Affordable Summer Fashions: Satisfying Short Fantasies
Written: May 28 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Won’t you feel foolish if you don’t nab some of these trendsetting shorts for yourself?
Cons: A few pairs are unbecoming.
The Bottom Line: Your favorite fantasists model their shorts. Most of them have great legs to stand on, though a few are somewhat pasty or lumpy with cellulite.
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| panguitch's Full Review: Treasures of Fantasy Books |
The Weis/Hickman Collection
Ladies and gentlemen, with the temperature rising, it’s time to loosen up. Toss away those bulky, full-length editions that have kept you warm through the winter. Get back to bare-boned essentials. Show some skin. Moguls Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman have compiled 24 classic shorts and added two of their own. These numbers are sure to get you in the mood for the fast pace and hot styles of summer!
Each of these shorts is accented by a brief introductory paragraph by our collectors. The compilation begins with a tone-setting preface by Weis and the copyright legalities for each number are taken care of at the end.
Margaret Weis herself is first down the runway with "The Best" (1994). This first-person tale-with-a-twist is not the most becoming piece in the collection. A tricky dragon may be a timeless fashion, but the execution here is somewhat predictable. A clichéd dwarf, knight, thief and sorceress walk straight out of the pages of a gaming manual and into a trap. In contrast, Anne McCaffrey, who helped establish the reliability of dragon fashion, breaks new ground, blurring art and reality with "A Proper Santa Claus" (1973). Freedom of expression is always in style, and Mercedes Lackey sports the theme in "Wet Wings" (1996). A criticism of politically correct homogeny, this short will look good on anyone who’s ever felt conformity deprives the world of magic.
Larry Niven follows up the gals with a masculine look in "Not Long Before the End" (1969). Let’s hear it for the boy, this is the best outfit yet. Niven takes up the fuddy-duddy fashion of sword and sorcery with an ironic tone. But his underlying theme is the concept of magic as a nonrenewable natural resource that ran out about 12,000 years ago. "The damned stupid swordsmen will win after all": a stylish statement on fossil fuels!
The magnate Poul Anderson pushes the limits with some almost Capri-length Bermudas. In "The Queen of Air and Darkness" (1971) new and old clash as colonists on a forbidding planet encounter baby-stealing faeries. The contrast is appealing but the length just isn’t in style. Next we see another stand-by, Roger Zelazny’s "Comes Now the Power" (1966). Zelazny’s work is always pretty, but I have to confess this number is only moderately flattering on me.
The ladies come back with a fury now. Patricia McKillip’s "Lady of the Skulls" (1993) guards a secret treasure in a lonely tower. Men come seeking it, but find only death. This beautiful parable is surprisingly comfortable and magically cut to fit everyone. Andre Norton takes a risk in "The Long Night of Waiting" (1974) by starting with most of the action already over. Like a portal to a faerie world, this piece presents you with a choice: whether to abide the rule of iron. If ‘Green’ describes your style you’ll find this piece fits you perfectly. The censors might not appreciate the amount of leg left uncovered by Marion Zimmer Bradley’s "A Dozen of Everything" (1959). A brief gimmick, it’s not nearly so remarkable an item as the dame herself.
Orson Scott Card delivers one of the hottest fantasy shorts ever in "Sandmagic" (1979). The desert is the perfect setting for shorts, and here a sorcerer uses desert magic to wreck vengeance for a lifetime of hurt. Next R. A. Lafferty bends minds with the stylings of "Narrow Valley" (1966), a confrontation between modern homesteaders and Native Americans. Jennifer Roberson’s mini-short, "Guinevere’s Truth" (1996), redefines brevity. Unfortunately, her attempt to remake the old Arthurian fashion line is only predictable.
Famous historical author John Jakes tries on some of his old fantasy duds with the traditional sword and sorcery tale "Storm in a Bottle" (1977), where Brak the Barbarian uses brawn and wit to defeat a drought-inflicting wizard. A rambunctious style for the playful or adventurous. Philip Jose Farmer redesigns the European crossing of the Atlantic by infusing advanced technology into the fifteenth century in "Sail On! Sail On!" (1977). Monks are inventors in this alternate history, where even the laws of physics differ. An interesting concept which could spawn an entire line of new designs, but this sample is underwhelming.
