Legenda Maris

Whilst Tanith Lee is rightly celebrated for her many fine novels, I personally think that when she was composing in the short form she excelled. Over the last few years many fine collections of Tanith Lee's short stories have been issued, but this new gathering is particularly poignant because it appears to possibly be the final one that she personally assembled. The theme here is the sea and it weaves through these tales in all its various guises, temperaments and hues.
 

The earliest story is Paper Boat (1978) based on the final days of Shelley. The opening lines are gloriously feverish:

The summer heat had come. It burned the hills to blocks of standing smoke. It filled the bowl of the shore and the spoon of the bay with its opium, it painted the terracotta of the house in progressively darkening washes of red and umber. The sea, a throbbing indigo, pulled itself to the beach and tumbled there as if drugged.

The latest work in Legenda Maris are two short pieces that were written this year especially for this collection, Leviathan and Land's End,The Edge of The Sea, the latter tale beautifully enigmatic: two figures, at various stages of aging and in different guises, seen by the narrator down through the years walking upon a shore, '...the border, the literal seam that connects land and ocean. Where the glittering and restless join of white stitchwork is, of surf and sand.'

 

Magritte's Secret Agent (1981) features one of Lee's obsessive characters and is a long smoulder of a tale that ends in an exquisite flame-burst: 'white as salt crystal, smoky green as glass... a mane like opals and unravelling foam... a waterfall of liquid armour... a shower of silver coins.'

There are legends here, too, arising from isolated communities: Under Fog (The Wreckers) (2008), concerning the strange supernatural revenge on the people of a village for their criminal activities, and Xoanon (2004): what is the truth behind the strange carvings fixed to the ends of the pews in a church; and fairy tales: Girls in Green Dresses (2001) and its sequel The Sea Was In Her Eyes (2002). 

Lace-Maker, Blade-Taker, Grave-Breaker, Priest (2008) is a fine adventure yarn with tinges of the occult, peripheral to the author's projected series of novels about an alternate Moscow/St. Petersburg, Petragrava. Sadly the series never happened, though there is one excellent long story set there, Strindberg's Ghost Sonata (2008), but not included in this collection.

Because Our Skins Are Finer (1981) is a classic Tanith Lee folkloric tale, and finally the protagonist of Where Does The Town Go At Night? (1999), Anton Gregeris, finds a surreal and disturbling answer, of sorts.

The wonderful cover is based on a collage by Tanith Lee and there is one line drawing inside by her, so the whole ensemble makes a fine tribute to a great and sadly missed author.

This a superb collection showcases a wide range of styles but every one in the unique voice of Tanith Lee. The volume is available from Storm Constantine's Immanion Press now.