Beneath Ceaseless Skies #401, February 22, 2024

“Tell the King” by Natalia Theodoridou

“A Black Spot Among the Chaos” by A.T. Greenblatt

“Twice-Marked, Wild Against City” by R.Z. Held

“Do Not Waver, My Heart” by Shanna Germain

Reviewed by Chuck Rothman

Issue #401 of Beneath Ceaseless Skies concentrates on stories that meld science fiction with fantasy, to strong effect.

“Tell the King” by Natalia Theodoridou is set on a colony world that’s barely habitable. The Keeper keeps watch on the dead, because when you die, you continue to dream, and the dreams can be interpreted. He is especially taken by the King, who is dying and who will need to decide if the colony should leave, complicated by the fact that some have changed to breathe the atmosphere, and need to stay. Interesting setup (especially since the king, against tradition, is female and the Keeper, against tradition, is male). I think the story doesn’t really live up to the concept, though.

A.T. Greenblatt’s “A Black Spot Among the Chaos” is set on a spaceship that’s on a mission to a Colossus, a giant alien creature that captures and eats souls. They find a stowaway, a younger man who is escaping from his life as a spaceport bum. He is forced into service to help with the mission, which means going into the Colossus, which induces hallucinations, and to find the souls they were hired to find. Nice writing, but when anything is possible, I don’t care for it.

“Twice-Marked, Wild Against City” by R.Z. Held is set in a far future when magic has overwhelmed our modern civilization. Ariana asks for help from her mother Scarlett, who abandoned her as a baby. Scarlett had taken on the aspect of the Wolf—one of many animal gods—but reneged on her deal and Wolf wants revenge. Ariana volunteers, even though she is already compromised by becoming attached to Dragon, a god of city dwellers, whereas Wolf is for country dwellers. Ariana agrees to find her sister to give Wolf what she wants. Interesting magic ideas and the story has some very clever twists.

“Do Not Waver, My Heart” tells the story of ________, which is under a curse not to hear her name, or speak to anyone else. A witch did it to her, after turning her brothers into spaceships and given her the near impossible task of finding them and turning them back by weaving “skins.” The task has taken many years, and she only has the companionship of her ship Akasama, while fending off attacks from the Witch’s minions, the Huntsmen. Shanna Germain constructs a very complex situation and brings the issues to a strong ending.

I liked the ambition of combining fantasy and science fiction into a single story, and to do an entire issue on the theme is especially good.

Chuck Rothman’s novels Staroamer’s Fate and Syron’s Fate are available from Fantastic Books. He will be running programming for the Buffalo NASFiC.