SSW: "She-Bear" by Janet Fox, a "lost"/unreprinted Arcana story, FANTASTIC STORIES, January 1974, edited by Ted White: Short Story Wednesday

The FictionMags Index entry for this issue:

Fantastic Stories [v23 #2, January 1974] (60¢, 132pp, digest, cover by Esteban Maroto) 

• 6 · The Earth of Nenkunal · Howard L. Myers · na; given as by Howard L. Meyers except on the cover.
• 50 · Alien · David R. Bunch · vi
• 52 · …And Another World Above · Ted White · nv
• 76 · She-Bear [Arcana] · Janet Fox · ss
• 87 · The Interview · J. J. Russ · ss
• 98 · Network · Barry N. Malzberg · ss
• 106 · Heartburn in Heaven · Susan Doenim · ss

The ISFDB index entry:

4 • Editorial (Fantastic, January 1974) • [Editorial (Fantastic)] • essay by Ted White

• 6 • The Earth of Nenkunal • [Econo-war • 1] • novella by Howard L. Myers [as by Howard L. Meyers]
• 7 •  The Earth of Nenkunal • interior artwork by Jeff Jones
• 50 • Alien • short story by David R. Bunch
• 52 • ... And Another World Above • novelette by Ted White
• 53 •  ...And Another World Above • interior artwork by Michael Nally
• 76 • She-Bear • short story by Janet Fox
• 77 •  She-Bear • interior artwork by Michael Kaluta [as by Mike Kaluta]
• 87 • The Interview • short story by J. J. Russ
• 98 • Network • short story by Barry N. Malzberg
• 99 •  Network • interior artwork by Joe Staton
• 106 • Heartburn in Heaven • short story by George Alec Effinger [as by Susan Doenim]
• 107 •  Heartburn in Heaven • interior artwork by Gray Morrow
• 119 • ... According to You (Fantastic, January 1974) • [According to You (Fantastic)] • letter column conducted by Ted White

The story can be read here, in its issue of Fantastic.

There were, unfortunately, only three stories in the late Janet Fox's series about Arcana, a young witch who becomes also a somewhat reluctant warrior in narratives that deserved a bit more exploration, and a collection, but Fox only published two collections of her short fiction during her lifetime, and the other two stories, one each, were collected from first publication in Fantastic in the '70s, in her 2003 volume A Witch's Dozen and 2004 (and final) collection Not in Kansas. I'd read and very much enjoyed the last, "Demon and Demoiselle" in the October, 1978 Fantastic, which I purchased and read when it and I were new...along with the Barry Malzberg and Bill Pronzini story, "Another Burnt-Out Case", they were the best things in the issue, and have read the initial story "A Witch in Time" (1973) some years back in Not in Kansas, but somehow never got around to reading the middle story, even though I have a copy of that issue somewhere.

If her work in sword & sorcery fiction resembles anyone's, it most closely (in my experience) matches a slightly more plainspoken version of Fritz Leiber's, and his wasn't the worst model to emulate, in fact essentially the best. Perhaps I've been putting off reading "She-Bear" since we'll have no more of her, nor Fox's other fine work.

In this story, Arcana is seeking a magic-driven sword, in the company of a pony which has been possessed by a hobbled demon under her control, and having found it, meets a displaced northern band of a warrior culture (women and children as well as men), and seeks out (with one of their male warriors) the troll that forced them away from their settlement. Thus, nothing in outline Too surprising in s&s, but written with grace, wit, and an acute sense of women's estate (in our society as well as the northern band's). 

I'm glad I've finally read it, and am sorry Fox didn't choose (or wasn't able) to write more of Arcana.

For more of today's short fiction, please see Patti Abbott's blog.

Christopher Rowe's blogpost about Fox's Arcana stories.

My memorial post for Janet Fox from 2009