Review of Sarah Pauling, “Auger”, Luna Station Quarterly 37 (2019): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
I hardly know where to begin with this story. It is full of familial love and strong friendships; it is full of wild beauty; it is laced with horror and sadness. I can’t summarise it without giving it away, and I can’t articulate how it touched me; I can only say that it did. Highly recommended.
Review of Amanda J. McGee, “At Love’s Heart”, Luna Station Quarterly 37 (2019): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
There are certain tropes that creep up again and again in fantasy literature, one of which is the “virgin to the dragon” story, whether it be actual virgins to actual dragons or is more metaphorical, whether the sacrifice be compelled or voluntary. At the heart (hah!) of this story is the voluntary sacrifice of Bronne on behalf of her village, Reykjin — for “someone had to pay the cost of winter. The cost of the ice.” Reykjin is one of the northernmost villages, but that doesn’t make the trek north to the temple any easier.
McGee traces Bronne’s path north, accompanied by women of her village all singing songs and bearing witness, through each slow and delicate step. There is a ponderousness about the pace of the story that mimics the gradual slowing down of the body due to cold; but whereas such ponderousness could sometimes be heavy, in this story, it seems appropriate. It’s a beautiful story of the many different facets of love, each as sharp and brittle and beautiful as the facet of an ice crystal.
Review of Ella Syverson, “Call to Mind”, Luna Station Quarterly 37 (2019): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
If swearing in your stories isn’t for you, then avoid this one — it starts off with a curse word.
But Sam and her traveling companion, Diesel, have something to curse about. Their memories have been wiped — again — and while artificial amnesia is part of the job when you’re employed by the Department of Supernatural Control, that doesn’t mean it ever gets any easier, especially when you know that there isn’t really any out. Even with artificial amnesia, DSC employees know too much to ever not be DSC employees.
Both Sam and Diesel are good at their job, though, and that’s why they’re the ones tasked to track down a rogue human who’s been fraternizing with sirens, werewolves, and witches. Too many DSC agents have been lost in trying to capture this rogue, so it’s up to the two of them to put an end to it.
Of course neither expected the job to be an easy one, but I as the reader also didn’t expect it to be easy, and found that the story came up abruptly rather short at the end. I would have loved to see the interesting premise that it began with fully developed into something more substantial than what I ended up getting.
Review of Michael Merriam, “Tenari”, in Catherine Lundoff, ed., Scourge of the Seas of Time (and Space) (Queen of Swords Press, 2018): 168-180 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)
Captain Reed’s ship, the Black Manta, hasn’t always been black. Decades ago, the ship was just the Manta, an attack ship in the Colonial Defense Forces. At the time, Captain Reed wasn’t captain, merely senior lieutenant, and her current XO, Roger Baldry, was navigator and second officer. But it’s been a long time since Reed and Baldry encountered the mythical alien race, the Tenari, and — when no one else did — lived to tell the tale. Now the Manta is a pirate ship, no longer a military ship, and Reed and Baldry are facing the Tenari again. They were lucky once to escape with their lives; will they be lucky enough to escape a second time?
Merriam’s story is filled with rich detail and a panoply of characters, which I liked. However, two things about this story bothered or confused me. First, half the time the captain was named Kathleen Reed, the other half she was Katherine Reed, and I was never sure if this was intentional or just something that slipped past proofreading. Second, with almost no exception, the female characters were referred to solely by their given name, while the male characters were referred to by either their surname or surname + title. It’s such a small thing, but to see “Janet” (Sobrinski) working side by side (Roger) “Baldry”, “Mr. Roberts” the helmsman working with crewmember “Tilly” (no surname), was a constant reminder of how even when female characters are given equal screen time with male in a story, they are still treated unequally. We’ve come so far in terms of representation in SFF stories; but there is still so much further left to go.
Review of Peter Golubock, “After the Deluge”, in Catherine Lundoff, ed., Scourge of the Seas of Time (and Space) (Queen of Swords Press, 2018): 156-167 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)
It wasn’t a big surprise when New York sank beneath the waves. The surprise was that everyone stayed (p. 161).
