REVIEW: “The Transubstantiation” by Evan Dicken

Review of Evan Dicken, “The Transubstantiation”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue 310 (August 13, 2020); read online. Reviewed by Richard Lohmeyer.

Deff is the narrator of this interesting, but decidedly unusual take on the nature of heroes. He is part of a small group of “glory hounds” who trap and kill heroes in order to sell their bodies on the black market. Often this brings a high price since a hero’s blood can be used as a skin treatment that leaves a person’s face looking “smooth as marble and sheened with a pale glow.” In spite of the monetary rewards, Deff regrets this practice, though he justifies it by reminding himself that heroes always break bad. One case in point is the Weeper, the hunt for whom is what most of the story involves. The Weeper is “the woman who had toppled Empires, burned entire nations in the name of justice, made promise after promise then abandoned us when the payment came due.” Her form of abandonment was novel, at least. She somehow climbed all the way to Heaven searching for truth. However, the truth as she relates it leaves her in despair, but fills Deff with a very different emotion.  

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REVIEW: “Fire and Falling” by Andrew Dykstal

Review of Andrew Dykstal, “Fire and Falling”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue 310 (August 13, 2020): Read online. Reviewed by Richard Lohmeyer.

If this exciting adventure yarn set in a steampunkish universe is part of an ongoing series, I’m not aware of it; but if it’s the beginnings of one, I can’t wait for the next installment.  Mir, the story’s protaganist, is on her first assignment as a courier for the Lady of Situations, a master manipulator we hear a lot about but don’t actually meet. When given the opportunity to kill a large number of enemy agents, Mir does so by blowing up and unwittingly killing one of the most interesting characters in the story: a living airship. Many people die, too, but several survive, including an enemy agent Mir nicknames “Dogwood” and who befriends her. As the story progresses, Mir learns more and more about the fantastical nature of airships and their engineers. She also learns more about herself, including the fact that her destiny lies along a different path than she’d originally thought.  

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REVIEW: “All the Souls Like Candle Flames” by Vanessa Fogg

Review of Vanessa Fogg, “All the Souls Like Candle Flames”, Luna Station Quarterly 28 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

I continue to be not a huge fan of 2nd person narration — I’ve said it before, but I had being told what I am thinking or feeling — so that it takes something quite extraordinary for me to overcome my high bar for stories that open up with an instruction to me, the reader. Unfortunately, Fogg’s story did not manage to hurdle it, despite the 2nd person narration being restricted to the opening, scene setting paragraphs. But after having been told that I know the Sea Witch’s name (I don’t) or that maybe I’m already dead (nope, definitely not), I wasn’t in the right mood to find out the story of Mikki, and why a fish has feathers. I think this story could’ve been much stronger if those initial paragraphs had been simply stripped out.

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REVIEW: “A Few Minutes More” by L. M. Magalas

Review of L. M. Magalas, “A Few Minutes More”, Luna Station Quarterly 28 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Suicide.

The premise of this story is simply: Susanna, by committing suicide, has forfeited her right to the remainder of her allotted days, but she is allowed to designate someone else as recipient.

I wouldn’t have ever thought a suicide story could be heartwarming, but this one was. Magalas handled the delicate subject matter with care and sensitivity, exploring the ways in which our actions affect those around us, positively and negatively, in a story full of warmth and hope.

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REVIEW: “Scrap Metal” by Tara Calaby

Review of Tara Calaby, “Scrap Metal”, Luna Station Quarterly 28 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content warning:Traumatic injury, death.

It’s always risky opening a story with a character waking up — perhaps even more risky to start not only the first scene but the second scene as well that way!

Mae’s been in a bad car accident, but she is “a very lucky girl”; after all, she’s now kitted out with the best cybernetic prosthetics available. With this, Calaby takes what could’ve been a rather pedestrian premise and threads it with through with the uncomfortable side of Mae’s luck: the way in which wealth rather than need or desert determines who gets the best of care after a traumatic accident, the gaslighting of a patient by their doctor, the fact that her new limbs might not be all they seem on the surface.

Quality SF with a hint of horror towards the end. Nicely done.

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REVIEW: “Satin and Velvet” by R.H. Cloake

Review of R.H. Cloake, “Satin and Velvet”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue 309 (July 30, 2020): Read online. Reviewed by Richard Lohmeyer.

