The Very Best of Kate Elliott Read online

  Table of Contents

  Half Title

  Title Page

  Introduction: The Landscapes that surround us

  Riding the Shore of the River of Death

  Leaf and Branch and Grass and Vine

  The Queen’s Garden

  On the Dying Winds of the Old Year and the Birthing Winds of the New

  The Gates of Joriun

  The Memory of Peace

  With God to Guard Her

  My Voice Is in My Sword

  Sunseeker

  A Simple Act of Kindness

  To Be a Man

  Making the World Live Again

  Four Essays

  The Omniscient Breasts: The Male Gaze through Female Eyes

  The Narrative of Women in Fear and Pain

  And Pharaoh’s Heart Hardened

  The Status Quo Does Not Need World Building

  About the Author

  About the Cover Art

  PRAISE FOR THE VERY BEST OF KATE ELLIOTT

  “The Very Best of Kate Elliott does an excellent job of displaying Elliott’s multifaceted creativity, her huge talent for inventing a variety of worlds without ever sacrificing the sparkling little details in each one that make her writing so compelling.”

  —Katharine Kerr, author of the Deverry Cycle

  “But remarkably Elliott is one of those rare writers who is also able to distill that sense of an epic fantasy novel into the short form. For fans of epic storytelling, this is a collection not to be missed.”

  —John Joseph Adams, series editor of Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy and editor of Lightspeed Magazine

  PRAISE FOR KATE ELLIOTT

  “A gripping and enthralling fantasy epic.”

  —London Times on Crown of Stars

  “Elliott pulls out all the stops in a wildly imaginative narrative that will ring happy bells for fans of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Elliott’s accomplished in three novels over three years what one might reasonably expect to take much longer. With Traitors’ Gate she concludes a wildly complex story with clarity and panache. If you like to immerse yourself in a fantasy world, Elliott’s completed trilogy is a great place to do so.”

  —The Agony Column

  “The Crossroads trilogy is a breathtaking achievement that places fantasy back in the center of political fiction.”

  —Strange Horizons

  “The most fabulous part of Elliott’s series is how perfectly crafted the characters are, each with their own flaws and blind spots, as well as their honor or lack thereof. . . . Rebellion and unrest provide plenty of opportunity for plot surprises, and the conclusion is delicious.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Cold Steel—indeed, the whole Spiritwalker trilogy—is one of a handful of epic fantasy novels that treats social change and social revolution thoughtfully, understanding the nature of a paradigm shift away from privilege (privilegium, private law) towards common law and equality before the law.”

  —Tor.com

  “Elliott’s writing keeps getting better. She handles a cast roughly the size of The Iliad’s and still makes each personality distinct, and she excels at depicting quiet character moments.”

  —Starlog

  “An exuberant narrative with great energy and inventive world building . . . I utterly loved it”

  —Fantasy Book Critic

  “Elliott has concocted something very special and original here, with elements to tweak sci-fi and fantasy fans of nearly any stripe, from alt history and steampunk aficionados, to lovers of intrigue, romance, and swashbuckling adventure.”

  —New York Journal of Books

  “A broad, adventurous novel that draws successfully from historical fiction, SF, and even romance writing in creating its background and interpersonal tensions.”

  —Science Fiction Chronicle

  “A fantastic exploration of an alternate world, complete with a spirit world, Mages, an alternate geography, an alternate history, and lots and lots of cool ideas.”

  —SF Signal

  “Just when you think you know where this epic is going, Ms. Elliott impressively pulls the carpet right out from under your feet and opens up dazzling new vistas for your imagination to savor.”

  —Rave Reviews

  “The Spiritwalker trilogy contains many of the qualities that I love to see in a fantasy novel—a richly detailed, vivid world; well-developed characters with unique personalities and histories; and a first-person narrator whose sparkling words bring the story to life. Books like these are why I read speculative fiction, and the three books in the Spiritwalker trilogy are keepers.”

  —Fantasy Cafe

  “Fans of steampunk and alternate history will enjoy this heady mix of magic and technology.”

