I love fantasy fiction. As a genre, it brings the reader to so many wonderful, scary, imaginative, and vivid worlds and realities. Having magic in a story really opens up the possibilities for fun exploration and creativity. Over the last few months, I’ve read six novellas (i.e. short novels) that represent a pretty good variety of contemporary fantasy. I like to read shorter works in between full-length novels to keep changing things up. These are not all favourites, but I think if someone is interested in picking up or getting their feet wet with contemporary fantasy, these would all make good places to start, without huge time commitments.

The Fireborne Blade by Charlotte Bond

I’m no expert on fantasy tropes or the subverting of tropes, but I know that I don’t want that to be the focus of any story. This is more than the story of a courageous knight (who happens to be a woman) and her failed mage of a squire (who happens to be a man) taking on a dragon. The story fits very well within familiar fantasy conventions (the dragon that they pursue is ancient and has a legendary treasure within her hoard), but is told in a way that lives up to those traditions yet feels fresh, imaginative and surprising. For one thing, author Charlotte Bond adds some new horror elements to the classic story. Sir Maddileh and Petras are haunted by nightmares and hallucinations in the dragon’s cave. They encounter “dragon dead” (the ghosts of dragon victims who stalk the cave like zombies) and “soot drakes” (deadly pests who infect unsuspecting travellers with toxic soot that will destroy their bodies) as they make their way deeper in. There are also many interesting magical objects, spells, and legendary tales of various mages of old woven into the story, which are a lot of fun to read about.

Even with a low page count, there are interesting backstories for all the characters — even some of the characters within the backstories have backstories. The titular Fireborne Blade definitely has its story and, by the end, Bond manages to bring many of these stories together in a clever and unique way, crafting them into an even bigger story. I love twists; and this novella contained so many surprises which I didn’t expect that it kept me delighted and surprised the whole time.

The writing and the narration are also both very well done. The language is descriptive, pleasant and elegant without being flowery or pretentious. There’s a good variety of voices and tones, including some guide-book-style chapters which nicely deliver world-building exposition in an engaging way. It is impressive how much of a world is built around a fairly straightforward story and a single core event. It doesn’t feel only like the dragon’s cave is the entire world. In fact, there is so much going on outside (described mostly in the flashbacks) that when we reach the climax, it doesn’t feel like we’re seeing sunlight for the first time. The narration by Helen McAlpine is great. She gives each character a varied tone, and her voice is mature enough to avoid the petulance and juvenile air that makes many female narrators skew a little bit “young adult”.

Overall, I loved this story. It was all well-crafted, very fun and satisfying. Even though I don’t feel it needs to be any longer, I would love to read more from this world and this author. (4.75 out of 5)

Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

I really enjoyed this retelling of the Briar Rose (i.e. Sleeping Beauty) fairytale, mainly because it wasn’t just a role reversal or a reimagining with modern sensibilities (though that is a big part, since the characters, and roles that we expect from them, are seriously turned on their heads and reinvented in a very believable, enchanting way). I liked that it gave a lot of context from the faerie world. I also thought the writing was beautiful and picturesque. I wasn’t quite in love with the narration of the audiobook, narrator often sounded a bit too dreamy. Also, the dialogue between the prince and the faerie was not too interesting for me (I kind of wanted to skip past those parts and return to the backstory). Nevertheless, I still think this was a tale retold right. (4 out of 5)

Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djeli Clark

I really enjoyed this story set in an exotic fantasy realm of a hired assassin known as Eveen the Eviscerator whose latest contract ends up being someone she just cannot bring herself to kill. While I expected the kind of colourful characters that populate an assassin’s story (tricky bosses, competing killers out for your blood, local crime lords, etc.), the world-building in this story was much more expansive (including a healthy share of assassin lore and really fantastic local legends), especially for such a short novella. Think more Arabian Nights than John Wick. The plot contained some interesting twists and goes in certain surprising directions right from the start, as Eveen tries to figure out what’s going on. Despite all that good stuff that makes this a pretty fresh, fun tale, there was one big issue that was distracting through most of the story. Clark’s writing is very good for the most part. He can paint a picture (especially a character portrait) with words pretty well. However, the choice to use contemporary colloquial language and slang (the word “mansplain” was used!) in such a fantastical setting was really distracting. It lessened as the story went on, but it was frustrating to me throughout. Also, for the audiobook, some of the voices used were not great. One of the main characters sounded like a five year old girl, who I was shocked to learn was supposed to be 19! And at the climax of the book, a major character has a patois that was a bit tough for me to understand. Nevertheless, I found this to be a really imaginative and enjoyable read. I hope there will be more adventures in this world. (4 out of 5)

