If Dragon's Mass Eve Be Cold And Clear

by Ken Scholes

Do you believe in Santa? And in his terrible swift sword?

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories, Christmas

37 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 14, 2012

About the author

Ken Scholes is the award-winning, critically-acclaimed author of five novels and over fifty short stories. His work has appeared in print for over sixteen years. His series, The Psalms of Isaak, is published by Tor Books and his short fiction has been released in three volumes by Fairwood Press.

Ken's eclectic background includes time spent as a label gun repairman, a sailor who never sailed, a soldier who commanded a desk, a preacher (he got better), a nonprofit executive, a musician and a government procurement analyst. He has a degree in History from Western Washington University.

Ken is a native of the Pacific Northwest and makes his home in Saint Helens, Oregon, where he lives with his twin daughters. You can learn more about Ken by visiting www.kenscholes.com.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

WELCOME TO DECEMBER PROJECT!

boilerplate mission statement intro:

for the past two years, i’ve set december’s project aside to do my own version of a short story advent calendar. it’s not a true advent calendar since i choose all the stories myself, but what it lacks in the ‘element of surprise’ department it more than makes up for in hassle, as i try to cram even MORE reading into a life already overcrammed with impossible personal goals (live up to your potential! find meaningful work! learn to knit!) merry merry wheee!

since i am already well behind in my *regular* reviewing, when it comes to these stories, whatever i poop out as far as reflections or impressions are going to be superficial and perfunctory at best. please do not weep for the great big hole my absented, much-vaunted critical insights are gonna leave in these daily review-spaces (and your hearts); i’ll try to drop shiny insights elsewhere in other reviews, and here, i will at least drop links to where you can read the stories yourselves for free, which - let’s be honest - is gonna serve you better anyway.

HAPPY READING, BOOKNERDS!

links to all stories read in previous years' calendars can be found at the end of these reviews, in case you are a person who likes to read stories for free:

2016: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
2017: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

scroll down for links to this year’s stories which i will update as we go, and if you have any suggestions, send 'em my way! the only rules are: it must be available free online (links greatly appreciated), and it must be here on gr as its own thing so i can review it. thank you in advance!

DECEMBER 23

On the ride home, we’d had our discussion, and father dissected the components of the service.

“At the end,” I told him, “they prayed for the Santaman’s return. Do they do it every Dragonsday?”

He nodded. “Some of them do it every day.”

“Not just on Dragon’s Mass Eve?”

“No.”

“But they believe one day it will work?”

“Yes.”

“They really really believe?”

He nodded again. “They really really believe. And I used to, too. Even your mother, in some ways, believed. Only she believed that if there was a Santaman, he expected us to work while we waited and make things as good as we could.” He looked thoughtful for a moment.

“But we don’t believe now,” I said.

He smiled at me. “I don’t believe now. Do you?”

I smiled back. “No, I really don’t. I think…” I tried to find something to hitch my thought to. I remembered the growing stack of bound cardboard covers he kept in the drawer beside his bed, each containing my carefully written pages of our fictional misadventures spread out over a half-dozen Dragon’s Mass Eves. “I think it’s a good story but I don’t think it’s true.” Then, I said what I knew he was going to say next. “But I suppose being true isn’t always required.”

He smiled. “Exactly so.”

OH GOOD ANOTHER SAD CHRISTMAS STORY, WHEEEEE! i guess it's not technically a christmas story, but a dragon's mass eve story with an absentee hero figure called santaman, assorted creatures, largely undefined, and a generational passing of a torch as a father dies and is mourned before mourning paves the way for motherhood. also a character named parson brown LIKE IN THAT SECULAR XMAS CAROL! and it's fine. i took a break from baking and crafting and wrapping to read it and it was longer than i thought it would be (TWSS) and i swear i'm not resenting it on those grounds, but i didn't respond to it in any particular way other than feeling pleased at having notched my short story advent calendar belt for the day. does this make me a grinch? perhaps. but it makes me a grinch who is ACHIEVING ALL THE GOALS! which is a christmas miracle, so i'll take it.



read it for yourself here:

https://www.tor.com/2011/12/13/if-dra...

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come to my blog!

[Melki · Rating 4 out of 5]

If Dragon’s Mass Eve be cold and clear
The Santaman’s grace may find us here.
But if Dragon’s Mass Eve be clouded sky
The Santaman’s grace may pass us by.

A young woman learns to cope with the death of her father as the holidays roll around, and life goes on without him.

I learned that loss is like a hole in the middle of your living room floor. You rearrange the furniture around it and you visit it once in a while, but less and less often with every month. Eventually, you grow accustomed to walking around the hole, living around it as it just becomes a part of your life.

