If any of you readingthis are fans of Emma Bull’s War for The Oaks novel, or Will Shetterly’s Bordertown novels, you’re familiar with these two wonderful authors. What you may not know is that they are married to each other. Really. Truly. Now imagine a collection of some of their finest shorter pieces in an attractive hardcover volume complete with a — now dated alas — bibliography. Cool! It’s even cooler when you discover that it has a story in it, “A Bird That Whistles,” that’s a prequel of sorts to War for The Oaks! But I’ll discuss that later.) Double Feature is a collection of thirteen pieces of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry by Boskone 31’s Guests of Honor, our authors. Among the works herein are a set of six individually-authored short stories for their own shared world, Liavek, which they edited; a number of anthologies set in Liavek; and their jointly written novelette, “Danceland Blood,” which is set in the Borderlands shared world.Double Feature was first published in a limited hardcover edition of 1000 copies, of which the 10 lettered and the first 175 numbered are autographed and slipcased, and the remaining are numbered. (I have book 300.) The full color wrap-around dustjacket art of two punk elves and a motorcycle against a dark cityscape is by Nicholas Jainschigg, Boskone 31’s Official Artist and winner of the 1993 Gaughan Award. The trade softcover edition was published in 1999. The frontispiece drawing of Willy Silver, the talented fiddler in Eddi and The Fey from War for The Oaks novel, is by Merle Insinga. The hardcover is long out of print, but the softcover trade edition is available from any bookseller. The hardcover edition is almost impossible to find — try American Booksellers Exchange, but be prepared to pay a bleedin’ fortune for it!
Included in Double Feature are three additional works by Emma Bull: the aforementioned “A Bird That Whistles,” and two fine essays on the writer’s craft, “Why I Write Fantasy,” and “Wonders of the Invisible World: How I Came to Write War for the Oaks.” The last alone is worth the price of the book, as it is a fine look at how Emma came to set her epic battle of the Seelie and Unseelie Courts in Minneapolis (Hint — She and Will lived there before moving to Los Angeles). She notes in the essay that Minneapolis is a character as much as the other members of “the cast” as she calls them. And it’s obvious that Emma was very familiar with the dance clubs of that city, as the essay has loving details of them! (Boiled in Lead and Flash Girls fans will recognize these clubs too.) “Why I Write Fantasy” works less well for me as a look at the writing process,as it sounds more like a defense than an affirmation of the writing of fantasy. Interestingly, the “Danceland Blood” novelette kicks the idea of elves, rock ‘n’ music, and youth culture up a few notches in a way War for The Oaks can’t, as it creates a entire milieu from scratch.
Ah, but that’s only a small bit of what’s here. The stories by Will are, as would be expected from the fine writer, superb! “Captured Moments,” for example, and “Time Travel, the Artifact, and a Famous Historical Personage” — a horror story that looks at the obsession with Jack the Ripper. It’s a chillingly twisted little tale that will leave you shuddering! Brrrrr!
Liavek, Emma and Will’s shared universe, is the setting of “Six Days Outside the Year,” “Bound Things,” “A Happy Birthday,” “Badu’s Luck,” and “The Well-Made Plan.” All are good, solid fantasy pieces, not as inventive as the magic realism of Will’s Dogland novel, or the imagined future Minneapolis of Emma Bull’s Bone Dance, but still well-worth reading. A Liavek novel would have been an interesting read!
There’s also a charming introduction by Patrick & Teresa Nielsen Hayden, editors at Tor Books, and separate bibliographies & biographies for both of Will and Emma. All in all, a gobsmacking fine production! Go buy it, grab a cold beverage, and settle in for quite a few hours of fine reading! If you want me, I’ll be re-reading War for The Oaks novel — after I finish re-reading “A Bird That Whistles.”
(NESFA Press, 1994)
