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What is After Magic? Why have three separate presses reprinted the novella? After Magic, says the back of the book "is a quest, a love story, an adult fairy tale, an historical slapstick. Take your pick," which is somewhat misleading. The story is perhaps Victorian and slapstick but not a Victorian slapstick (if such has ever existed). There is a quest but a questing that succeeds traditional fantasy quests. Moreover, "Take your pick" might lead some to wonder whether the author knew what the story was about when, in actuality, it is not one but a combination platter.

After Magic begins with Stephan, a magician in search of perfecting his magic through spiritual highs, journeying further and further into the Far East. Meanwhile, back at the British séance, Madame Tutoni of the Tarot and of the other world has been waiting for her tidal powers to fluctuate beyond the occasional parlour trick of pulling strange cards out of the ether. Both wish to plumb the depths of their trade. And so opportunity knocked...

"All day she had felt it, a ripening in the air about her, an inaudible static rippling through the invisible ether. Her powers were peaking... clothed only in a loincloth and meditating beside the holy man Sri Rhomboid, Stephan felt his consciousness streaming upward on a ray of pure thought."

Trent Walters' work has appeared in Speculon, Spires, and The Pittsburgh Quarterly, among others. He has interviewed for SFsite.com, Speculon and the Nebraska Center for Writers. More of his reviews can be found here. When he's not studying medicine he can be seen coaching the Minnesota Vikings as an assistant coach, or writing masterpieces of journalistic advertising, or making guest appearances in a novel by E. Lynn Harris. All other rumored Web appearances are lies.