Every year she attends church on Dragon's Mass Eve, and hears the old familiar tale of Santaman, a mythological being who would appear with his terrible, swift sword to vanquish evil.

Myth became life. No one really believed in the Santaman until he came with his tattered red robe and his dripping red sword. No one really believed in his undying love until he burst into our direst need to carve us a new home from the bones of the world.

I lost my father 26 years ago, near Christmas, so many sentences in this tale had special meaning to me.

. . . knew I would have given everything I owned to have this one final conversation with him . . .

Scholes's story is pretty bleak, as cold and chilly as its title, though it does end on a hopeful note.

I’d never tasted hope before but my father had described it many times before.

Bitter and sweet at the same time.

A good story for this particular time in history.

A pretty good story - period.

It's a Tor short from many moons ago - https://www.tor.com/2011/12/13/if-dra...

And in the north, he’ll hear our cry
Ride forth in wrath, his sword raised high
To carve our home in violent grace
And lead us to that promised place.

[Netanella · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a sad, yet heartwarming tale, about an only daughter who struggles with her grief after the death of her father, the sole parent in her life. The story is set in an alternate world where the Santaman is a legendary hero who once saved the people from evil, and the daughter and her father are miners of hope. It's a wonderful fantasy that's a perfect Christmas read. Or a read in June. Lovely.

[Adam Shaeffer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ah, hope. It seems to be on everyone's pen these days. Maybe it's because our hearts are crying for it and the world has so little to offer us...

[Nancy Lorenzen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This came kind of out of nowhere for me. Someone on a Facebook group I'm a member of linked to the Tor web version of this, and I read it on Christmas day. I.... really want more in this world. This was such an amazing amount of world building and character building for such a short piece. When I saw it as a "book," I was really hoping for more stories from this world, but I'll take it as it is so I can read it again next year.

[Jaycee Jarvis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a compelling short story about a dark future where hope is a rare commodity and faith in the Santaman is sometimes hard to find. Lyrical and profound, with a deep underpinning of grief, I found this an lovely read on a cold winter's night. Highly recommend for people who enjoy fantasy short stories, and aren't afraid to examine the real meaning of Christmas.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5
An excellent story on loss and the holidays against the backdrop of a world where a Santa Claus figure once saved the world from ending. Just the right length to get fully immersed in the story. I'd love to read more about the world that this story takes place in.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Speechless.

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful short story about a young woman grappling with grief and hope in the wake of her father's death.

[Danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow.

[Bobbi Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story was a print-out given to the members of (St.Helens, Writers Guild) of which I was lucky enough to receive from the author Ken Scholes at one of our meetings that he attended. It was a great meeting and gift to us. I just wish I had a copy of the book.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great short story that hints at a great many things. It also speaks to universal human truths, such as grief, keeping faith with the dead, the value of tradition, and our need for hope in the worst of times. I was pushed to keep my eyes open past my bedtime to read this story, and it was well worth the effort. I have no idea about what else Ken Scholes has published, but the quality of the writing in this story guarantees I will be looking into it. If his novels have the same sort of writing, I'll count myself lucky to have been introduced through If Dragon's Mass Eve Be Cold and Clear.

[Maggie Gordon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was looking a comedic short on Tor.com and I can definitely say that this one is mislabelled. Scholes Christmas themed short is not funny. It's quite dark actually, but ends with hope (fitting for the season, I suppose). It's an odd little story where Santa is a mythical figure that people think will come and save from their enemies. Life is hard; war is hard. But people survive. I am not a fan of "true love is the love a parent feels for their child" so the story didn't really enthrall me, and the plot didn't really go anywhere.

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first Ken Scholes experience. I saw it advertised as a free read on Tor.com so decided to pass some time at work reading it. I became a fan during that story. Filled with pain, loss and hope, it really spoke to me as few stories could.

[RdWd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Taking place in an alternate Santa Claus mythos than we're familiar with, this well-crafted wintry tale packs a lot of emotion surrounding grief, tradition and hope into a short, small festive package.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

3, maybe 3.5 for this story. While I enjoyed the main character and the story's exploration of grief, and the relationship between a father and daughter, I was left pretty cold by the ending of this story.

[M Sabet · Rating 1 out of 5]

دقیقاً متوجه نمی‌شم به چی این داستان ریت داده شده. بیشتر شبیه این داستان فارسیای ماسته که هیچ اتفاقی هم توش نمی‌افته.

[Timothy Finucane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice fantasy twist on the Santa Clause mythology.