Another Twenty Epics review, this time at Tangent Online

My favorite story in this collection is “Bound Man” by Mary Robinette Kowal. Ripped from the past while playing with her two children in her courtyard, legendary “warrior-god” Li Reiko finds herself six-thousand years in the future where she has been summoned to slay the Troll King. Halldór the warrior-priest has invoked her presence to save his lord, Duke Lárus, after bandits attack. Halldór agrees to become her bound man if she will save Lárus’s life with her healing power. But once that’s accomplished and she awakens back at their village, she refuses to fulfill her destiny and slay the Troll King. That is, until the trolls attack and take the village women hostage.

There’s a lot more to this fine story than that brief synopsis, but I don’t want to spoil it. Written in lucid prose, this tale has the true feel of an epic. And while it has a most satisfactory conclusion, I felt like I was reading the first chapter of a fast-paced novel getting off to an excellent start. I don’t know if the author has any intention of becoming a novelist, but I have no doubt she could. Kowal is a talent to watch.

In fact, I have already begun plotting a novel set in this world, but it didn’t occur to me until after the story was written.

Take note, for those of you planning to submit to Shimmer’s pirate issue, of what the Slush God says on his blog.

Pirates say “Arrr!”, damn it: no “gh.” “Argh!” is a cry of frustration (it is, also apparently a fungeoid esoteric programming language). I keep seeing this error over and over, and as the editor of a piratical periodical, this bothers me.

I have to say that I love the way “piratical periodical” rolls off the tongue.

I don’t often bring up politics on my blog because I have family members with whom I don’t see eye to eye.

But this is important. Please read, Whatever: On Moral Cowardice which discusses the new detainee trial law.

Everytime I meet someone here in Iceland and have to admit that I’m an American, I feel like I need to follow it up with an apology. I don’t think that any nation is perfect, but I want to live in a society that is moving forwards, not backwards.