Forgotten Worlds #6

Reviewed By Gareth D. Jones

While issue 5 contained predominantly science fiction stories, this edition leans a lot more heavily toward fantasy. This makes my review more difficult to write as I’m not really a fantasy fan, but nonetheless this is still a collection of varied and, for the most part, well-written stories.

Now, while I don’t really read fantasy, I do like dragons, so Chris Kastensmidt’s Even Dragons Dance is a good start. A fearless knight heads off to heroically slay a dragon and is somewhat bemused that his princess bride is not overly impressed. He has to learn what all of us learn the hard way eventually – women are more impressed by flowers than heroic deeds. It’s a pleasant and heart-warming story to open the collection.

The Fallen Angels of Jude by Terry Bramlett takes an entirely different and much darker tone and is probably the strongest story in this issue. It’s set somewhere in the backwoods of America where strange creatures with glowing red eyes live in the woods and kill any strangers who enter. Rather than focus on horror and gore though, the mystery of the creatures is explored through the family who have owned the land for generations and have come to an understanding with the tribe. Are they aliens, throwbacks to an earlier age or possibly the fallen angels of Jude? It’s well worth taking the time to find out.

David Downing gives us Vilkatis, the story of a traveller on a mission to slay a werewolf that has been terrorising a village. This is one of a series of stories apparently, and you do get the impression that the hero has a bigger and more interesting background than your standard wandering vigilante. This background and the brief details of village life make it an engaging read.

H.S.Sheik’s very short Proper Magic is an account more than a story, of a tourist’s visit to stall selling allegedly magical items. The stall holder is a great character and his anecdotes amusing, but I was left feeling a bit disappointed. The story was probably quite realistic, and the atmosphere was conveyed well, but I was looking for something a bit more fantastic. Hypocritical of me, I know, but you can’t please everyone.

Jason Sizemore is heralded as the ‘featured writer’, and his story The Sleeping Quartet is certainly a fast-paced and attention-grabbing tale. It deals with the horrific goings-on in a sleep disorder clinic where maniacal staff have the four patients at their mercy. The central character is obviously very nervous about being there, maybe even paranoid. The problem is that the set-up means that you don’t really know whether he’s dreaming it all, which ruined the tension for me. You’ll have to judge for yourself whether or not it avoids the Alice in Wonderland cliché.

Finally Cat Rambo has written what I would think of as a typical fantasy tale in Alkyone’s Journey. Correct me if I’m wrong as I’m probably misled by my own preconceptions. A young girl is going into the forest on her ‘mage journey’ to come of age and become a mage. She’s under pressure to succeed from her mother, and has magical encounters with woodland animals and mysterious characters who appear from the dark. It’s a nice enough story, and perhaps others would appreciate it more.

So a good collection for fantasy readers, not so good if you’re more into SF. Perhaps more of a balance between the genres would give it more appeal. This issue marks six months as a monthly magazine, quite an accomplishment in such a tough market. You may be aware that Forgotten Worlds has since switched to quarterly publication, a development that, while sad, can only lead to an ever stronger publication.