  —Library Journal

  “If you need your fix of secret enclaves of sorcerers attempting to turn the world into its puppet, Mesoamerican elves and their time-traveling ghosts, Woman of Color protagonist with bookish habits and complex motives, political intrigue of the best and worst sort, White-farm boy-who-mighthave-a-destiny protagonist, Non-human yet oddly relatable protagonist, Noble Knight Man of Color protagonist with simple desires and complicated loyalties, enormous cast of interesting and terrible people, the beauty of war, the horrors of love, heresy and power-mad Clergyfolk, Matriarchs who abuse their power and those that lead revolutions from prisons, Hack-N-Bash Knights in Full Plate and Kings who go forth in the land, Prophecies, Curses, Magic Cities that Aren’t There, and spoiled child empresses who like to get dirt on their gowns, welcome to staying up WAY past your bedtime for the foreseeable future.”

  —Medievalpoc on Crown of Stars

  The Very Best of Kate Elliott

  Copyright © 2015 by Kate Elliott

  This is a work of collected fiction. All events portrayed in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form without the express permission of the editor and the publisher.

  Introduction: The Landscape That Surrounds Us copyright © 2015 by Kate Elliott

  Introduction: Four Essays copyright © 2015 by Kate Elliott

  Cover art by Julie Dillon and interior design by Elizabeth Story

  Tachyon Publications

  1459 18th Street #139

  San Francisco, CA 94107

  (415) 285-5615

  www.tachyonpublications.com

  [email protected]

  Series Editor: Jacob Weisman

  Project Editor: Jill Roberts

  BOOK ISBN 13: 978-1-61696-179-4 | Epub ISBN 13: 978-1-61696-180-0

  KINDLE ISBN 13: 978-1-61696-181-7 | PDF ISBN 13: 978-1-61696-182-4

  Printed in the United States of America by Worzalla

  First Edition: 2015

  “Riding the Shore of the River of Death” © 2009 by Kate Elliott. First appeared in A Fantasy Medley, edited by Yanni Kuznia (Subterranean Press: Burton, Michigan). | “Leaf and Branch and Grass and Vine” © 2013 by Kate Elliott. First appeared in Fearsome Journeys, edited by Jonathan Strahan (Solaris: Oxford). | “The Queen’s Garden” © 2013 by Kate Elliott. First appeared in Unexpected Journeys, edited by Juliet E. McKenna (British Fantasy Society: London). | “On the Dying Winds of the Old Year and the Birthing Winds of the New” © 2015 by Kate Elliott. First appearance in print. | “The Gates of Joriun” © 1997 by Kate Elliott. First appeared in Tarot Fantastic, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Lawrence Schimel (DAW Books: New York). | “The Memory of Peace” © 1995 Kate Elliott. First appeared in Enchanted Forests, edited
by Katharine Kerr and Martin H. Greenberg (DAW Books: New York). | “With God to Guard Her” © 1996 by Kate Elliott. First appeared in Return to Avalon, edited by Jennifer Roberson (DAW Books: New York). | “My Voice Is in My Sword” © 1994 by Kate Elliott. First appeared in Weird Tales from Shakespeare, edited by Katharine Kerr and Martin H. Greenberg (DAW Books: New York). | “Sunseeker” © 2002 by Kate Elliott. First Appeared in 30th Anniversary DAW Science Fiction, edited by Elizabeth R. Wollheim and Sheila E. Gilbert (DAW Books: New York). | “A Simple Act of Kindness” © 1996 by Kate Elliott. First appeared in The Shimmering Door, edited by Katharine Kerr (HarperPrism: New York). | “To Be a Man” © 2011 by Kate Elliott. First appeared on kateelliott.com. First appearance in print. | “Making the World Live Again” © 1997 by Kate Elliott. First appeared in Zodiac Fantastic, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and A. R. Morlan (DAW Books: New York). | “Four Essays” © 2015 by Kate Elliott.

  All essays appear in print for the first time.

