Comp. 3416 invited you to marry romantasy (the romance-fantasy fusion now dominating fiction sales) with a third genre. Narnia, gritty realism and Holby City were in the mix. Some saw no reason to confine themselves to three, and we had romantasy sci-fi noir, as well as a Scandi noir-Richard Curtis romantasy-com. I’m sorry to leave out Sue Pickard, David Silverman, Basil Ransome-Davies, Nick Syrett, D.A. Prince, Bill Greenwell, Josephine Ruth and others. The voucher winners are below.
‘Don’t try to seduce me, mortal,’ breathed the Fae cowpoke. I had no intention of touching the varmint. He might be tall, sardonically sexy, cruel and cool, wear a black vampire-made Stetson, Elvish spurs, and leather chaps that clung to his sculpted thighs, but I was determined to hate him.
‘I despise you posh, stuck-up immortals from the Silver Court ranch,’ I snarled, spinning my Colt dagger. ‘You’re dragon rustlers, you never get dusty and you never sweat.’
He twirled his supple lasso, giving me a bored sneer. ‘Meet me at high noon outside the saloon at Beltane and say that.’
‘Just what I’m fixing to do,’ I replied. I felt his gaze on me like a tempered Fae sword on my skin. Myheart thudded louder than a dragon stampede under my sheriff’s tin star. We stood so close I could feel his absolutely enormous harmonica.
Janine Beacham (Romantasy/pulp western)
The night was hotter than a senator’s intern and the dragon wasn’t here to cool things down. Carmen stood silhouetted by the flames, all legs and bad attitude, trouble poured into tight satin.
‘Stand back, doll,’ I said, drawing my sword Shadowbane. ‘I’ve got this.’
Her eyes could have chilled a martini – and make you beg for another. ‘Quit saving me, honey. I ain’t the damsel type.’
The dragon snarled, scales shining switchblade-bright. I swung, caught a faceful of smoke, and felt the blade shatter, fragments of ancient steel trickling away like last night’s empty promises.
Carmen didn’t even flinch. She bent in and pressed a lingering kiss on the beast’s snout – slow, soft, reckless. The kind of kiss that starts a bar fight.
The dragon froze, blinked and slunk off. Carmen turned, lipstick still perfect. ‘Simple,’ she said.
I lit up. ‘Yeah. Like breaking a guy’s heart.’
Tom Adam (Raymond Chandler does romantasy)
Outside, rain fell monotonous. George Frownish, combing dossiers in the airless offices of British Intelligence, strained to identify the elusive mole undermining the service. Himself the magically transformed Princess Sarfuna of Nithrandor, transmogrified to pursue (with thrillingly mixed feelings)frenemy Queen Uthraselm, herself probably disguised as an agent named Coldstream, Frownish could no longer be certain of anyone, perhaps anything. Might that portable gas heater, chuntering horribly in the corner, in fact be the jealous demon King Gnathgar labouring under a cunning charm?
Frownish sighed, recalling how disguises had once been quaintly cosmetic affairs, all drastically restyled facial hair and outsize overcoats. It would all be magic now. As if to prove the point, the Coldstreamfile came suddenly, miraculously, to hand. That face, Frownish marvelled, those particulars! The telephone rang. It was Coldstream, inevitably. Well, Frownish reasoned, Queen Uthraselm would have to have magicked the original agent off somewhere.
Adrian Fry (Romantasy/espionage)
‘You having a giraffe? I’ve got two indecent assaults to investigate, and you want me to look at what?’
Inspector Janet Muge was not a happy woman. Constable Harrington could see that. ‘He’s in for possession of a bladed article, ma’am. He won’t let go of the article. He’s asking for you specifically.’
In cell three sat a man, flamboyantly attired and unnaturally handsome, carrying a mighty broadsword. As Janet entered, he knelt, holding his broadsword upright, reverently, like a cross. Sonorously, he spoke: ‘Cheddahorn am I, pilgrim from the past, from a troubled century. For thou art Janet, descendant of the Queens of Heckmondwike. Return with me to times of yore, where thou art needed, for thou art a strong woman. Moreover, humbly I beg thine hand in marriage.’ Janet’s entire being thrilled to his words, but professionalism reasserted itself.
‘You having a giraffe?’ she asked.
George Simmers (police procedural/romantasy)
I lay, helplessly undone, ticker beating like a demented egg whisk, as the flame-haired temptress towered over me and revealed, beneath her elegant costume, a pair of beating wings and a scaly tail. ‘You’re mine now, Wooster!’ she hissed in a voice far removed from the simpering popsicle who’d earlier declared in the bar how she simply adored English gentlemen. Her wide-open mouth revealed teeth more honed than my razor of a morning. She snarled; ‘You’ll make a fine addition to my menagerie!’ At that moment,the bedroom door quietly opened, and a jet of soda sprayed the unwholesome scene, turning the screaming harridan to steamy vapour. Jeeves, imperturbable as ever, assisted me with changing into freshly pressed evening wear. ‘Those rather disturbing creatures cannot abide soda water. I would advise a little more caution as to whom you invite upstairs in this particular locale. Your usual refreshment, sir?’
Martin Brown
‘My name is Wand. James Wand.’ Just the sound of his stridulations was enough to make me go weak in all of my knees. ‘How may I assist you?’ I simpered. He was palpsome beyond my wildest dreams. Licensed to spell, and that famous wand was prodigious. Magical. Already I wanted his larvae.
‘All in good time,’ he buzzed softly, flexing his middle legs suggestively and shamelessly ogling my ovipositor. ‘Business before pleasure. First, tell me about Jadewing, and his plans for world domination.’
‘Seeding clouds with insecticide,’ I improvised. ‘You need to destroy his base on Sulawesi. But never mind that…’ I pulled him to me, and gave him a blast of the artificially enhanced pheromones Jadewing had developed. Immediately his body tensed in all the right places, and his resistance evaporated entirely. His magic wand pulsed. Rapture!
Then unfortunately I forgot my orders and absentmindedly bit his head off.
Bob Newman
No. 3419: What day is it?
4 October is National Vodka Day. You are invited to submit a poem to mark this or another spurious designated day, actual or invented (16 lines max). Please email entries to competition@spectator.co.uk by 24 September.
Comments