Short Story Sunday 20: Gene Wolfe and Patrick O’Leary

I had a good time reading short stories last weekend so I decided to do the same again this week. I was hoping for some better stories. One of these confused me and I’m still not sure what to think of it. The other certainly delivered the goods.

“Queen” by Gene Wolfe

Read in Year’s Best Fantasy 2 (2002), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer (uncredited)

Originally published in Realms of Fantasy (December 2001), edited by Shawna McCarthy

I haven’t read much by Wolfe, but what I have read has blown me away. The Fifth Head of Cerberus and Peace are worth your time and will certainly stay with you for weeks after finishing them. That’s the effect they had on me. I’ve read a handful of his short stories and all of them read like they’ important and worth reading, even if they often leave me questioning what actually happened. That’s standard fare for a Wolfe story.

In the editors’ introduction to “Queen”, they state (warn?) that this story was written in Wolfe’s “more cryptic mode”. He goes on to give the reader a clue about the theme by sharing Michael Swanwick’s description of the story: “an account of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in which a rich man who doesn’t think he needs it is given another shot at heaven.” This coloured my reading and I’m partially thankful for it as I’m not what I would have thought about it if left to my own devices.

Ranking: 3 stars

As with other works by Wolfe I enjoyed the prose. “Queen” seems tied into his personal faith more than the rest of his works I’m familiar with or maybe it was simply more overtly apparent. I think Swanwick carries some responsibility for that as well.

Despite a strong execution, there wasn’t much here to chew on. It’s very short, only six pages, and it feels more like a character study of the rich man. There’s more to it than that as it also deals with redemption and how we evaluate ourselves versus how we evaluate others. I guess my main issue is the length rather than the content. I was disappointed when reaching the end, not because the story wasn’t good, but because it was over so soon. 

“The Black Heart” by Patrick O’Leary

Read in Year’s Best Fantasy2  (2002), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer (uncredited) Originally published in Sci Fiction (August 8 2001 issue), edited by Ellen Datlow

Here’s yet another author I haven’t heard of before. That’s one of the reasons I picked up a couple of these collections at my local used bookstore. One of those goals was finding a good anthology with more quality stories than duds (harder to find than you might think). Another goal was to discover authors that are unknown to me that work in genres that enjoy reading such as science fiction and fantasy. O’Leary is an example of the later and I was quite impressed with my first sample of his work.

It’s a bit challenging to describe “The Black Heart”. Like many short stories you can easily give away too much by describing the plot. In short, you could say it’s the final confrontation between two large groups all of which takes place in an airport. This confrontation, like the characters, isn’t want it seems at first, but it’s compelling and has much more depth than expected.

Ranking: 4 stars

O’Leary uses great description language and paints vivid images in your mind. He does this without burdening the reader with lengthy descriptive passages that ultimately only serve to set the scene and add some flourishes. His skill extends to his character work which masterfully fleshes out not just who they are, but also how the dynamic between the two main characters shifts as they interact. A large conflict involving two large groups is condensed into the interactions of just two people. It’s crazy that it works as story as well as it does, though I did find it little messy with a rushed ending.

Essentially, the execution of an interesting yet difficult idea that makes this story succeed as well as is does. Unfortunately, the larger story of what is happening outside of the two characters left me a little confused. Like “In the Shadow of Her Wings” by Ashok Banker from last week’s Short Story Sunday post, I’m questioning what makes this story fantasy all the while being certain that it’s not quite science fiction either. I don’t think it’s the fault of anything O’Leary does in his writing, but reading it in a collection titled Year’s Best Fantasy 2 leads me to ponder questions that wouldn’t necessarily have been there otherwise. Despite this, it’s a solid story that pulled me.