  “The Omniscient Breasts: The Male Gaze through Female Eyes” © 2012 by Kate Elliott. First appeared on SFSignal, 9/14/12: sfsignal.com/archives/2012/09/guestpost-the-omniscient-breasts-by-kate-elliott/; “The Narrative of Women in Fear and Pain” © 2012 by Kate Elliott. First appeared on kateelliott.com (I Make Up Worlds), 9/24/12; “And Pharaoh’s Heart Hardened” © 2010 by Kate Elliott. First appeared on kateelliott.livejournal.com, 9/28/10;“The Status Quo Does Not Need World Building” © 2013 by Kate Elliott. First appeared on kateelliott.com (I Make Up Worlds), 9/30/13 and Tor.com, 11/5/13.

  THE VERY BEST OF

  KATE ELLIOTT

  Other Books by Kate Elliott

  Court of Fives (2015)

  Black Wolves (2015)

  The Spiritwalker Trilogy

  Cold Magic (2010)

  Cold Fire (2011)

  Cold Steel (2013)

  The Crossroads Trilogy

  Spirit Gate (2007)

  Shadow Gate (2008)

  Traitors’ Gate (2009)

  Crown of Stars

  King’s Dragon (1997)

  Prince of Dogs (1998)

  The Burning Stone (1999)

  Child of Flame (2000)

  The Gathering Storm (2003)

  In the Ruins (2005)

  Crown of Stars (2006)

  The Novels of the Jaran

  Jaran (1992)

  An Earthly Crown (1993)

  His Conquering Sword (1993)

  The Law of Becoming (1994)

  Standalone

  The Golden Key (1996, with Melanie Rawn and Jennifer Roberson)

  Originally published as Alis A. Rasmussen

  The Labyrinth Gate (1988)

  The Highroad Trilogy

  A Passage of Stars (1990)

  Revolution’s Shore (1990)

  The Price of Ransom (1990)

  tachyon | san francisco

  CONTENTS

  Introduction: The Landscape That Surrounds Us

  Riding the Shore of the River of Death

  Leaf and Branch and Grass and Vine

  The Queen’s Garden

  On the Dying Winds of the Old Year and the Birthing Winds of the New

  The Gates of Joriun

  The Memory of Peace

  With God to Guard Her

  My Voice Is in My Sword

  Sunseeker

  A Simple Act of Kindness

  To Be a Man

  Making the World Live Again

  FOUR ESSAYS

  Introduction

  The Omniscient Breasts: The Male Gaze through Female Eyes

  The Narrative of Women in Fear and Pain

  And Pharaoh’s Heart Hardened

  The Status Quo Does Not Need World Building

  TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED FATHER,

  GERALD RASMUSSEN (1926–2013)

  INTRODUCTION:

  THE LANDSCAPES THAT SURROUND US

  AS A TEEN GROWING up in quiet rural Oregon I fell in love with the vivid and worlds-shaking landscapes of epic fantasy and science fiction. Yet seen through the filters of the world as I was taught to know it then, I understood without needing to be told that the grand stories were almost exclusively about men. More than that, they were necessarily about men. Men were the actors on the great stage of history. Men were the adventurers. Men were the warriors.

  The story I fell in love with did not include me, not really. It was a landscape meant for someone else. The story I wanted to be part of was a landscape of “you don’t belong here” and “this can’t be your tale” and “you are at best a minor player, a spectator, a helpmeet, or a reward.”

  Think for a moment about how we see and understand the landscapes that surround us.

  The physical landscape of my childhood happened to be a river valley with rich soil, plenty of rain, and foothills in the distance with a glimpse of mountain peaks on very clear days. Before the Willamette River was engineered with revetments, dams, and reservoirs into its current banks, the river had many channels that shifted with the spring floodwaters. It sprawled along multiple branches and spilled down backwaters that had once been the main current.

  I grew up on farmland bisected by a long narrow lake that is a remnant of one of the river’s ancient beds. The field directly behind the house boasts a solitary old oak right out in the middle, seeming out of place until you realize it reveals the existence of an old river bank. On this slight ridge my spouse found an arrowhead and evidence of an encampment of Native people.

  In 1856, as more settlers of European ancestry arrived in the valley, the remaining Kalapuya were forcibly removed to a reservation. The land was divided up and parceled out according to an alien view of ownership. In the mid-twentieth century the plot I grew up on was bought by my grandparents. Who the people were who set up a camp on what was then a river bank is unknown to me. I can only see the barest traces of a life that the life I grew up living had overrun.

