John Schoffstall’s fiction has been published in Asimov’s, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, Interzone, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Twentieth Annual Collection. His first novel, Half-Witch, was published by Small Beer Press.
Half-Witch by John Schoffstall
Appropriately enough, I’m of mixed mind about John Schoffstall’s Half-Witch (2018), which is itself about a young girl who is part one thing, part another, moving through a world that is also a kind of collage, a strange admixture of building blocks.
For most of her 14 years, Lizbet Lenz has been forced to flee one home after another as her lovable con-artist father finds yet another way to turn the residents against them. But when he accidentally causes a rain of mice, he is imprisoned by the powerful Margrave before they have a chance to flee, leading Lizbet to undertake a seemingly impossible quest to travel with a young witch over the never-crossed Montagnes du Monde in search of a magical talisman desperately sought by the Margrave.
The world Schoffstall creates is wonderfully creative and whimsically eclectic, set in a Holy Roman Emp... Read More