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle

This story falls into one of my favourite fantasy categories (you might consider it a subgenre): cosmic horror. In fact, this category is mostly anything that follows and borrows from the traditions of author HP Lovecraft. Many of those stories include mention of ancient monstrous beings of limitless power who possibly came from beyond outer space in the distant past and influenced, controlled the world eons ago (and could be returning). Lovecraft’s mythos often involve the tentacled elder god known as Cthulhu. This particular novella is a retelling of one of Lovecraft’s stories called “The Horror at Red Hook”, but with an attempt to invert the racist overtones that Lovecraft is infamous for. This new story centres around Tommy Tester, a poor black musician living in Harlem who gets involved with some wealthy white folk dabbling in powerful mysticism and trying to commune with one of the Great Old Ones known as the Sleeping King. The story also foregrounds the racial conflicts of its setting in 1920s America. I thought this novella was great. On reflection (and reread) I am not as sure I would rate it as highly as I did, given that I was not fully invested in the characters but more in the plot. The characters were actually somewhat thin, and the villains were a bit two-dimensional. However, I was enthralled by having a story with genuine Lovecraftian elements told in a contemporary style. That alone was thrilling enough for me. (4.5 out of 5)

When Among Crows by Veronica Roth

To be honest, I don’t remember a whole lot about this one. Written by the same author who wrote the popular Divergent series of dystopian young adult novels, I was intrigued by what Roth would do with Slavic mythology in a modern, urban, Chicago context. I was interested in the blend of new and old mythology (I wasn’t truly aware of where the line was drawn between the two, since I don’t know a lot of traditional Slavic folklore), but I really enjoyed the bits about the magical warriors whose swords are in their spines, and the opening scene about one such knight pursuing a mythical fern flower was written beautifully and I loved that part. Howeever, as the story of the assigned quest progressed throughout the city, with various enclaves of supernatural beings, it started to feel a bit repetitive and stereotypical (for the urban fantasy genre). I did enjoy the inclusion of the famous witch, Baba Jaga. She is always a nice (scary) presence in Slavic stories, but I thought it was odd that she was in Chicago. The more she shows up in stories, the more she’s starting to feel like department store Santas. Where is the actual Baba Jaga? Anyway, this story is pretty popular, so I don’t want to discourage anyone from giving it a chance, but for me it was largely a cover pick and didn’t quite live up to the expectations set by the stunning cover art. (3 out of 5)

Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee

This story of a young trainer of rocs (y’know, those giant eagles from tales of Sinbad and Arabian Nights) was not bad. Fonda Lee is a pretty good writer and can set the scene with evocative details and description. There are a number of fast-paced action scenes as well, which are pretty thrilling. However, overall the story was a bit on the ordinary side (as tales of magical creatures fighting other magical creatures go). The story spent a lot of time either with the training/bonding aspect of the protagonist (Ester) with her bird (Zahra), or with her experience growing up and making her way as a ruhker. There was definitely a “young adult” flavour to this story not only because it spent a little time on crushes and love triangles, but mainly because the point of view was a young woman who was growing in life experience throughout the story (and naturally makes some juvenile choices along the way). I wish that there had been less time spent on the technical, falconry-adjacent, aspects of being a ruhker, in favour of more world-building beyond that profession and their manticore-hunting mandate. Even though it was clearly a familiar, Arabian-inspired world, expanding on that world in imaginative ways could have made the story a lot more interesting. Or, we could also have spent more time in mind of Ester. She experienced a lot of trauma in her backstory so it probably would have been pretty engaging to explore how she’s been coping and growing all these years. How did she manage to become a successful ruhker after all the disadvantages of a troubled past? I guess the most disappointing aspect of this novella was that by the end of it, I had no real desire to revisit that world or for this story to have kept exploring deeper. (3 out of 5)

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