David Forbes

The short story is an underrated art form. Often, people try to cram too much into tales that require the tightest of plotting and character development.†

Not Storm Constantine, though. The elaborately named British author seems to love the incompleteness that the short story form tends towards. In ìThree Heralds of the Stormî (Meisha Merlin Publishing, 64 pp. $5.00), the reader is treated to three very different demonstrations of Constantineís ability. Most of them end with unresolved questions, but in a way, thatís part of the point. After all, when is life kind enough to offer us a tidy ending?

The results are good. Constantine is an eloquent and assured writer working with some great themes. She also works with those themes again and again. If thatís recognizable in 64 pages, itís a flaw, however much I enjoyed reading this book.
ìThree Heraldsî gives us a supernatural story, ìSuch a Nice Girl,î about a middle-aged housewife poking into her artistic neighborís disappearance. ìLast Come Assimilation,î is a sci-fi tale about a bureaucrat messing around with a self-aware computer system. And lastly, ìHow Enlightenment Came to the Towerî is a fantasy parable complete with metaphysical prison-break.

ìSuch a Nice Girlî is the most developed of the bunch and I enjoyed its inversion of the standard ìold lady sleuthî genre. Imagine if Angela Lansburyís character from ìMurder, She Wroteî got in way over her head and youíve got some idea. The characters are well-written and its final resolution is a chilling surprise. Itís hinted at rather broadly earlier in the story, but I didnít expect exactly how Constantine chose to play it out ó and that gave me a smile.

ìLast Come Assimilationî is the weakest of the bunch. While it was light-years (literally) away from ìSuch a Nice Girl,î I saw where it was headed almost from the first page. Loners and dissatisfied outsiders finding the means for transformation and transcendence is a big theme for Constantine, and it was obvious here from the start.

As interesting as that theme is, its predictability sapped this story of much of the suspense. I could see the twists a mile away, which defeats the point of a twist. Its conception of an artificial intelligence as both childlike and deviously wise ended up saving the story from being a page-skipper.

The final story, ìHow Enlightenment Came to the Tower,î might have seriously vied with ìSuch a Nice Girlî for my favorite in the volume, had it come first. Coming last, however, I found it struck many of the same notes. Parables are one of the hardest forms to write, and Constantine does a better job than most here. The ending lesson is one almost unheard of in traditional fables. On top of that, it would do many a person today some good to take it to heart.

Perhaps Constantine was thus trying to update old tropes for a new era. Sadly, she still harps obviously on some of the same themes as the previous two stories. The descriptions of the tower and characters were a little too ornate for my tastes, as if she was trying to cram in as much elaborate description as she could get away with.

The best myths and parables thrive on simplicity. The mind fills in the rest of the blanks, often from the readerís personal experience. Too much description dilutes what should have been a more powerful narrative.

In format, Iíd love to see more books like this: brief, affordable volumes that give you an example of what an author can do. It would be a better world if most writers released something like this ó and weíd almost certainly have more readers too.

Oh well, one can dream.

In the mean time, do check out Storm Constantine. She may repeat herself occasionally, but her themes are important, her stories enjoyable ó and her name is just cool.
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David Forbes, who writes book reviews for the Daily Planet, may be reached at marauderAVL-at-hotmail.com. Suggestions and comments are always welcome.