Title: A Tale for the Short Days
Author: Richard Bowes
In: The Coyote Road (Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling)
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Easy reading, Family, Tricksters
Dates read: 29th March 2019
Pace: Medium
Format: Short story
Publisher: Firebird Fantasy
Year: 2007
5th sentence, 74th page: And the others were very impressed despite themselves.
The God of Tricksters has been called on to help bring balance to a family in the Roaring Twenties. But, he is called on again and again throughout the following generations to try and find a way to correct the outlook of the family.
The mirror of folklore by using the idea of three aspects, or parts, of the trickster worked really well in this story. Part one tells the story of a young lady beseeching help from the trickster. Part two provides a little more of a mid-life crisis and lets you question the role of the trickster in the beginnings of the modern world. And, finally, part three highlights the end of an era, and the start of a new one. One in which the Trickster will either adapt and change or drown in the new world.
I love how this story takes the common themes of the trickster and twists and turns them to see how they fit into the modern world. But, not just alongside the modern world, but rather as an aspect of change as we’ve moved from old understandings to new.
A Tale for the Short Days is fun and thrilling. The kind of short story that I will be able to read again and again. Picking up something new each and every time.
Earth and Skye 
3 thoughts on “A Tale for the Short Days by Richard Bowes”