Black Gate Online, May 5, 2013
Reviewed by Dave Truesdale
The premise of Robert Rhodes‘s short 5,000 word story is a good one at heart, but suffers in the execution. The protagonist Piran, his lover Amara, and friend Ferris are hunting a witch. When found, Piran cleaves the witch from head to toe with his sword but discovers, when turning about, that Amara and Ferris have disappeared into thin air.
Bewildered, Piran sets off to find his compatriots only to discover the witch (a medusa knockoff) had turned him to stone and twenty years had passed, during which time Ferris has married and has a grown daughter and his lover, Amara, has devoted her time—at great personal sacrifice—to find a cure for him.
But I was mightily confused, not aware until the end of the story that Piran had been turned to stone by the witch I thought was slain, thinking that if Piran had slain the witch as we are led to believe at the outset, then how did twenty years pass, and (as Piran now wonders) where is his beloved Amara now?
Turns out that after the witch/medusa turned Piran to stone, it was Amara who had killed her, and yes, she has sought far and wide looking for a cure for Piran—which she finds. And it is at this point that the story begins, for the instant Piran is returned to flesh and blood, his sword raised as before, it descends on who he thinks is the witch, but is really Amara, who has just given him the antidote. Amara’s love has remained true to Piran for twenty years, her devotion to him and her cause unflagging—but she has now died at the hands of her lover. A nice little (tragic) love story for sure. But the initial confusion could have been lessened without giving too much away; and the story could have used a mild line-edit, deleting excessive commas and smoothing out/restructuring some sentences for a cleaner read. While this is a sword & sorcery yarn and certain conventions must be paid due homage, the almost obligatory hewing swords and bloody bits—for such a short piece—seemed a little trite and overdone.
Nice idea, less than pro execution, and as I’ve said elsewhere, it might have been the above average piece in a middle-of-the-road semi-prozine.
Dave Truesdale has edited Tangent and now Tangent Online since 1993. It has been nominated for the Hugo Award four 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.