{"id":5465,"date":"2022-08-26T21:25:03","date_gmt":"2022-08-26T21:25:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=5465"},"modified":"2022-09-01T09:30:42","modified_gmt":"2022-09-01T09:30:42","slug":"tangles-by-seanan-mcguire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=5465","title":{"rendered":"Tangles by Seanan McGuire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tangles<\/em><\/strong> by Seanan McGuire (Magic The Gathering<\/em>, 2021)1<\/sup> opens with the dryad narrator and her tree arriving on a new \u201cPlane\u201d (I assume this is one of many realities in a fantasy multiverse). She has come to the Kessig forest to free the tree from her service:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They had taken another five steps when the tree spoke again, saying, Here. Stop.
Wrenn stopped. They drove their roots deep into the ground, and bit by bit, she began to pull herself out of the home that had been hers for so long. As she pulled, her awareness of the great tree dwindled, until she felt like a tooth that had been loosened in its socket, still part of the body but awaiting only one last sharp blow to knock it out entirely.
Then, with a final yank that she felt all the way to the bottom of her stomach, she uprooted herself and was no longer joined with Six. Six, who was no longer the majestic, towering treefolk he had become during their time together\u2014trees had no gender as such, but dryads did, and upon discovering the concept in her mind, he had considered his choices and decided he preferred the masculine2<\/sup>\u2014was now a mature, healthy, beautifully twisting Innistrad oak, his branches reaching for the clouded sky.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Wrenn subsequently searches the forest for a new tree and, as she does so, the villagers from a nearby settlement start hunting her (they fear she is a \u201cwhite witch\u201d). Accompanying them is a mage called Teferi, who finds her before the villagers do and makes her acquaintance. Then, when Teferi detects a demon behind them, he unleashes a magic spell that vanquishes the beast but also distorts the forest around them\u2014and they end up locked in some kind of maze or Mobius strip (after walking for a time they eventually find themselves back where they started).
By now Wrenn urgently needs to find a tree to help contain the fire within her, so she gives Teferi advice about how to view and untangle his spell, as well as adding her magic to his. He (spoiler) succeeds in undoing the spell\u2019s effects and they return to their original location. They also find that, during this process, Teferi has \u201cbent\u201d time, and a nearby sapling has aged and matured into a tree which is suitable for Wrenn.
This is a competently done story but an uninvolving one\u2014possibly because the plot feels like various game moves rather than something which develops organically.
** (Average). 5,150 words. Story link<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. This is one of this year\u2019s (2022) short story finalists for the Hugo Award. Magic The Gathering<\/em> is a fantasy game<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Even trees are choosing their own gender nowadays. Hurrah.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tangles by Seanan McGuire (Magic The Gathering, 2021)1 opens with the dryad narrator and her tree arriving on a new \u201cPlane\u201d (I assume this is one of many realities in a fantasy multiverse). She has come to the Kessig forest to free the tree from her service: They had taken another five steps when the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1272],"tags":[17,50,1275,1276,1274,1273,12],"class_list":["post-5465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seanan-mcguire","tag-17","tag-50","tag-dryads","tag-mages","tag-magic-the-gathering","tag-seanan-mcguire","tag-short-story"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5465"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5526,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5465\/revisions\/5526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}