Runalong The Short Shelves - Fiyah No 35 Black Isekai

Publisher - Fiyah Literary Magazine

Published - Out

Price - $3.99 via https://fiyahlitmag.com/shop/issues/2025-issues/fiyah-35-black-isekai/

For this trip to the short fiction shelves I’ve having a look at Fiyah’s latest issue which has a really interesting theme across its stories and poems. Isekai refers to the subgenre of people being transported to other worlds and often being transformed in the process. Here the stories offered use that theme to powerful effect.

The Time Grandma Jumped Into A Lake And Transformed Into A Kung Fu Warrior by E A Noble - a stunning opening tale that underplays via its title what awaits us. Ebony is about to visit her grandmother who has dementia in a care home. She’s not visited her for some time but a cryptic message has made her go ahead. As her grandmother earns her of a dangerous trip they are both to make Ebony fears things have got even worse but soon finds herself having to have a kung fu battle with a talking crocodile with a penchant for classic rap and hip hop. This is a beautiful story that has its moments of the surreal and comedic but also has a huge amount of heart as we explore Ebony’s her grandmother’s lives through memories and ultimately this is a story of life, death and carrying on the legacy. All the emotions are felt in this and I was entranced.

Heavenly Harpoon by Erin Brown - a young woman tells us of her life story and her family curse relating to an area known as the Heavenly Harpoon - a certain bridge that can trap and take the unwary. It’s poetical and yet carries underneath a vein of horror. Not just as our narrator realised she cannot escape the curse but also once she is hurt by it how far she would go to make things right and for which there are consequences. It’s not malignant evil it’s out of pain and loss and everyone is changed. It ends in a wonderful mix of sorrow and desperate hope that things could get better. I really liked it.

The Cut by SJ Powell - OSA is from 1996 and a trip back to school turned into her being trapped in a world of magic, danger and constant bargains. Now she meets an entity that is definitely not her mother to try and get back home. This story impressed me for how it helps create the sense of a world that doesn’t work like ours, menacing and dangerous and as we see has changed young Osa hugely. It’s not a tale of good and evil but something more transactional which always carries a cost. Powell doesn’t show us the final ending which I think really works here as the transformation this land creates is the key and we wonder what can happen next to Osa as she leaves the page.

Fire Is Hot In Every Universe by Brandie Marsh - after lots of big stories with worlds to save or get back to this managed to be both low key and yet also have big stakes. We meet Tracie who has followed the dream of owning a restaurant but now finds her friends trying to push her out of the business. A stray falling plant pot from her neighbours above though sends her into a very different magical world. Here while lots of the fantastical is to be relished from moons with eyes and talking orchids it’s how Tracie interacts with the world’s characters that brings the story to life - humans being human (even when not from our world) and Marsh makes us work these challenges out and see how it gives Tracie some much needed perspective on her own challenges. The arc for Tracie is really well handled subtle but we can see how it’s helped her get some potential answers.

Red Wings by Sheila Smith McKoy - this is a very impressive and ambitious story crossing dimensions, time streams and fusing them all into a tale of wonder. Sola Adesin is a powerful healer since she was born and despite her size is noted for her wingspan. Prior to marriage she is sent by her ancestors to save her people. We get to Earth and beyond, see the paths and futures of humans and it all slowly becomes linked and just really interesting how such a big tale is being told in just over seven thousand worlds. The fusion of science fiction with a touch of magic really works to make this story come alive.

As always Fiyah continues with some poems. In Post Bender Epiphanies by Olly Nze it’s a tale of someone seeing a whole different world that fundamentally changes them. The final verse makes us ponder how exactly this experience of wonder that has impacted the character had come about but we can feel the yearning for what they saw.

I loved Resurrected In The Sky by Ivan Ndoma-Egba for telling an epic tale in verse. Our main character here appeared to have been transported to another world after a traffic accident, the poem does not explain what this new world is like but we see the changes in the character who doesn’t give in and actually seems to embrace the challenges this new world offers and clearly they are planing to own and change it. An empowering tale and the language is gorgeous in painting these emotions.

Finally Michael J DeLuca talks about the creation and role of Reckoning a magazine about creative writing about environmental justice.