REVIEW: “The Last Wake” by Kathryn Keane

Review of Kathryn Keane, “The Last Wake,” Luna Station Quarterly 51 (2022): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Death of a parent.

Paul’s mother has died and he has returned to the house that now belongs to his sister Margaret, and every intimate scene that the reader sees is one filled with all the love and dysfunctionality of a small-town Irish family — right up until the point that Paul gets talking with a self-described “bit of a blow-in” and the bit of me that always reads stories waiting for the speculative twist perks up. And I was right: Bridie McCafferty is everything this story needs to turn it from mundane to fantastical. It was a slow, subtle twist, but fine and bittersweet and just a little bit happy.

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REVIEW: “External Processors” by Sherry Yuan

Review of Sherry Yuan, “External Processors,” Luna Station Quarterly 51 (2022): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

I really enjoyed this particular take on the notion of the “extended mind” — the idea that we think with more than just our brain, but also with parts of our environment. Not many people in Nolan’s class are lucky enough to get an ExP — an external processor. After getting one for his 12th birthday, he’s the envy of all his classmates. But the other side of his good fortune is a much darker one. I’m not sure whether this story is SF or horror, but whatever the genre: It’s one of those stories that feels all too real, and hence was very good.

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REVIEW: “Misrule” by Fiona Moore

Review of Fiona Moore, “Misrule,” Luna Station Quarterly 51 (2022): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Misrule is a multifaceted entity in this story — both the time of year when the Lord of Misrule holds court, but also the court itself, and the chaos that results from it. When Mary faces Misrule, it’s in the form of the wanton destruction of her mother’s livelihood, and it’s an enemy that she cannot fight. For as the Vicar says, “There’s always Misrule. It’s a way of letting go of the pain of the other fifty weeks of the year.”

This was a timely and thought-provoking story. Reading it, I couldn’t help but think of the recent protests in the UK, arising out of the myriad crises facing the ordinary people. They’re protests now, but how many tomorrows will it be before they are riots? Before we have our own form of Misrule? Maybe the Vicar is right: set aside twelve days each year for destruction, and maybe we can survive the rest of the year. Or maybe Mary is right, and rather than trying to endure it we must undo the very foundations on which Misrule is built. I’m not sure I’m convinced Mary’s solution is one that can be applied more generally, but it was certainly interesting to read it play out.

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REVIEW: “City of Eternity” by Pan Haitian

Review of Pan Haitian, “City of Eternity”, Clarkesworld Issue 182, November (2021): Read Online. Reviewed by Myra Naik.

Very beautiful prose. I always enjoy reading translated fiction; the word choices and the way the language flows is just different from stories written originally in English. It’s nice to see different style choices in fiction, especially in short fiction.

A lovely story about time and how we perceive it. Do wars mean anything when you’ve experienced endless time, or the rise and fall of civilization? Does love? When does enlightenment really occur?

These are the questions this story explores, and it is quite a lovely thing to see.

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REVIEW: “There is a Cottage by the Woods” by Rebecca Burton

Review of Rebecca Burton, “There is a Cottage by the Woods,” Luna Station Quarterly 51 (2022): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This story started off with a long enough pre-amble in italics that I actually quit reading and scrolled down because I wondered if the formatting in the story had gone wrong and an <i> tag hadn’t gotten closed. But, nope: There’s just a really long info-dump pre-amble in italics at the very beginning.

What came after that info-dump was a lovely pleasant read, though; it makes me wish an editor had suggested just getting rid of it altogether and starting the story at the point where it really started.

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