On Spec #133, Autumn 2025
“The Bag of Holding” by Liz Westbrook-Trenholm
“the love song of house and lake” by Gillian Secord
“When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears” by John Park
“The Superposition of Ramen” by Jed Looker
“The Serene Hospice of the Sisterhood of Baba Yaga” by Lorina Stephens
“An Unsparing Harvest” by Stefani Cooke
“The Years Between the Stars” by Al Onia
“Les Guérisseurs” by Jonathan Simmons
“Some Are Rather Quiet and Some Are Really Loud” by Kristopher Galbraith
“Two Voices, One Song” by David Jón Fuller
“A Little Meteor” by David Lee Zweifler
Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf
Managing Editor Diane L. Walton announces that the magazine will cease publication, after thirty-five years, with the next issue. Meanwhile, readers can enjoy the penultimate issue of this long-running Canadian magazine of imaginative fiction.
“The Bag of Holding” by Liz Westbrook-Trenholm takes place in a fantasy world. A former soldier who lost a hand in battle gets his remaining hand trapped in an enchanted bag. A disgraced associate of the Queen suffers the same fate. Stuck together in this awkward manner, they are taken to the monarch, who winds up trapped the same way. This unlikely trio makes its way out of the palace, where the Queen learns a lesson.
The situation suggests a farce, but the story is mostly serious. It deals with the failure of the Queen to understand the lives of her subjects. The author is very generous with fantasy concepts, perhaps a bit too much so. All the main characters possess specific magical powers, and supernatural beings abound. One gets the feeling that anything might happen, lessening the impact of the story’s theme.
In “the love song of house and lake” by Gillian Secord, a young man spending the summer in the isolated country home of relatives dreams of a man who is the incarnation of the house and a mermaid who is the incarnation of the nearby lake. They address him as the incarnation of the ground. The history of the house offers clues as to the meaning of these dreams, which soon encroach on reality.
The fantasy premise is an original and intriguing one. The story has a bittersweet, romantic mood, although it might also be seen as quiet horror. The ambiguous climax can be interpreted as tragic or hopeful.
In “When the Stars Threw Down Their Spears” by John Park, Earth has been attacked by aliens who bombed the planet with asteroids. After the attack stops, for mysterious reasons, two people in a submarine struggle to avoid detection while on a mission to retrieve an object from space that may be the key to Earth’s survival.
Despite a premise that seems melodramatic, this is really an intimate, even claustrophobic tale. The main conflict is between the two humans. One is thirsty for revenge, while the other hopes for peace but hides his own hatred for the aliens from himself. The author creates a great deal of suspense and provides characters with psychological depth.
The mysterious narrator of “The Superposition of Ramen” by Jed Looker is some kind of multidimensional entity beyond time and space. It directly addresses a certain reader of the magazine. Whether that reader takes a certain person to a bistro or a ramen shop will set off a chain of events that determine the fate of Earth.
This is a comic tale, revealed both by the quirky premise and by the inclusion of slapstick mishaps. Readers are likely to find it both clever and a bit too silly.
The title of “The Serene Hospice of the Sisterhood of Baba Yaga” by Lorina Stephens is the name of a facility for which the protagonist is designing a publicity campaign. He becomes alarmed when he learns of the Slavic legend of Baba Yaga and sisters. A tour of the place reveals how it operates.
The story suggests that the end of life should be joyful rather than full of woe. The author makes this point effectively. To accept the premise, one has to believe that a hospice built in the shape of a hut with chicken legs and operated by three witch-like sisters would be able to be certified by the authorities. This may be asking too much, even for a fantasy.
The narrator of “An Unsparing Harvest” by Stefani Cooke is a tree in the so-called Body Farm at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. This is a secured, wooded area where forensic scientists study the decomposition of donated and unclaimed corpses. The tree absorbs ichor from the bodies as a form of nutrition. It relates how it observed the conflict between a researcher and a careless volunteer.
In essence, this is a gruesome crime story, with the narrator as its only fantasy premise. A hint that the tree is a descendant of the one bearing forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden raises interesting questions, but this is not really developed.
In “The Years Between the Stars” by Al Onia, a starship returning from a planet that seems perfect for human colonization returns to the solar system after centuries. Its sole human occupant is in suspended animation. He discovers that Earth is a radioactive wasteland, bearing only lower forms of life. The downloaded consciousness of a military officer long dead tells him why he and his ship should be destroyed.
The author displays great imagination in this far-ranging science fiction story, although the situation depends on a series of unlikely events that are likely to seem contrived. The climax may remind readers of Alfred Bester’s 1941 story “Adam and No Eve.”
“Les Guérisseurs” by Jonathan Simmons takes place in a version of the modern world where certain people can heal patients through magic, although this is discouraged in favor of conventional medicine. The protagonist is a young doctor, making use of this talent the same way his grandfather did in World War Two. An ordinary object owned by his grandfather allows him to travel back in time, at least in a spiritual sense, to work with the older man.
There is not much plot in what is mostly an evocative character study. The reader has to wonder why magical healing is discouraged when it is obvious to everyone that it works as well or better than other methods.
The narrator of “Some Are Rather Quiet and Some Are Really Loud” by Kristopher Galbraith is a passenger on an interstellar starship, although he has his own secret reasons for being there. He investigates the loss of the vessel’s previous medical officer and comes to a conclusion.
This synopsis is deliberately vague, as it is difficult to discuss the story without giving away too much. Suffice to say that it is a plot-driven tale. A certain action performed by the narrator may seem too callous.
Set in Iceland, “Two Voices, One Song” by David Jón Fuller features a protagonist who returns to the island nation after spending many years in France. She runs into a group of people who tormented her when they were students, although they do not recognize her at first. A supernatural creature forces the old enemies to work together to survive.
The story changes abruptly from a realistic study of old emotional wounds opened up through a chance encounter to pure fantasy horror, almost like a gruesome folktale. If nothing else, the author offers a vivid portrait of Icelandic wilderness.
Less than a page long, “A Little Meteor” by David Lee Zweifler depicts the narrator’s reaction to the news that an object from space will soon hit the Earth, eliminating all human life. It effectively portrays the narrator’s emotions, even if it is a minor work.
Victoria Silverwolf has been to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, but not to the Body Farm.