The Fairy Soldier's Last Request by Joel C. Flanagan-Grannemann is a fantastical "Fairy" tale in the anthology
Tales Untold: Mythos Around the World, inspired by a tale from the American Civil War, which follows the story of Kanin, a half-breed mercenary, driven by his sense of honour to fulfil the final request of a dying, fairy soldier.
I don't think I've ever read a story about fairies before, thinking about it. I've read a lot of fantasy, but fairies is not something I've ever been drawn to. But this was a surprisingly good read, so maybe I've been sleeping on fairies all this time?!
Although the story is only about 20 pages, we get a lot of hints at the world around Kanin - the relationships between different races, the history of the world, the afterlife mythology, and references to lots of other history and social structure/norms, so by the end you feel like you know quite a lot about the world and those residing in it.
There are hints at a fairy magic system of sorts, which seems to be based on telepathy, though we don't learn anything else about it in this story, it's there as an indication of the rich lore behind the story. The author did a fantastic job of making the world feel real and alive, even though we only saw the tip of the iceberg, as it were.
As someone who is a bit of an editing perfectionist and spends too much time editing, I did notice a few formatting and sentence structure issues/word choices which didn't quite work for me, but that's very minor and most people probably won't even notice.
The narration takes a few turns the story progresses and the ending veers away from the first "act", which may possibly leave people a little surprised/unfulfilled that the original part of the story doesn't get a proper resolution, but it also hints at more to come with the character.
This story is actually based within the world of the author's fantasy series "Servants of the Moon and Sun" series, so if you read this and want more, good news! Though I haven't checked that out yet myself, it'll certainly be one to add to the radar for the future.
Verdict
This was a surprisingly good read. If you are a fantasy lover, and especially if fairies are your thing, I'd recommend checking it out. Plus, as part of an anthology, you get a load of other short stories by other authors as well, so you're bound to find something you like!
★★★★☆ (4/5)