Joanna Russ taps into the gothic eroticism of vampire fashion with "My Dear Emily" (1962). The tables are turned more than once here, and women aren’t simply fodder. The cut is rich if you enjoy dark fashions. Lois Tilton adopts a contrasting pastoral style for "The Dragonbone Flute" (1992). Weis has anthologized this number before, and with good reason. I first saw it at its premiere in Dragon magazine—which has seen a few gems amongst the fluff. The essence is that a shepherd adopts a scaly flock, and loves them as any good shepherd should. The sincere, homespun look of this outfit is delicious. There’s a hint of sadness that all the best fantasies attain.
Less edifying is Alan Brennert’s "The Man Who Loved the Sea" (1995). A man finds out his dead uncle’s mistress really was the sea in this short that alternates between protracted and tawdry, a combination that’ll leave any fabric strained. Robert Sheckley does a deal with the devil in "The Same to You Doubled" (1971), where a petty man gets three wishes on the condition that anything he wishes for his worst enemy gets double.
C. J. Cherryh brings us back to basics with "The Dreamstone" (1979), touching on tried and tested elements like honor and faeries. But the fabric isn’t my favorite, being too ephemeral and convoluted at the same time. The ever-prolific Jane Yolen makes a showing in "The Seventh Mandarin" (1970), an Asian-cut fable teaching the folly of blind faith in the authority of the ‘learned’.
The old-fashioned stylings of Avram Davidson’s "The Montavarde Camera" (1959) will bring back memories for pulp fans. The quest to capture a life-like portrait goes fantastically awry. Art, whether in fashion, fiction or photography, shouldn’t try too hard to mirror life. Theodore Sturgeon’s "Shottle Bop" (1948) is the most retro item in the collection, and Sturgeon delivers a number that should be in style all the way till Halloween. A feisty little shopkeeper peddles the most fantastical things in bottles. To the protagonist he gives one that contains a talent: the ability to see and communicate with ghosts. The wry humor turns fearsome, though, as any good ghost story should.
Osh Kosh beware, Philip K. Dick offers short overalls for the grease-monkey in all of us: a nondescript old man who runs a gas station in "The King of the Elves" (1953). When the dying elf king names the man his heir all kinds of weirdness breaks out, including a war with the trolls. What can the neighbors think but that he’s gone insane? While I usually find pint-sized elves and trolls in bad taste, they work well in this ensemble. In "Salve, Regina" (1996), Melanie Rawn presents the pagan/Christian conflict in a plague-ridden town where a mother wants only to find clean water to relieve her children’s suffering. Such classically contrasting patterns always serve well, despite overuse in recent years.
Perhaps the strongest piece, the perfect style for sophisticates who might turn their noses up at other shorts in the collection, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" (1973) shows us Ursula K. LeGuin at the top of her game. The people of Omelas are entirely happy, carefree. But the price of their joy is high and must be paid. The ones who walk away have decided happiness isn’t worth it. Tracy Hickman wraps up the collection with "Dedrak’s Quest" (1998), a portrayal of space-faring dragons with a very human-like society, complete with a pompous bureaucracy. The Minister of Peace is given an almost humiliating mission: to explore rumors of the return of the legendary humans. The premise of this fanciful design is sterling, though the execution could use some polish.
Runway Wrap-up
There you have our summer collection, folks. Shorts for every clime and occasion. The best pieces are probably Tilton’s, Card’s, LeGuin’s, Niven’s, McKillip’s, Sturgeon’s and Dick’s. I can’t imagine a pair of legs that wouldn’t look good in them. And these aren’t just something you see on E or the red carpet. This is an affordable paperback. Granted, there are a few here I don’t think I’ll bother trying on again, and the overall packaging was somewhat campy, but collections of fantasy shorts are rare enough (compared to SF shorts) that this one stands out very respectably.
Fantasies are usually best enjoyed at length, but whatever your tastes there’s bound to be a quickie in here that will get you off.
4.5 Stars
Your summer fashion correspondent,
- Panguitch
Recommended:
Yes
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