Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy

Short Fantasy Fiction took a massive beating last year. Two premier fantasy publications, Realms of Fantasy and the Year's Best Fantasy & Horror Anthology, ceased publication. Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine switched to bi-monthly publication to stop its own bleeding.

That isn't to say that short fantasy fiction is dead (again) in America. There are still lively and leading outlets: with relative newcomer, Black Gate Magazine chief among them. But short fiction authors wouldn't mind a map to redemption.

I found one.

In long fiction.

Specifically, Theodore Beale's Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy.
This remarkable book is notable for having successfully turned the fantasy novel as it is currently recognized on its ear.

The tropes, icons and themes of what I would call "standard" medievalesque fantasy fiction are challenged directly. Without the convenient cover of parody or satire, Beale plays it straight with his setting: conflicted regions, separated loosely into basic people groups: humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, goblins, trolls and other commonly-known fantasy species.

The Catholic Church shepherds (and, if need be, supresses, opposes or spies on) the social, political and spiritual objectives of the land's inhabitants. After all, in a genre (high fantasy) practically predicated on the Divine Right of Kings, how does an author express his story without careful attention to the "divine" governance of that right?

As (surprisingly) innovative as this approach is Beale does something even greater: he avoids writing his epic in epic style, choosing, instead, to tell a novella-length narrative accompanied by short fiction and Church documents.

It works great, but the reviews have been really mixed, or rather, mixed up. I can't tell you the number of reviews that found one of the novel's strengths - its abruptness - to be confusing and disappointing. They laud the short interwoven articles and short stories, but fail to make the connection between the "main" story and its interconnected sublots. For a book purporting to be the comprehensive theological treatise on a cultural controversy, it isn't quite clear why this approach has been so misunderstood.

I hope in time Summa Elvetica's interweaving of created history and unique approach to the problem of Christianity in high fantasy will be recognized for what it is, and not what readers think it is not.

If you read the appendices of Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion, you already know the power of the multi-documental approach. If you write short fiction, one could do far worse than to study Beale.

Josh is Five. Josh is Always Five.

Jeffty is Five, the Locus-winning classic short tale by Harlan Ellison, has long held a melancholy spell over me. (It is on page 71, and the book takes a little while to load).

It traces long lines into my own sense of the memorable (and malleable) past, touches on the eternal and the transient, and places nostalgia and reality on parallel tracks which intersect at tragedy. The beautfully-written story of the friendship between a five-year old boy who never ages and his normally-aging pal got its title from a misheard bit of conversation.

At a party, Ellison overheard actor Jack Danon * saying something like "Jeff is fine. He's always fine!" but thought he said "Jeff is five. Jeff is always five." The man who said it was a guest at a party hosted by Walter Koenig, Star Trek's "Chekov."

I had no idea, until today, that the character inspiration for "Jeffty" was another person at the party: a five-year old Joshua Andrew Koenig.

In the words of the author: "Writers take tours in other people's lives. Jeffty is me; he is also you. This is a short, memory-filled trip through your own life."

*Danon, incidentally, started his career in radio shows, like Fibber McGee and Molly, which casts an interesting, if wholly unrelated, light on the strange transoms of inspiration that helped carry this particular story to its fullness.

New Short Fiction: Subterranea, by Mike Duran

I've been mixing up the medicine in the hidden laboratory of corn, but I have come across a charming little horror story by Mike Duran here.

Subterranea plumbs the depths of...well...the depths. And it is free...at least in terms of a cost to your wallet. I can't guarantee it won't cost you your soul.

Black Gate 12 Opens...Fantasy Awaits.

My favorite magazine* in all the world, Black Gate has just released its 12th issue.

I've got my copy, and only have begun to survey its topography. Every issue is an expedition, and this one looks to be no different, although it might be more adventurous than ever. In addition to top-flight tales of fantasy and adventure, spectacular illustrations, outstanding commentary, in-depth rpg and fiction reviews and the resurrection of long-forgotten pulp treasures, this special issue includes a self-contained solitaire role-playing game.

All for ten bucks. Editor John O'Neil and his minions have quite clearly lost their minds and have become drunk on the power that stems from unleashing pure art and wonder into the wilds of this planet.

I recommend you hunt a copy down before everyone hears about it and you have to wait in line for it.

*I use this term very loosely. The thing is an anthology of joy, with quality unsurpassed. But nobody knows what I'm talking about when I describe it that way, so I just say "magazine" for short.

Ass* Kicking Book Cover of the Day

The Personifid Invasion is set to release in October. I've never read R.E. Bartlett before, but I'm going to give this author a shot.

Yes, based on my judgment of a book's cover. Best one I've seen so far this year.

+

*Balaam's ass, of course. What were you thinking?

Review-A-Palooza: Demon: A Memoir Discussions Start to Hit Stride

Nicole Petrino-Salter is suffering from another bout of the God virus, as propagated by Demon: A Memoir.

Fancy that.

This is one of the first reviews that I've come along that really starts to dig into the book's greater implications.* I have a feeling that the conversation started by Tosca Lee won't end until Judgment Day. If then.

This is going to be fun.**

*I mean, I've seen a few who have spoken of the book as "witnessing tool" to non-believers, but that falls short of the mark if that is the end of the discussion. The book is, first and foremost, a great story in an otherworldly format. It is a real story that makes demands on the reader--not to take a prescription or a "message" from it-- but demands that actually cause the reader to be somebody better, deeper, more loving, more engaged.***

**I mean, you know, I'm talking about a restrictive, semi-joyless fun, just in case you were getting worried. Only Diet Chocolate Cherry Fun for you!

***I know, I know. I've been playing it close to the vest about my opinion of Demon: A Memoir, so here's my big reveal: I kind of liked it. Shh.

Secular versus Christian, or Apples versus Oranges: Smackdown

The invaluable Lost Genre Guild has a post up about the monolithic acronymns in Christ-centered bookselling: the ABA, the CBA and the ECPA. In Secular vs. Christian? Sue Dent and Cynthia MacKinnon try to expose the breadth of publishing options open to Christian writers of the strange.

I seem to recall a journal posting by Ted Dekker about the emerging culture and how the line between secular and Christian is arbitrary. Christians both engage and contribute to the culture, or at least they should. Can one understand the culture without falling into sin? Can one address the culture without cloistering?

Yes. If you can let go of rumor and assumption and embrace Christ alone, you can.