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Stories copyright © 2016 by the authors
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Interior art: Barry Munden
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Foreword
Alex Shvartsman
Dave the Mighty Steel-Thewed Avenger
Laura Resnick
Crumbs
Esther Friesner
Fellow Traveler
Donald J. Bingle
A Fish Story
Sarah Totton
Another End of the Empire
Tim Pratt
Giantkiller
G. Scott Huggins
A Mild Case of Death
David Gerrold
Fairy Debt
Gail Carriger
A Very Special Girl
Mike Resnick
The Blue Corpse Corps
Jim C. Hines
Librarians in the Branch Library of Babel
Shaenon K. Garrity
The Queen's Reason
Richard Parks
The Best Little Cleaning Robot in All of Faerie
Susan Jane Bigelow
Suede This Time
Jean Rabe
Afterword
About the editor
Foreword
Alex Shvartsman
IN THE AGE of gritty, grimdark fantasy epics like Game of Thrones, it is sometimes nice to take a break and enjoy a lighter, humorous approach to the genre. This book collects fourteen such stories, all originally published in the past decade. There is traditional fantasy, urban fantasy, fairy tale retellings and even a mash-up of fantasy and space opera.
This book follows in the footsteps of Funny Science Fiction, an anthology that similarly collected stories from that other side of the speculative spectrum. It was very successful and warranted some sequels. (Funny Horror is forthcoming later this year.)
As I worked on this volume, it struck me how different fantasy humor tends to be from science fiction humor. While humorous science fiction stories are more likely to explore new ground and provide social commentary by thrusting their characters into unexpected settings, fantasy stories often play off the tropes we recognize from pop culture, be it zombies, vampires, or the Judeo-Christian concept of the afterlife.
A very common tactic for humorous fantasy stories is to retell or subvert fairy tales, often remixing and infusing them with modern tropes—you will undoubtedly recognize several such tales in this book.
When parsing through hundreds of excellent short stories, I tried to select a mix that would represent the sub-genre well and still manage to surprise and delight the reader. I also wanted to recognize magazines and anthologies that are currently publishing funny fiction (there's never enough of it!) as well as involve some of the iconic authors especially known in the SF/F fandom for penning such fare.
Those of you who are fans of Unidentified Funny Objects—an annual anthology of humorous SF/F I curate—can expect this book to serve up a somewhat similar mix of zany and lighthearted. And if you aren't already a reader of the UFO series, and you find yourself enjoying Funny Fantasy, I'd encourage you to give them a try.
I daren't delay you from enjoying the stories any longer. After all, there's a wise opossum waiting to take you on a quest, on the very next page.
Happy reading!
Dave the Mighty Steel-Thewed Avenger
Laura Resnick
IT WAS WHEN a rat rose up on its hind legs and spoke to me in the middle of the street at one o'clock in the morning that I realized that this night was going to be different from all other nights.
"Hello, Dave," it said.
"Whoa," I said in reply. "Is that a rat talking to me?"
Okay, I should definitely not have had that second beer. I can't hold my liquor at all, so I knew even while I was doing it that having two beers in a row was a bad idea.
And here, now, right in front of me on the dark street, was proof positive.
"Excuse me?" asked the creature.
"A talking rat?" I asked incredulously.
There was a moment of silence as I stared slack-jawed at the rat, which stared back at me.
Was I hallucinating, I wondered? If so, did this mean that two beers were enough to give me alcohol poisoning? Should I proceed immediately to the campus medical center and check myself into the detox unit?
Or was this a practical joke? Maybe it was a set-up to covertly film me—and then immortalize me on YouTube—making a fool of myself. In which case, I was impressed with the technical skill of the perpetrators, because the rat looked completely real.
"Rat?" the creature repeated. "Rat?"
I looked around in the dark, expecting to see someone recording this scene.
"First of all," the rat said coldly, still on its hind legs, "the word 'rat' is considered pejorative. The appropriate term is 'urban rodent.'"
"A politically correct rat?"
"I am not a rat!"
"Hey!" I fell back a step when the thing bared its little fangs at me. Maybe it had rabies.
Or maybe I had rabies. I was talking to a rat, after all.
"I am an opossum!" it cried. "I do not in any way resemble an urban rodent."
"Sorry," I said inanely. "I don't really know that much about—"
"I am, in fact, the opossum! The marsupial who has been foretold in song and story," it raged, advancing on me. "How dare you mistake me for a rat!"
"Joke or no joke," I warned as I backed away from it, "if I get bitten, I'm filing a formal complaint."
The animal paused, made a squeaky sound, then raised a little paw. It had weird-looking pink digits. "I apologize, Vworntokthalis. I did not mean to appear aggressive. It's just that I have looked forward to this meeting for so long and have imagined our first exchange of greetings so many times."
"Huh?"
It brushed its whiskers with the other weird-looking pink paw. "I must admit, I feel some disappointment at how it's going so far."
"Yeah, well... whatever." I turned and walked away. "I'm out of here."
