REVIEW: “Spirit Forms of the Sea” by Bogi Takács

Review of Bogi Takács, “Spirit Forms of the Sea” in The Trans Space Octopus Congregation Stories, (Lethe Press, Inc., 2019): 257-271 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Content warning: Death, being eaten, death of animals, vomiting.

This story surprised me by being set squarely in our own world — or at least, in a world where there are Croats, where there is a place called Venice. Takács blended the unreal and the real so carefully together in this story I found myself constantly pausing to look up the foreign words — is a ‘táltos’ an imaginary thing or a real? What about the turul? (Real, both). How much of this story is myth, how much is folk tale, and how much is pure fantasy? (So much harder to answer). I love stories like this, where the lines are blurred and where nothing is certain.

(First published in Sword and Mythos, 2014).