Fiction River: Fantasy Adrift
Fiction River:
Fantasy Adrift
Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith
Series Editors
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Editor
Copyright Information
Fiction River: Fantasy Adrift
Copyright © 2014 by WMG Publishing
Published by WMG Publishing
Cover and Layout copyright © 2014 by WMG Publishing
Editing and other written material copyright © 2014 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Cover art copyright © Rolffimages/Dreamstime
Cover design by Allyson Longueira/WMG Publishing
“Foreword: Sailing Forward” copyright © 2014 by Dean Wesley Smith
“Introduction: Stories on Demand” copyright © 2014 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
“Legacy” copyright © 2014 by Irette Y. Patterson
“Shaman” copyright © 2014 by Leslie Claire Walker
“The Red-Stained Wishing Tree” copyright © 2014 by Eric Stocklassa
“Shifting Jinn” copyright © 2014 by Rebecca S.W. Bates
“Still Red” copyright © 2014 by Kara Legend
“Generations” copyright © 2014 by Steve Perry
“In the Play of Frigid Women” copyright © 2014 by Dean Wesley Smith
“Old Magics” copyright © 2014 by Steven Mohan, Jr.
“My Real Cousin Ruby” copyright © 2014 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
“Leave a Candle Burning” copyright © 2014 by Dayle A. Dermatis
“The Magic Man” copyright © 2014 by JC Andrijeski
Smashwords Edition
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Table of Contents
Dean Wesley Smith
Introduction: Stories on Demand
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Irette Y. Patterson
Leslie Claire Walker
Eric Stocklassa
Rebecca S.W. Bates
Kara Legend
Steve Perry
Dean Wesley Smith
Steven Mohan, Jr.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Dayle A. Dermatis
JC Andrijeski
Foreword
Sailing Forward
Dean Wesley Smith
Starting year two.
Wow, that’s amazing. We’ve done six regular volumes of
Fiction River
and one special edition. And now, with
Fiction River: Fantasy Adrift
, we start into the second year.
We had a very, very successful first year with Fiction River. So many publishers only manage one or two anthologies a year. WMG Publishing managed seven major anthologies in one year in this series, with varied lead editors for each one.
Just managing to get that many volumes out is a complete success.
But the first year also succeeded in other ways. The volumes pretty much paid their own way, and the readers and reviewers loved them. All seven volumes are still out there for sale. (So if you missed one or two volumes, you can still get them in paper or electronic or audio editions from your favorite booksellers.)
Also, keep in mind that subscriptions for this coming year are available on FictionRiver.com so you don’t miss an upcoming volume.
We even have the third year planned, but to be honest, that seems as far off right now as this volume did eighteen months ago when we started this idea with a successful Kickstarter project.
Right now we’re focused on year two.
Along the way a lot of people (and I do mean a lot of people) helped with the first year of volumes.
Not only did we list all the supporters in each volume from the Kickstarter who helped us get started, but the crew at WMG Publishing were amazing and worked tirelessly to get the seven volumes out. I want to specially thank three of them as we start this second full year:
Allyson Longueira, the publisher of WMG Publishing, who shepherded each project to completion and also did the fantastic covers and layout.
Jerimy Colbert, who kept wrestling all the website and subscription problems to the ground, helping anyone who missed an issue get it.
And Jane Kennedy, WMG Publishing’s audio director, who did a fantastic job recording each volume. Considering how diverse the stories were and how many recording artists she had to work with, that’s amazing.
And mostly I want to thank you, the readers, who encouraged us to keep going by buying these volumes of original fiction. Thank you.
So here we are with another volume of great stories for you to read.
All of us associated with
Fiction River
are happy to welcome you to another year. We really can’t believe we got here, to be honest.
So starting off this second year, Hugo and World Fantasy Award winning editor Kristine Kathryn Rusch pulls fantastic stories from a varied list of professional writers. Somehow, she found original stories that not only were on topic, but needed a good home.
So in essence, these were fantasy stories adrift in more ways than one. She talks about that in her introduction.
I am very pleased to do the forward to the first volume of the second year in
Fiction River
.
Fiction River
is a project of which we are very, very proud.
And now the project continues into the future. Thanks for sticking with us.
Fiction River
flows into year two.
Join us for the ride and the great fiction.
—Dean Wesley Smith
Lincoln City, Oregon
November 30,
2013
Introduction
Stories on Demand
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
I’m editing this volume of
Fiction River,
Fantasy Adrift
, because I fell in love. I read some stories at one of the workshops WMG Publishing puts on at the Oregon Coast every year, and I
knew
I had to have these stories. In fact, I knew I would fight to the death for them.
I haven’t had that feeling since I edited
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
years ago. I would see stories at conventions or at workshops I was teaching, and I would demand that a writer send me that piece.
I don’t usually demand. I try to be fair. It is the writer’s career, after all, and they can choose who to mail their stories to (or not to mail them at all). Sometimes I try to be altruistic and tell writers that they would be better served if they send their stories to another magazine with a long-term reputation.
In the past year, I’ve recommended that writers from the workshops send stories to magazines as diverse as
Asimov’s, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, The New Yorker, Esquire, McSweeney’s
, and so many others. Sometimes those editors even agree with me and buy the stories that I think belong in their magazines. It does my heart proud, because those writers are getting huge exposure, lots of new readers, and a great deal of attention.
When I edited
F&SF
, I knew I had one of those magazines. With a circulation in the tens of thousands, the magazine helped writers find a new audience. When we started
Fiction River
in 2013, we had our wonderful Kickstarter supporters (thank you!) and the hope of attracting lots of new readers.
As I write this, we’re getting a lot of new readers. At the moment,
Fiction River
doesn’t have the circulation that
F&SF
had when I was editing (not that
F&SF
these days has that circulation either), but we’re growing.
Fantasy Adrift
marks the beginning of our second year of publication. Even though we publish diverse stories from every genre we can think of, readers have turned into subscribers and are joining us on this journey in larger numbers than we expected to have by now.
I can be a little less altruistic now. And I feel comfortable enough to demand a story. The writer still has to choose to let me have it for whatever
Fiction River
volume I’m editing.
Fortunately for me, every author in this volume chose to have their stories here.
Even though I decided almost a year ago to edit a completely fantasy volume, don’t expect a narrow focus here. I have no ability to focus narrowly on
any
genre.
The stories in
Fantasy Adrift
run the gamut. We have two historical fantasies, a few urban fantasies, some riffs on legends and fairy tales, some writers who’ve developed their
own
mythology, and some stories that whisper fantasy rather than scream it. The tone of the volume goes from humor to horrific, from romantic to bleak.
If you read the stories in order, I’ve eased you through the mood changes. If you read out of order, you’re on your own.
What I can promise you is what we promise with every edition of
Fiction River:
Great stories, well told.
I love the stories here. I hope you will as well.
—Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Lincoln City, Oregon
November 29, 2013
Introduction to “
Legacy”
We start
Fantasy Adrift
with a historical fantasy. Set in Atlanta more than thirty years ago, “Legacy” captures the feeling of dread that suffused the city at that time. This story, delicate and powerful, is one of the most memorable pieces I read in the past year.
“Legacy” also marks the return of Irette Y. Patterson to our pages. She appeared in the very first volume of
Fiction River,
Unnatural Worlds
. She writes fantasy, science fiction, and romance. Since we publish all three here, we can only hope she’ll grace us with more of her wonderful fiction.