"Wait!" cried the creature, following me. "I have sought you now because, exactly as the Wizened Ones of Loremead have long feared, Grok the Valkslayer has roused the Dread Grzilbeast from its prison of enchanted sleep in the Caverns of Mimnoth."
"Oh, well," I said, picking up my pace. "I'm sure things will work out."
"Can you slow down?" my furry friend asked. "This is a demanding speed for me when I'm talking."
I reached the end of the street, turned the corner, and walked faster.
"Stop!" cried the opossum, panting a little. "You must listen to me! This is the dark night described in the Prophecies of Joralion! The doom that was foretold in the Codex of the Ninth-Born has come to pass! Now is the time prognosticated in the Calendar of C'ghu'nim and secretly coded into the Long Island Railroad timetable for Oyster Bay!"
I stopped in my tracks and stared at the opossum. "So it is a joke," I said with certainty.
"It is no jest, Vworntokthalis!" cried the animal, his little sides heaving as he came to a stop, too. "Now is the time for the Avenger of the Valk to lay rightful claim to Jasmine Truethunder, confront Grok—"
"How did you know I'm from Oyster Bay?" I challenged.
I looked around aga
in. Yes, it was dark, but I had covered more than a block since being accosted by a talking marsupial, so by now I should have seen or heard whoever was following me with a camera.
It replied, "I know because I am Briddlecroonak the Seer, the marsupial foretold—"
"—in song and story. Yeah, I know."
"My visions told me that Vworntokthalis the Avenger hailed from a town called Oyster Bay. So I went there." Briddlecroonak the Seer continued, "But it turned out that you had left that hamlet as a callow youth."
"Who told you I was callow?"
"Fortunately, though, as time passed, you became aware of your destiny to avenge the Valk by slaying Grok and mastering the Dread Grzilbeast."
I sighed. "Can we just stop now?"
The opossum raised one paw to pat his whiskers fretfully. "Er, you did realize your true identity, didn't you, Vworntokthalis?"
"Why do you keep calling me that?"
"That is... I mean, I had naturally assumed that you moved to this dreary little town of cheap taverns and no symphony because you recognized that your destiny lay here."
"I moved here to attend law school," I said morosely.
"Yes! Becoming an under-achieving student at a second-rate law school was an excellent way of eluding your enemies while you prepared for your inevitable confrontation with Grok the Valkslayer," said the marsupial. "The last mighty steel-thewed avenger I knew couldn't resist showing off to random maidens and passing strangers, while awaiting the challenges foretold in the prophecies about him. And thus it was that he met an early grave and never fulfilled his destiny. But not you! No, you have been prudent, cunning, and wise. To immerse yourself so completely in an identity of such consistent mediocrity was brilliant!"
"Gee, thanks."
"But I, Briddlecroonak the Seer, can sense that you have been unhappy and restless while waiting for your glorious fate to unfold."
I wondered which one of my classmates had decided to use my anxieties as fodder for this weird joke. Maybe it was someone from my Antitrust Law class, which was the course I hated the most—and the one I was the closest to flunking.
The possum continued, "If you continue on this path, Vworntokthalis—"
"Stop calling me that."
"—you will graduate in the bottom third of your class at this poorly-ranked law school, after which your best possible fate will be a career as an ambulance-chaser. Most likely, though, you'll struggle to find even a moderately remunerative white-collar job and spend many years paying off massive student loans without ever even entering the legal profession for which you trained with a mixture of ambivalence, apathy, and reluctance."
I glared at the marsupial. Everything it was saying was true. I had spent the past few weeks thinking over my situation and trying to escape exactly the conclusions this furry little fellow was now voicing. It was why I'd gone to a bar and had two beers tonight—which is about one-and-a-half beers more than I ever drink.
I'd had no idea what to do with my life after graduating from college, or how to find a job with my B.A. in philosophy. So I had applied to law school simply because I didn't know what else to do. Now in my second year of the program at (Briddlecroonak was right) a second-rate law school, I still didn't know.
And I was getting angry about my problems being made the butt of this elaborately weird prank. So, acting on impulse, I bent over, picked up the opossum, hoisted it into the air, and started shaking it, trying to detect or dislodge whatever audio device someone must have attached to it.
"Who are you?" I demanded.
"I told you! I am Briddlecroonak the Seer." The opossum struggled against my grip as it added, "And I hate heights! Put me down, Vworntokthalis!"
Its warm breath brushed my face as it spoke in a shrill voice while struggling against my hold. It was definitely a real animal, and—I realized with a mixture of shock and recognition—it was really speaking. There was no audio device attached to it, and with its face so close to mine, I could tell that its voice was coming from its own mouth.
"Yikes!" I dropped Briddlecroonak and stumbled backward, staring at him in amazement.
"Oof!" He hit the pavement like a bag of wet cement and lay there motionless.
"Briddlecroonak?" I took a tentative step closer. There was no response. "Uh, are you okay?"
"I just need a moment," was the faint reply.
