I recently bought a Blackgate magazine, Issue #10 and was surprised to find I thoroughly enjoyed almost all of the short stories in there.   I’d bought it because my favorite fantasy author (Martha Wells) had a short story in it.

In this issue, I read each story from the first to the last and I would say that only one left me feeling, "uh, didn't like that one."  All the others were absolutely the best fantasy I've read in a long time, the best part of all, most were from new authors.

In fact, I was stuck on the ferry while reading that particular magazine, and the ferry had mechanical problems.  It wasn't until I got off that I realized I'd been stuck there for over three hours, because those three hours just flew by with me buried in those fascinating, original, fun fantasy stories. 

It made me think that fantasy was worth reading again - for a decade or more now, I'd lost faith that I’d enjoy reading any modern fantasy authors.

And one of those stories, I was thinking about just the other day, months after I'd read it, called Awakening by Judith Berman.  I'm not in the least surprised to discover it's been nominated for a Nebula.

Now Judith isn't my new favorite fantasy author, that position is still firmly held by Martha, but I did find this particular story of Judith's to be quite evocative and obviously, memorable.

Blackgate is actually offering this story for free, with the permission of the author, on their sight, if anyone's interested in reading it.

http://www.blackgate.com/fiction/2008/awakening-full.htm

Shereen