This is primarily a story about “imposter syndrome” and why so many good, talented people often believe themselves unworthy of success. Greta, the narrator, is the youngest-ever apprentice to a centuries-old master magician. While still an aspiring apprentice she had met and admired Samara, her predescessor. Greta is “plagued,” like Samara before her, by “gasts.” Greta’s are satin; Samara’s were velvet, but all gasts are magical entities that befriend, for no immediately apparent reason, some people and not others. For example, The Master both apprentices serve(d) has never been befriended by gasts and it enrages him.  He vents his anger on each apprentice by refusing to give them lessons for as long as their gasts assist them and not him. Each apprentice learns a different lesson from this experience. One of them commits suicide in despair, while the other has an entirely different experience. This is a brief story but well worth reading, particularly if, like so many others, you’ve ever talked yourself into believing you don’t deserve success. 

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REVIEW: “Keeping the Peace” by Elisabeth R. Adams

Review of Elisabeth R. Adams, “Keeping the Peace”, Analog Science Fiction and Fact July/August (2020): 118–123 (Kindle) – Purchase Here. Reviewed by John Atom.

Contains spoilers.

An alien species of intelligent reptiles is preparing to launch an attack at what is presumably our Solar System. Their intention is to spread to the stars, but only by conquering already populated planets. They’re not interested in other means of colonization. During the launching ceremony, a few who are not happy with the current predicament decide to overthrow the leader and put a stop to the cycle of violence.

What I appreciated the most in “Keeping the Peace” was its pace. The story builds up elegantly to its climax, while also giving a complete picture of what the society in question is like. I always enjoy concise world-building, and Adams does that splendidly here. Not one sentence felt wasted. Little touches like naming characters after star systems or their peculiar ritualistic chants go a long way into defining the alien culture within the story.

However, I was slightly disappointed with the resolution. The main character’s rise to power seemed a little too easy considering how violent and war-mongering their society was. Despite this, “Keeping the Peace” was a joy to read.

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REVIEW: “Man-Fruit” by Clara Kiat

Review of Clara Kiat, “Man-Fruit”, Luna Station Quarterly 28 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Abortion, physical abuse, non-consensual sex.

The story opens on the midwife Puring visiting Sisinia, who is “six moons away from giving birth”. But with Puring’s assistance, Sisinia might never give birth at all.

No one other than the mothers-who-won’t-be suspect that Puring is the source of the local abortions; but even more so, no one at all knows the secret behind how Puring does it, or the importance of the man-fruit to her life. Puring’s secret almost turns the story from fantasy into horror, Kiat mixing and balancing equal parts in her construction of the tale.

It’s not often I get a story set in post-Conquest central (or maybe southern; it wasn’t made explicit) America, which seems to me to be a real lack, because that is a setting rife with native fantasy and mythology that I would love to see more of.

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REVIEW: “Ife-Iyoku, the Tale of the Imadeyunuagbon” by Ekpeki Oghenechovwe Donald

Review of Ekpeki Oghenechovwe Donald, “Ife-Iyoku, the Tale of the Imadeyunuagbon”, in Zelda Knight and Ekpeki Oghenechovwe Donald, ed., Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction From Africa and the African Diaspora, (Aurelia Leo, 2020) — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology).

Content note: Nuclear warfare, possible rape, nonconsensual sex, death, suicide.

The “sacred charge of Obatala” is that all the men and women of Ife-Iyoku be useful, whether through the cultivation of special gifts as see-ers or healers or light weavers, or through the application of themselves to general tasks such as hunting and cooking and childrearing. While all the rest of Afrika has been destroyed by nuclear fall out, Ife-Iyoku stands behind a protective shield, and it is the duty of those who live there to make their community as strong as possible, that they might survive until Obatala returns to save all of Afrika.

But these roles come with definite gender restrictions, with women coming out far the worse. When Ooni Olori receives a message from beyond the shield, life in Ife-Iyoku is threatened by invasion. Those who live there must question the patriarchal structures that have bound their lives and face a future radically different from any they have ever known. I enjoyed watching Imade, one of the main characters, fight back against the gender roles that have constricted her her whole life, and by the end of the story was deeply invested in her and her outcome. A strong and powerful story.

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