Trains
One of my favorite works of fantasy ever is Stephen King’s The Gunslinger, the first of his Dark Tower series. I’ll never forget the feel of that parched, cracked, and crumbling post-apocalyptic Western landscape, full of dust, sun, sage, guns and hard magic. I was captivated. The later books in the series took the shine off of it a little, but nothing could dampen the brilliance of that first outing.
So I loved The Hangman, up recently at Beneath Ceaseless Skies. It has much the same feel, but with a quieter and more terrifying story. It has man-eating trains. You’ll love it.
Also, you must read both of these stories
December 5, 2008 at 1:23 pm (writing) (beneath ceaseless skies, commentary, fantasies of ritual, short story)
I have to mention that the current issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies is pure excellence. Do you like fantasy stories? Do you like interesting characters and riveting storytelling? Then go and read both of its current stories, now.
The first story, The God-Death of Halla is one of those “elaborate religious ritual” stories that I’ve talked about before, but completely unsubverted. That is, it turns out that the God is being manipulated, but the reality of the God is unambiguously established throughout the story. The conclusion was exciting and glowed with the numinous–something hard to do in a short story.
The second, Precious Meat could easily pass for science fiction. The narrator is non-human, and nothing magical happens. What I loved about it, though, was the fact that it takes place at the moment the narrator’s species is passing into a social mode of existence; which is to say becoming fully sentient, and becoming something that we humans can relate to.
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