Considering “Queen of the Kanguellas”

[Ozymanithrax]

Considering “Queen of the Kanguellas”

I found Scott Dalrymple’s “Queen of the Kanguellas” In the December 2010 Realms of Fantasy an interesting and intriguing story. As befits a fantasy, I kept looking for explicit magic, something that unabashedly separates this story from a psychological story of a young women driven to madness by her own guilt, loss, and Africa. That easy crossing just isn’t there, and that is what makes this story good. It is like “Apocalypse Now” or “Heart of Darkness” in some ways. It really makes me think about both Fantasy and storytelling. It would be challenging to ride that border between the real and the unreal.

A story is a collaboration between the writer and the reader, with the story reaching its final form only in the readers mind. In “Queen of the Kanguellas” the reader doesn’t have to make that leap to willing suspension of disbelief, but will chose to leap or not. Psychological thirller or fantasy, only the reader can decide.

Very, very good.