeia's daughter. She is chained to a rock, awaiting a monster in the sea. Unfortunately, the sea is polluted by nuclear toxic waste. Percy does have a cheetah, however, whom he instructs certain instructions.

He fails to rescue the girl. So, recalling the instructions, 'Let no sea monster have its way with the girl.' He therefore instructs his cat to kill and eat the girl.

Hence, it is a fusion between the modern problem of pollution as well as the mythology of certain characters in Ancient Greece.

Discrete, Kyle H. Patrick

Dr. Chambers is going to get a divorce. His wife is going to leave him between the time he went to work and the time he goes back home. He's seen it coming, his wife's leaving. He just didn't know the hour. He discloses his sadness to his AI, an artificially intelligent secretary.

While he is at his house discovering that his wife had finally left him, he is called back to the office. His AI has caught a bug, they think. She declares that numbers are not infinite, and that she has found where they end. For this reason, her program is purged.

The AI is afraid, thinking about death perhaps. She asks if the doctor believes in God. Perhaps suggesting that she knows her death is near and hopeful that she will be preserved by an afterlife.

The story ends in, "Love. Is. Forever." This, perhaps, is supposed to contrast with the idea that numbers are infinite, but then maybe they're not and she was right. Of course, she's in a network of AIs trying to solve for prime numbers. So, if she came to this conclusion and she was functioning properly, then the other AIs ought to come to the same conclusion. If however she was malfunctioning, and perhaps feeling emotions, then that's something different. If in feeling emotions it is considered a malfunction, perhaps we might read something else into it. That is to say, is emotion and feeling a malfunction?

For a Price, Sandra M. Odell

It appears that someone has died. The man who inherits the family fortune takes the family fortune to auction. What's for sale isn't a piece of art or music, an object or a property, but a thought. An intellectual property of sorts, but not like a copyright or a patent. It's a thought.

At one point it's referred to as "Uncle Emitri's creative soul..." The niece who seems to have really loved her uncle tries to save the valued creative thoughts of her uncle. It is unknown at the end whether the auctioneer will accept her bid (which is lower than the highest) or leave it to the higher bid.

It's an interesting play on the idea of intellectual property.

Conclusion

I think there could be an argument for a subscription to this magazine. There are some interesting ideas which are written about. The lengths of the stories are all very short. It does not have the same value for the buck that either Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine or Fantasy and Science Fiction has. I think if there was a subscription option for 99 cents per issue or $5 per year with better formatting, I'd probably subscribe. I think it's a bit expensive per collection, but it's not that bad. It is 17 short stories. Some of them are only a page or so long. None of them are novelettes or novellas. I couldn't say how many words there are in the entire magazine. There's no information. It's also bare of information about the authors.

Another thing to mention is that there are several portions intermittent three times throughout the quarterly with book synopses. I don't think these synopses are very useful in determining whether these sections are good for determining whether or not I'd want to purchase the books listed. They don't give a review. No one has read them. They're more like ads. On the plus side, several of them lead to inexpensive ebooks. This is something that I believe the veteran magazines (SFF or Asimov) ought to do. The information is simply lacking that would make one be tempted by those books.

So, to sum-up, I don't think this magazine is a great buy. They need to revamp the layout. Also, would have been nice to see the artwork which I suspect is in the paper bound version. There's a lot of room for improvement before it's worth $2.99 per issue.