International Speculative Fiction #4

Issue 4 of International Speculative Fiction is out featuring yours truly’s review column. In which I cover some of the recent works of independent self publisher Rabia Gale and the award winning Eliza Victoria.  But of course I shouldn’t be the only reason you pick up a copy of this FREE publication in one of its multiple formats (mobi, epub or pdf).

In this issue Roberto Mendes and Ricardo Loureiro have managed to bring together another great collection of story art and non-fiction writing from around the world.  The fiction section features works by previous World Fantasy Award winners including Ken Liu.

The non-fiction section features an interesting  interview with Zoran Živković on the fantastical tradition in European writing:

The term “fantastika”—used in slightly different ways in many European languages—doesn’t seem to have a satisfactory English equivalent. It could have been “fantasy” if that term hadn’t been reduced to a marketing label that means “Tolkienesque” fiction.

Fantastika is by no means limited to that narrow section of the spectrum. It is, in fact, the spectrum itself—all nonmimetic prose. Nearly 70 percent of everything written during the past five thousand years is nonmimetic and belongs to one of many forms of fantastika: folklore, oneiric, fairytale, epic, and so forth.

There’s also a wonderful profile of Romanian artist George Munteanu, that’s worth a look (note the cover image is his as well).

While you are there you should also take the opportunity to download their free 2012 anthology.

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Rabia Gale interview on Adventures of a Bookonaut Podcast

(Download Link – Mp3)

In Episode 4 I talk to Speculative Fiction author Rabia Gale about her diverse collection of published work.

We discuss self publishing, the freedom it gives to experiment with form and genre, and the reading canon that is the legacy of commonwealth countries. If you haven't come across Rabia's work before you are missing out. She's one of those writers that make the genre work for her and not the other way round.

Check out her blog at Rabia Gale - Writer at Play

Thankyou for listening, you may leave audio feedback at https://www.speakpipe.com/Bookonaut, or you may leave written feedback on Facebook, the Podomatic page, or at my blog.

Music

Music featured in this podcast is from the song Voodoo Machine by Lavoura downloaded from the Free Music Archive and Licensed under these conditions

Voodoo Machine (Lavoura) / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Mourning Cloak released

Rabia Gale has released her new 22,000 word novella, Mourning Cloak.  I came across Rabia last year through Australia’s own Jo Anderton, who works closely with her as a beta reader and a collaborating writer.

Rabia has a broad range of writing from reimagined fairy tales to science fiction and fantasy.  She’s one of those largely undiscovered self published gems.

I have reviewed he works Shattered: Broken Fairy Tales and Rainbird.

I purchased Mourning Cloak without a shadow of a doubt that I will get very good value for money.

If you are interested you should sign up for her Newsletter too as she provides list members only access to short stories and discounts for her other works.

Y0u can find her at her website and sometimes on twitter.

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Cover Candy - Mourning cloak by Rabia Gale

 

Mourning Cloak is the latest work to spring from the mind of Rabia Gale, a real diamond in the rough when it comes to self published authors.

I can count the number of self pubbed authors that I would shell out money for without question and Rabia would be one of them.

Of course she has a wonderful support crew. Her sister in law does the covers, her husband does the ebook formatting and her beta readers include the likes of Jo Anderston.

She’s so good I think we should import her as per the long recognised Australian trait of claiming overseas talent as our own.

So if you are looking for quality, originality and entertainment to fill up your reader checkout Rabia’s work.

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eBook Review–Rainbird by Rabia Gale

Rainbird is a novella from Rabia Gale, a self published author who I managed to quite fortunately stumble across earlier this year.

Rainbird is also the name of our half breed protagonist  Part Eerie part human she is seen as a lesser being in both societies.

She works with her human father, helping maintain the Sunway, an amalgam of wires, conduit and metal bolted to the great skeleton of a long dead dragon.

 

Rainbird danced on the sunway to the singing of uncountable stars, music that only she could hear. Her trench coat, too large and shabby, smelling of cigar smoke and mothballs, flapped around her.

Under the thick third hand fabric, her wings whispered, satin-starch-slither. Her long-toed bare feet skimmed the bumpy bone of the sunway, worn smooth and glittering by centuries of inspection. Her oversized lungs pulled in the thin cold air.

The setting, for such a short piece is stunningly original and vivid.  I want to say it has elements of steampunk in the description of the mechanics of the Sunway, in the description of the clothes and the attitudes of the Morality League.  That doesn’t quite do it justice though.  It would be too easy for you to go “pfft more steampunk” and roll your eyes. 

That would be an injustice, for I think Rabia Gale has crafted a world that has echoes of several sub genres and seamlessly woven them together.  Rainbird leaves me wanting more of the world that Rabia has created – a feature rarely experienced in reading self published work and not as common as you would like to experience in traditional publishing either.

To top it off this well sketched work has a nice little engine of an action story powering it.

It’s a truly original tale of action, love and redemption.

At $2.99 it’s well worth it.

This book was provided by the author.

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eBook Review–Shattered: Broken Fairy Tales

Shattered: Broken Fairy Tales is a collection of three fairy/folk tale retellings by Rabia Gale.

The difficulty in writing a retelling of a folk tale is that the core story has been pretty much told already. 

The author has a few choices, they can alter the tale, invert tropes, riff off in a slightly different direction and they can alter tone and play with style and language.

As long as the reader gets something new; a perspective or a connection with the tale not previously experienced then, despite the old material we will be happy.

I think Gale has preformed brilliantly in this short collection.  I think she’s achieved that balance of tweaking the tale or exploring other aspects of it. Gale gives us three very interesting tales, reimagined:

The Prince holds both her hands—once work-roughened and brown, now soft, supple and white—in a strong clasp. "Nothing will ever harm you again, my love. I vow it."

He is so serious, so sure. How she longs to believe him, believe in his love. She manages a smile. "While you are with me there is nothing to fear." Except for another woman with gold hair and blue eyes.

The other. Lily in Winter

 

The Most Beautiful Woman in the World is a riff off Snow White.  In this tale it is the Mirror that forms the centrepiece. Like a good folk tale there is wisdom to be gained, a philosophical conundrum to examine. The Most Beautiful Woman in the World says something important about perceptions of beauty and how destructive and unrealistic misguided perceptions can be. The cost of chasing beauty that is only skin deep is highlighted beautifully by Gale’s tone and characterisation.

Beauty, Unravelling is a twist on Beauty and the Beast with a suggestion that happily ever afters aren’t always the end result.  I detect Gale raising a cautionary note on our ability to deceive ourselves if our will is strong enough.  She highlights our tendency to project our wants and hopes on others and the disaster that can bring.

The final Lily in Winter asks a “what if” of the tale Cinderella. What if someone else fit the shoe.  A love gained by deception, will destroy itself seems to be the strongest wisdom imparted by this piece.

I return to the difficulty of retelling or re-crafting Fairy tales.  Its sounds deceptively easy The Most Beautiful Woman in the World, and Lily in Winter, however, strike me as not only some of the better retellings of their respective tales, but as some of the better short stories I have read in recent memory.

Keep your eyes out for Rabia Gale.

This ebook was provided by the author at no cost to me.

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