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4.0 out of 5 stars
13 sea-stories, May 15 2003
Here I'll consider the stories organized by author rather than order within the book.Edghill, Rosemary: At six, when Mykene first showed awareness of the dolphin songs in the water, the Pilot's Guild took her as an apprentice "Child of Ocean". The story's in braided format, the past-thread showing her selection and learning the significance of the pilot's voyage-token drawn secretly by lot, and the present when her "luck" has run out. [Good as far as it goes, but the ending isn't a complete resolution.] Grubb, James: "Catch of the Day" In a world - the future? - where some catastrophe drowned much of the world under perpetual cloud cover, humanity lives on scattered mountaintops, and ships sail the clouds. The scholar August Gold wishes to test ancient legends speaking of dragons, "fishing" for them by trailing a bait to tempt their territorial hearts. Huff, Tanya: "Oh, Glorious Sight" Zoane Cabatto - now John Cabot - is obsessed with leading an expedition to the New World. He's almost unaware of the wild-animal kid he casually rescued from a beating on an English dock, and gave a place on board. Everyone but he can see young Tam's devotion and hear his music, wasted on this man looking ever over the horizon and never at wonders nearer home. Kupfer, Allen C.: "The Sir Walter Raleigh Conspiracy" - from the diary of Robert Defoe, writing in fear for his life: an impoverished attorney ordered by James I to 'defend' Sir Walter in a secret trial in the Tower - giving a veneer of legality to the necessary death of one who chose to go native in Guiana rather than remain loyal to the established order. But everyone connected with Raleigh's imprisonment seems to be dying horribly, although he's in solitary confinement and appears insane. Kupperberg, Paul: Since Atlantis' founding, Thalis has been her highest-ranking mage-priest - and since her people have spurned their gods for science, seems doomed to be last as well as first. Thalis, however, ventures forth to "Walk Upon the Waters" one last time - 'I do not presume to speak for the gods. I must go and ask them.' Most of the remaining story is spent in memory. [An anti-science slant (particularly with *no* attempt at rationale) is guaranteed to irritate me, and Kupperberg's world-building is too thin for the short-story format.] Murray, Frieda A.: "The Winds They Did Blow High" Setting: an alternate early-19th-century England, where the narrator listens to Captain Northcott's tale of his magical confrontation with a French fleet. (Even without magic, the history's a little different, but magic has been mostly kept out of naval warfare up to the narrative present because it erodes discipline: superior officers and subordinates both mistrust wind-whistling and wave-singing, and tend to blame all problems on any nearby practitioner.) Odom, Mel: "The Colossus of Mahrass" occupies a full quarter of the book. As in 'Smoker' (_Vengeance Fantastic_), the protagonist - the privateer Captain Jaelik - opens the story with a character-revealing barroom brawl, although in this case the revelation is that he's spoiling for a fight, any fight, despite the fact that he's looking for a good exorcist to deal with a ghost only he can see. (His sidekick figures 1) maybe the captain got one too many blows to the head or bad batches of rum, 2) that Jaelik, not he, is spoiling for a fight with the 7-foot-tall Deathwatch guard, so 3) he, Alff, is going to have a drink.) Ordover, John J: "The Devil and Captain Briggs" - the captain of the _Mary Celeste_, mysteriously left drifting with no explanation. But if Father Dominicus hadn't destroyed a certain manuscript left behind by a survivor unknown to the world, the mystery would be only a footnote in an even more famous story. Patton, Fiona: "The Sacred Waters of Kane" Makani's friend Kai is gifted at reading signs written in wind and wave, but his teacher openly doubts whether he has the discipline to be kahuna kilo - and Kai sets out to prove how spectacularly correct old Alaula is. As Makani says, "You're going to risk your life to harvest a night-growing plant in haunted waters for [mythical] kahuna...because you haven't the patience to listen to Alaula instead of fighting with him?" (The specific setting is near Peahi on Maui.) Reichert, Mickey Zucker: As the price of passage aboard _Salty Rainbow_, priest-mage Alzon swore to use no magic while aboard - a vow binding him no matter *what* happens, on pain of losing his magic. So when sacrificed to become "The Sea God's Servant", Alzon is trapped, his freedom in pawn to his magic. Resnick, Mike and Gerencer, Tom: "Ocean's Eleven" The North Atlantic recently vanished from its bed, but it was voluntary; after trying 10 other jobs, it has sought out Bob Zellinski at Intellitemp Employment Services. "I was an ocean 200000000 years ago. I was an ocean 5000 years ago. I was an ocean last Tuesday. There's no advancement." Rusch, Kristine Kathryn: The narrator, serving as intelligence officer aboard a battleship in the Pacific fleet, was in a better position than any to answer a pirate ghost's demand for a crewman as "Tribute": as censor, he'd literally read the hearts of every man aboard. Ward, James M.: "Midshipwizard" Blithe is green as grass, on his first ship, a half-living dragonship of the Royal Navy in this Hornblower-like setting. But someone aboard tried to sabotage the ship by poisoning its heart soon after he came aboard - and the magic he used to save it violated one of this navy's equivalent of the 39 articles: a court-martial, capital offense.
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