In the January, 2009, offerings from Fantasy Magazine, we discover four oddly curious fiction selections—three originals and, in celebration of Edgar Allan Poe’s 200th birthday, the reprint of “Ligeia,” one of Poe’s earliest short stories, first published in 1838. “Ligeia” is a Gothic-inspired love story, dramatizing the narrator’s anguished obsession for his lost love, Lady Ligeia. After her death, the narrator marries Lady Rowena, whom he realizes does not love him and who soon grows mysteriously ill and dies. Mourning both losses, the husband sets vigil beside the corpse in an opium-induced stupor. He awakes in horror to the moaning of a reanimating corpse; but as the body comes to life, he realizes that it is Lady Ligeia, who has returned to this world. In a kind of reversal of “The Tell-Tale Heart,” this story is ultimately about the power of love that can overcome even death, although the reader is left to ponder if the event is simply the narrator’s delusional wish-fulfillment or indeed reality.

Chantel Tattoli’s “The Gnomes Are Coast Guards” evokes the nostalgic longings for childhood that so often accompany the disappointments that unfilled dreams and aspirations of adulthood elicit. Yet the image of guardian gnomes comforts the narrator as she reflects on her seemingly serendipitous encounters with them throughout the intervening years. During her childhood summers on Sanibel Island, Nessa would learn wisdom from her grand-mère, whose “front yard was bestrewn with kitschy lawn gnomes and plastic flamingos.” The gnomes, she was told, escort the procession of infant turtles from birthing bed to the sea. This metaphor of protection and watchcare is effectively woven throughout the story and finally circles back with an explicit call for the adult Nessa to return to Sanibel and find peace once again. The story has a certain literary quality to it (although a bit forced at times), and is not expressly fantasy. Still, Tattoli is a solid writer and accomplishes her purpose with charming and picturesque language.

In “The Moon, A Roman Token,” Darren Speegle takes the reader on a dreamlike journey to modern and ancient Rome—very often confusing the two during the protagonist’s flashbacks (or are they reincarnational rememberings?). I have to admit the story’s movement and the author’s structuring of the plot were a bit unfathomable to me. But the overarching theme seems to suggest that life and death are fluid, and neither one has ultimate power over the individual. This bit of slipstream would probably appeal to the existential reader—an audience I’m sure Fantasy Magazine attracts—but for the average fantasy fan, I’m thinking this story would be a difficult read.

“Leningrad” by D. Elizabeth Wasden is a four movement symphony (Allegretto, Moderato, Adagio, and Allegro non troppo) in written form. A creative and engaging piece of short fiction, “Leningrad” gives us Shostakovich’s furiously inspired interpretation of the 1941 siege of Leningrad and his subsequent departure for Moscow—all the while accompanied by a bust of Beethoven. The irony, of course, being that a German-inspired Soviet could inspire the heroic resistance efforts of the residents of his childhood Saint Petersburg. The story is brief but profound; Wasden offers a satisfying bit of historical fantasy for those who enjoy the broad genres of speculative fiction.