“Soft like a Rabbit” by Andrea Kail tells of Maggie, a young girl who finds that she has the ability to see the “threads” that make up all living things and to fix flaws in them. But she can’t fix everything, as she learns when her cat catches and severely injures a rabbit. And then her mother falls ill. Kail excellently brings to life the thoughts and character of Maggie, imbuing her prose with the very real sense of a young girl. Carefully, she builds up the suspense towards the story’s ending, which is both unexpected and emotionally powerful. An excellent piece to finish another commendable issue of Fantasy Magazine.

I'm a judge for the Writers of the Future contest, and the winners for the fourth quarter of 2006 have just been announced: 1. Andrea Kail from New York, NY 2. Edward Sevcik from Austin, TX 3. John Burridge from Eugene, OR I've only today learned the names of the authors, since we don't see them when we're judging the manuscripts. This quarter had fabulously good stories, but I'll say here right now that Andrea Kail's "The Sun God at Dawn, Rising from a Lotus Blossom" is a total knockout -- this is a Hugo-caliber story, folks. It'll be worth the cost of the anthology (which will be published in August) all by itself.