Melanie Lamaga, Writer, Editor, Photographer
Fiction on the Border Between the Real and Unreal
A Short Story by Melanie Lamaga I have a story you won’t believe. No one does. And I planned it this way. I know what I look like now, after so many years alone in the woods. But once I was part of the hustle and flow, a regular man like you. True, I had […] Read more »
A Noir Detective Pagan Cyberpunk Novel Zoo City is a ghetto in Johannesburg, populated by outcasts. Each person there is marked by the wild animal that appears just after they kill someone (intentionally or not). Animal and human become extensions of one another, and any “Zoo” unfortunate enough to lose her animal gets a visit […] Read more »
Exploring the Historical Fantastic Karen Joy Fowler is one of the writers who, to me, exemplify the literary fantastic. Her stories crack the shell of history, looking for strange and beautiful pearls. The fantastical elements always seem entirely probable, if mysterious, and serve to deepen our understanding of the human condition. Her writing style is […] Read more »
A Postmodern Fairy Tale with a Wicked Sense of Humor “He is surprised to discover how easy it is. The branches part like thighs, the silky petals caress his cheeks. His drawn sword is stained, not with blood, but with dew and pollen. Yet another inflated legend. He has undertaken this great adventure, not for […] Read more »
This very readable book (which won the Nebula Award for Best Novel this year) is part coming of age, part fantasy and part uber-geek love-letter to the classics of science fiction. Much of the drama has already happened before the novel starts. We learn that Morwenna and her twin sister Morganna spent their childhoods playing […] Read more »
An epic magical realist saga of family and country, connecting far-flung dots into a revealing portrait of the first thirty years of India’s independence from Britain. The narrator is Saleem Sinai, the first of 1000 “Midnight’s Children,” born the first hour of August 15, 1947, when India officially became independent of Britain. Saleem is the […] Read more »
Little, Big is a modern classic of fantastic literature, a book that is praised far and wide, and with good reason. It’s a beautifully written, deep meditation on complex and arcane philosophies of magic and metaphysics (from Plato to Rosicrucian and Theosophist) and the challenges of living an ethical life in light of such considerations. […] Read more »
a short story by Melanie Lamaga This story appeared previously in Zahir magazine and anthology. After you left I turned to stone: white marble woman at kitchen table. The cup of tea I’d been drinking when you looked at me for the last time cooled and began the slow process of evaporation. This is it, I […] Read more »