When global warming catches up with NYC and the city is deluged, one of the perks of city with many skyscrapers is that the floods only took out a few of the floors, leaving much of the city still high and dry. But with dry land left to the rich, it’s no surprise that the poor took to being pirates on the newly formed water ways, raiding big cargo ships with their little motor boats and dinghies. The Pizza Rat is one such ship, and her captain has been making a successful career as one of the most powerful pirate captains in the five boroughs for some time now. But when the captain of the Pizza Rat receives a tip-off from a trusted source, of an unescorted cargo barge, things don’t go exactly to plan…
Even if cops-and-robbers pirate-chase stories like this aren’t exactly my cup of tea, it was still a fun read.
Review of Caroline Sciriha, “A Crooked Road Home”, in Catherine Lundoff, ed., Scourge of the Seas of Time (and Space) (Queen of Swords Press, 2018): 144-155 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)
This story caught me by surprise. It started off being a relatively ordinary story about space pirates and organised crime and smuggling — the sort of thing you’d find in a typical B-grade SF flick — and ended up turning much deeper and sharper and harsher and more beautiful. This isn’t merely the story of space pirate Captain Jesson out to win his freedom from his mob-boss father to secure a future for himself; it’s the story of how he must face the ugly aspects of his past, the parts he had no control over then but maybe can make restitution for how.
Sciriha tangles together threads of child trafficking, parental loss, and the displacement that comes from being a member of a minority culture in such a way that I was left with a lump in my throat and a lingering sadness for Jesson’s past and hope for his future.
Review of Kathryn McMahon, “Green is for Wishes and Apples”, Luna Station Quarterly 37 (2019): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
From Eve’s apple to the apple the witch gives Snow White, there’s no denying that in myth and story, apples are magic. Abigail knows the Granny Smiths in the tree she loves to climb partake in that tradition of magic — she learned about it from Gram, but Gram herself is now dead. Can even those potent green fruit bring back the dead?
McMahon’s slow, dreamy story of intricate witchery is creepy and unsettling, and I was rather glad the ending was dark rather than hopeful; it seemed fitting.
Review of Mab Morris, “Laughter in the Graveyard”, Luna Station Quarterly 37 (2019): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Gazev is a young woman who upon the death of her sister, Sonalie, inherited her job as temple cleaner. Wherever she goes she carries the weight of her sister’s death — never explained in the story — as well as the weight of “the years of [the priests’] gaze upon her beautiful, bent shoulders”. She wanders through the graveyard, but cannot escape her sister’s legacy.
I found this a heavy, depressing story. Casual misogyny is so rife in the real world, that one often looks to fantasy and speculative fiction for escape — for there we can explore worlds that are built on fundamentally different principles than our own. But while much of the world Morris builds in Gazev’s story is different from ours and foreign, the same old misogyny is there, as if it is inescapable.
Review of Matisse Mozer, “Rosa, the Dimension Pirate”, in Catherine Lundoff, ed., Scourge of the Seas of Time (and Space) (Queen of Swords Press, 2018): 128-143 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)
Jack Hurwitz’s life is boring. He still lives with his dad and step-mom. He doesn’t have a job. He’s failed his classes and won’t be going to community college. There is basically nothing in his life to redeem it.
That is, before an alien satellite lands in his backyard, complete with a refugee alien pirate girl who is the only thing that stands between the earth and its destruction. Suddenly, Jack’s life is anything but boring.
A fun swashbuckling-in-space story with so many double-crossings and double-bluffs that I could hardly keep track of who was a good guy and who was a bad guy, Mozer’s tale was lighthearted and fun to read.
Review of Jasmine Smith, “Into the Flames”, Luna Station Quarterly 37 (2019): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
It’s always exciting to read the first publication of a new author, and Smith’s story did not disappoint. I found myself wrapped up in a story full of action and intrigue, in a setting evocative of medieval Arabic Egypt. There was a deep thread of uncertainty running through it all — even at the end, I was not sure who were the good guys and who were the bad guys.
SFF Reviews