I continue to run into stories by members of this forum. I was looking into Jeremiah Tolbert on his website, which led me to his story,
The Yeti Behind You (the latest PC story), as featured in Fantasy Magazine. Then as I looked at a list of stories on the left-hand column, I noticed the story
Marrying the Sun by Rachel Swirsky. So I had to read it…and I found it very intriguing and excellently written.
The first line—“The wedding went well until the bride caught fire.” (which I found out was actually given to her by a friend as inspiration)—pulled me right in, but the characters and their plight continued to keep me engaged to the perfect ending.
The story explores relationships between gods and mortals and poses insightful and, in my opinion, appropriate conclusions. Classic mythology comes face to face with “real world” issues.
Marrying the Sun contains comedy and well-crafted emotional elements. I felt the dialogue and reactions of the characters were quite realistic given the fantasy backdrop. Very well done and worth the read.
Notice: this story isn’t for children. Escape Artists would probably give this an R rating for sexual situations.I also learned that Rachel’s second place winner from the 2007 Escape Pod Flash Fiction Contest,
Skyscrapers, was published by Flashquake last year. Many of you probably already knew that. That does my heart good, and I look forward to hearing
Skyscrapers when it comes to EP (soon I hope).
If you are interested in other works by Rachel go to
her website.