The Philippine Online Chronicles

If you find yourself in the mood for an adventure, you might want to read an issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, an online magazine dedicated to publishing the best in literary adventure fantasy. The magazine, which publishes two stories per issue and releases a new issue every two weeks, publishes “traditional adventure fantasy, including classics from the pulp era and the new wave of post-Tolkien fantasy” from interested writers, but Scott Andrews (publisher and editor in chief) and Kate Marshall (assistant editor) say they also “love how the recent influence of literary writing on fantasy short fiction has expanded the genre, allowing writers the freedom to use literary devices such as tight points-of-view, round characters, unreliable narrators, discontinuous narratives, and others. This sophisticated level of craft has made fantasy short fiction more powerful than ever before.” You can see for yourselves the expression of this editorial vision in their magazine. Today, let's review BCS’s Issue # 46: (now archived, the stories are still available online. The issue is also available as a PDF, mobi, epub file, and at the Kindle store.) Spoiler Warning starts here, so go read the issue first, then come right back, you hear?

The Six Skills of Madame Lumiere

While I hate getting lost in real life, in reading fantasy adventure stories, I find that I enjoy the stories more if I am plunged headfirst into an entirely different universe without a map, without warning, and without a clue.

In Marissa Lingen’s “The Six Skills of Madame Lumiere,” Lucy Brown is the mortal gatekeeper to Madame Lumiere, who owns a whorehouse that offers services both natural and supernatural in a world where humans live side-by-side with fair folk and other magical beings. One day, a man covering his nose with a scarf asks for a curious favor: his cousin, a 23-year-old maiden named Josine Valdecart, needs to be taken away from the public eye. She has to shift form, something Madame Lumiere’s staff can accomplish with fairy vegetables cooked in pie. “I was told,” says the man, “that Madame Lumiere knows how to handle difficult cases.”

The story is divided into six sections, with titles which serve as both a list of the Madame’s skills, and as a glimpse of what the section is about to offer. While the setting was not explicitly labeled, the language used and certain stray descriptions and passing mentions of objects (parasol, petticoat, hand-cranked steam cleaners) evoked a Western city in the 18^th century.

Of course, no Western city--before or after the 18^th century--had brothel employees who explored the lands of fairies with song, swimming with selkies, and opening doors without keys. In the late '40s, Joseph Campbell published a now famous analysis of hero stories, showing that these stories have one universal pattern: separation (or departure) – initiation – return. "A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder:  fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won:  the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man." The said “venturing forth” – the separation/departure – is necessary in fantasy in order to fully depict a world that is different from our own. Wonder can only be seen by the eyes of a stranger, for why would a character who has lived in that world all his life suddenly feel the urge to describe every leaf of every tree? Landscape and culture can be described with surprise and a huge amount of detail without sounding awkward or false if there is a newcomer, a tourist, a “hero” who gets lost.

Lingen’s story is told in first-person, through the perspective of Lucy Brown - a cynical character with a safe, homely, mortal name, who never lets down her guard. Her history is told in bits and pieces (brother died of lungrot, left at the brothel as a child), but what is clear is that despite her role as the narrator, the one who serves as eyes of the reader, she cannot be counted upon to echo a newcomer’s glee at seeing new things.

Enter Josine Valdecart, a woman who has lived a sheltered life.  “I have been chaperoned every moment. Nearly every moment,” she says at one point. “I have barely been outside our own lands except in a carriage on the way to friends’ houses.” This naiveté allows for exchanges such as this:

I found a cavern where we could wait and shielded it against magic eyes. Its walls were pressurized carbon, and it glistened with moisture. Most people do not see caverns full of wet diamonds in their lifetimes. The Underhill ways are filled with many stranger things, and my first reaction was annoyance that we would have to sit on such a hard, wet surface or remain standing. But Josine’s eyes were wide, her lips slightly parted.

“Like it, do you?” I asked.

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

Lingen’s world building is so clear and precise that spoon-feeding the reader exposition is not necessary. It was a treat navigating through Underhill, all the way toward Josine’s clever resolution of her problem.

The Isthmus Variation

In Kris Millering’s “The Isthmus Variation,” Kothin sits on a stool in preparation for the Slow Game, where he will play the Tempter in a rather interesting performance:

The tableau art, the lore of the players said, had origins in the art of statuary. As the Tempter, I would be making my way slowly through a series of poses, each of them a scene of tonight’s variation played for only a few of the audience. The magic would be in the gossip that spread amongst the audience, how the central mystery of the performance would blossom as they spoke of what they had seen.

Millering’s conjured performance brought postmodern theater to mind, with the audience proving to be necessary in the reading of the narrative, which is told purely through dreamlike tableaus. As I read the story and the performance progressed, I thought to myself, I want to see this play. In my mind’s eye, every pose was like a surrealist painting – but a painting that was a part of a series, that tells a tale.

Millering’s fluent prose can lull and distract the reader, thus increasing the impact of the big reveal. Unfortunately, I had already guessed the outcome, or at least had the general idea of it, by the end. Millering decided to focus on the description of the poses; and while there was some fine writing in those scenes, I wanted the process, not just the snapshots. I would have wanted to see how the audience pieced together the play, telling each other what they know, like detectives solving a case. The Slow Game, after all, is a story of murder. Still, this story makes for an intriguing read.

All in all, another excellent issue from Beneath Ceaseless Skies. The magazine’s strong suite of stories has earned it nods from storySouth's Million Writers Award (runner-up, Best New Online Magazine of 2008), and accolades from reviewer and editor Rich Horton, who called it "a really important source of fantasy."

The publication has also recently released The Best of Beneath Ceaseless Skies Online Magazine, Year One, an anthology of fourteen stories from the first twenty-six issues of the magazine.

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BCS is supported by reader donations. For ways you can help, see their Support BCS page. The magazine also maintains an online forum and a Facebook page to update submitting writers and to encourage reader discussion of all things fantasy.

[Image source: Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Copyright holder/s maintain appropriate rights.]