  All through the many fields you can see the ebb and flow of a topography marking higher ground and lower ground, the banks and shallows and depths of what came before. If you don’t look for it, if you don’t know it’s there, all you will see are crops: wheat, mint, grass-seed, strawberries, cherry and filbert orchards.

  Narrative gets engineered until we start to believe it has always run that way.

  Grim stories are bowdlerized and their watered-down versions accepted as if they were the originals. Academic histories elide the existence of noblewomen who signed charters next to their brothers and women who ran businesses and negotiated contracts. Received wisdom leads people to make such absurd claims as that there were no women composers or artists in pre-twentieth-century Europe (I was told this in college as if it were a well-known fact). Some claim that epic fantasy based in a “medieval Europe-style setting” can’t realistically include people of color because there weren’t any in medieval and early modern Europe, which simply isn’t true.

  Eventually people believe the river is bounded by these artificially created banks.

  My first series attempt at a fantasy story, written when I was fourteen, followed the adventures of two men, partners in rollicking adventure that unfolded across a narrative landscape of men. The fantasy I read at that time followed only a few sorts of (almost exclusively male) characters: the thief, the rogue, the prince (corrupt or good), the wizard, the scheming merchant, and so forth. Men were the only people who could “realistically” be major characters with the exception of a few women who usually existed in the story solely in relationship to the men. This is why Éowyn, for all the problems people may justly see with her depiction today, was such a revelatory character for a teenaged girl back in the day.

  Even as I was writing my first “ambitious” fantasy tale I felt something missing.

  I was missing.

  Not me personally, as if I had to be the hero of every story I wrote, although it was certainly at this time that I decided to start writing adventure stories in which girls and/or women were the main characters. What was really
missing was the topography of how I experienced and saw the world.

  A local farming family rented out the arable acreage of our land and planted various crops over the years. On the other side of the lake (the former river channel) was a pasture where we kept a few head of cattle. This place contained plenty of trees and space for an outdoorsy child to invent adventurous games and stories in her head. My society wasn’t kind to strong-willed girls in the ’60s and ’70s (it is often still unkind to them and indeed to anyone who doesn’t adhere to a binary gender essentialism). In those days I was labeled a tomboy, a word used to describe a girl who liked to do things which at that time were explicitly and demandingly associated with boys. Climbing trees, playing outside, running, being active and liking to explore, playing sports as I did because athletics for girls was just then opening up due to Title IX: All these were claimed as peculiarly masculine traits for some definition of what “masculine” needed to mean to fulfill cultural expectations of a “male role.”

  At this time I couldn’t get the best paying summer jobs working in the fields moving irrigation pipe or driving tractor because I was a girl, a strong, active, physical girl perfectly capable of the work but a girl nonetheless. In that day girls didn’t do that work, just like they didn’t have those adventures. You see how this trickles down.

  I felt like an impostor trying to walk in shoes not meant for me, wearing my desires for adventure and physical activity like stolen garments that I could only provisionally possess. At the same time I carefully refused to learn the skills and engage in most “typical girl” activities. I thought that by rejecting what my culture labeled “girl things” I could prove I was “not-girl” and therefore be allowed to provisionally identify with the preferred and superior “boy” status. Only later did I come to understand that my rejection of “girl things” was a form of negating myself. It was just another way of partaking in the diminishment of women.

  One of the peculiarities of the actual space in which I lived was that the forty-five acres, although mostly farmland, had four domiciles: The home—formerly a barn—in which I, my parents, and three siblings lived, always with a dog and usually one or more barn cats. A small apartment attached our house which had once been the milk shed, which was lived in by different people over the years. My father’s parents’ home (always called “the other house”) next door. For a stretch of many years a temporary trailer sat between our house and the other house in which lived a nurse about the same age as my grandparents. When I knew her she was a widow with a grown-up child. This older single woman who had a job, practical wisdom, and a wicked sense of humor was a fixture in my landscape, yet such women weren’t mentioned in the histories or fantasies I read. But there she was. She existed. She was real.