[On May 10, 2021 Strange Horizons officially expressed its political support for Palestinian solidarity. The views of Tangent Online reviewers are not necessarily those of Strange Horizons. Fiction critiqued at Tangent Online is, as much as is humanly possible, without prejudice and based solely on artistic merit.]
Strange Horizons, July 1st & 8th, 2024
“The Tangle (Did Not Kill Kitsault)” by K. A. Wiggins (July 1st)
“Cold Comfort” by Louis Inglis Hall (July 8th)
Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf
“The Tangle (Did Not Kill Kitsault)” by K. A. Wiggins mostly takes place during a severe forest fire. The plot deals with the woman in charge of fighting the fire, a truck driver, and a man who drives another huge vehicle for his own reasons.
This overly simplified synopsis fails to point out that much of the text consists of flashbacks, generally concerned with the history of a mining town named Kitsault, from the state of the wilderness before it was built to its eventual fate as a ghost town. It also fails to note the story’s fantasy premise, a being known as the Tangle. The latter is barely described at all, and its role in the plot is ambiguous.
Each section of the narrative ends with a sentence of the form “This is not a story about [something].” The intent seems to be ironic, because these things that the author denies the story is about do seem relevant to it. In any case, the story is disjointed, perhaps deliberately, and may be best appreciated as an exercise in narrative structure.
The narrator of “Cold Comfort” by Louis Inglis Hall was created from clay by a god, whom he thinks of as his father. The god, who was also very much like an ordinary man, is dead. There is a statue of the deceased deity so gigantic that the upper half of it is not visible from the ground. The narrator climbs the statue, as if it were an enormous mountain, and makes a discovery at the top.
The matter-of-fact surrealism of this story reminds me of the works of Franz Kafka. The theme may have something to do with the relationship between father and son, as well as that between god and worshipper, but it remains obscure. The image of the Brobdingnagian statue is striking, but the meaning of the discovery the narrator makes escapes me.
Victoria Silverwolf doesn’t climb mountains.