Review of Alyssa Beatty, “Call of the Void,” Luna Station Quarterly 59 (2024): 55-70 — Purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
There are so many ways to play with ideas in the intersection of time-travel and determinism, but Beatty’s take felt fresh and new to me.
Review of Jordan Taylor, “What Remains to Wake,” Luna Station Quarterly 59 (2024): 209-226 — Purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was an intriguing story, fully fairy-tale it its tropes and elements, but with a twist of bloody horror — simultaneously properly Grimm while also being wholly new. In the realm of fairy-tale retellings, telling something entirely knew which is still yet a fairy tale is an accomplishment!
Review of Chezza Lee, “The Mid-Autumn Festival,” Luna Station Quarterly 59 (2024): 73-87 — Purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
“Immortality was boring,” this story opens up — a sentiment I can wholly get on board with (I’d rather die tomorrow than live forever), so from the start I’m predisposed to like what’s to come. With strong wuxia/xianxia influences clearly palpable, there was a lot to like in this short, compact story of a mortal who became immortal and then…tired of it. Sometimes, the simple pleasures of mortality are worth more than any amount of immortal bliss.
Review of Catherine George, “The Crow Bridge,” Luna Station Quarterly 59 (2024): 167-185 — Purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
What a stunningly lovely story this one: Delicately told and strongly constructed, full of myth and loss and struggle. I really loved it.
Also, kudos to George, who, according to her biography, took 10 years out from writing fiction, and came back to it. I did that too, and yet I still find support in hearing of other people doing the same. It helps, when facing writer’s block, to see examples of how it’s not forever, even if 10 years may seem like forever.
Review of Liv DeSimone, “Dragons Over Cefalù,” Luna Station Quarterly 59 (2024): 143-165 — Purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Violence against women.
I struggled with what to put in the content note for this story, because it’s more than sexual harassment (what I initially had), but not quite sexual assault (what I toyed with). Whatever it is, it pervades the opening pages of the story so if that isn’t something for you, definitely avoid this story. The harassment feels like it isn’t that awful, because it isn’t quite assault, but the low-levelness of it ends up making it even worse, because as a reader, as a woman, I kept finding myself trying to normalize it, and that made it all the more awful. In the end, a quote from the story gave me what I needed: “After all, none of this had ever been about sex” (p. 162). It’s not about sex, it’s about violence, and power.
Normally I’m not a fan of using violence against women as a means of moving plot forward in a story, but there was something about this that worked. Two women’s separate revenges become intertwined,
Review of Carolina V. Mata, “The Desert,” Luna Station Quarterly 59 (2024): 119-122 — Purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
“The desert was created to antagonize”: This one line sets the scene for a short, fierce story of fighting back against despair. There’s not much detail or backstory or world-building, meaning there is a lot of scope for reading into the story whatever you like — generational trauma, climate change, what have you. Its short length makes the story quite flexible and elastic in a satisfying way.
SFF Reviews