I looked around. We were still alone. I had chosen a Wednesday for my drinking binge, so hardly anyone was around now, though the streets would be crowded at this late hour if it were a weekend night.
I decided to accept that there were no pranksters or video cameras involved in this strange event. Sure, I might be hallucinating under the influence of two beers. Or maybe I was cracking under the stress of realizing how much time and money I had already thrown away on studying for a profession that I didn't really want to pursue. But if there was even a faint chance that I was not delusional... then this was certainly the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me, and I wanted to see where it would lead. Especially since Briddlecroonak's stark description of my life was depressingly accurate.
So I said, "I'm sorry about manhandling you just now."
"Oh... that's all right, I guess." The opossum started scraping himself off the street.
"I suppose I... lost my composure."
The marsupial grunted, pulled himself together, and then sniffed his fur. He made a little noise, then looked at the pavement where he had been lying. "I think someone vomited here recently."
"I wouldn't be at all surprised." This street ran directly between the bar district and the main campus. "Are you feeling okay? Didn't crack your skull or anything?"
He touched his snout gingerly with one pink paw, rubbed his rump, then shook his head. "Oh, don't worry, Vworntokthalis. I survived much worse treatment at the hands of the fanatical Plikazar sect during the Schism of the Sirikirai. Not to mention what Yurg the Destroyer did to me when I helped rescue the Scrolls of Calarnius from the Fires of—"
"Okey-dokey," I said quickly. "If you're feeling all right, then maybe you can walk me slowly through this whole Grok-Grizzle-Valkyrie thing."
"Valk," he corrected. "Just Valk. The Valkyrie are... well, they're a whole other thing, and we don't need to worry about them right now."
"Who or what is a Valk?"
"By thunder, Vworntokthalis, we have no time for a history lesson! Nor can we 'walk slowly' through explanations!" Briddlecroonak cried. "Have I not impressed upon you the urgency of the situation? The Dread Grzilbeast is free! Grok the Valkslayer intends to bring about the doom foretold by the chroniclers and prophesied by the . . . the . . . the prophets!"
"It sounds like you're saying this is a bad thing."
"Only you can defeat Grok, return the Grzilbeast to its prison of enchanted slumber, and save the last of the Valk from being slain!"
"So I gather we don't want the Valk to be slain?"
"Of course not," said Briddlecroonak (with noticeable exasperation). "If the last of the Valk is slain, then the Incarnation of Konax can never come to pass! In which case, the Age of Ilak cannot be averted, and darkness shall smother the Five Kingdoms."
"This is getting so complicated," I said. "Maybe I should take notes."
"You don't need notes, you have a seer. The seer. Me!"
"In that case, can you 'see' what we're supposed to do now?"
"Why are you making that gesture with your hands?" he demanded. "Are those supposed to be quotation marks?"
I folded my arms. "Sorry, I wasn't trying to be rude."
"I am literally a seer," Briddlecroonak said with wounded dignity. "So, yes, of course I can see what we're supposed to do now."
"Then, by all means, share it with the class."
"Huh?"
"Tell me what to do," I said. "Because, uh, by thunder, I have no idea what's going on."
"Fortunately, what you must do is very simple," said the possum. "Impossibly dangerous and probably fatal—"
"What?"
"—but quite simple. Follow me, Vworntokthalis!"
Briddlecroonak started waddling down the street at a brisk pace.
I followed. "Hold on. How dangerous?"
"Well, not necessarily as dangerous as the time I had to help retrieve the Three Golden Arrows from the Mountain of Ghouls." He was panting a little as he kept talking at this (for him) brisk pace. "But probably more dangerous than the time I—"
"Never mind," I said. "Did you say fatal?"
"Well, probably fatal for Dave, the ordinary fellow you have pretended to be while awaiting this night foretold in song and story," he said cheerfully.
"I am Dave."
"But surely not for Vworntokthalis, the mighty steel-thewed Avenger of the Valk!"
"I should probably mention that my thews really aren't all that steely," I said, plodding behind the opossum. "I never go to the gym. Jogging makes me vomit, and I fainted the only time I ever tried to do a bench press, so..."
"Do not trouble yourself with such reflections, Vworntokthalis. Gymnasiums are for people who are going to be lawyers," Briddlecroonak said dismissively. "Or for those in search of easy sexual conquests."
"Seriously?" I'd always thought that was an urban myth.
"Your strength arises from your birthright and has lain slumbering inside you, ready to awaken when the time is ripe."
"Well, I guess that's some comfort... But if you were going to calculate odds on me surviving my confrontation with the Valkyrie-slayer, what would you say my chances—"
"Valkslayer. Valk," said my companion. "And his name is Grok."
"I'm just wondering exactly how dangerous Grok is," I said as we arrived at the main entrance to the oldest part of campus, which conveniently abutted the bar district.
There was a big, pretentious gate, an old building with a clocktower, and a notoriously dirty fountain that surrounded a marble statue of the minor statesman who'd founded this university with the fortune he'd made by exploiting child labor.
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