Strange Horizons, June 20, 2016
Reviewed by Dave Truesdale
The setting of this short story is an alternate contemporary London where magic works and is known publicly: “While magic wasn’t hidden, it was separate from society like the rich and famous were separate from society—there, but not part of day-to-day life.” Of marriageable age, Kyria lives in London with her father while her brother Damien is off to further his journalistic career in sub-Saharan Africa to cover the war being waged there against the magic peoples living there (of which he, Kyria, and their father were among their number, but have since escaped to London). Kyria’s father, in order to protect her though definitely against her wishes, has offered her up as a bride for the proper price, and suitors are being screened by the old man. They all decline, not willing to pay the bride price of the story’s title which, without revealing what this price is, gives much power to Kyria in any future relationship.
There are questions of favoritism (or is it cultural sexism) on the part of the father as well, leading Kyria to question which of his children he loves more (does he love her brother as much as he does her; if so, then why not try to protect him using the same method he has chosen for her?) which then leads to the resolution, which ends on a light-hearted note I found not quite in step—or perhaps a tad too sweet for my taste—with the rest of the seriously presented narrative. The story itself dealt with the breaking of an old tradition, the role of a woman in a marriage relationship and the power accorded to her (via the steep bride price), and to end it with not much more than a literal giggle seemed slightly out of synch. That said, chances are that others will find the light tone at story’s end the perfect touch, and that’s fine too.
Dave Truesdale has edited Tangent and now Tangent Online since 1993. It has been nominated for the Hugo Award six times, and the World Fantasy Award once. A former editor of the Bulletin of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, he also served as a World Fantasy Award judge in 1998, and for several years wrote an original online column for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Now retired, he keeps close company with his SF/F library, the coffeepot, and old movie channels on TV. He lives in Kansas City, MO.