REVIEW: “Dulce et Decorum” by S. L. Huang

Review of S. L. Huang, “Dulce et Decorum”, in Aidan Doyle, Rachael K. Jones, and E. Catherine Tobler, Sword and Sonnet (Ate Bit Bear, 2018) — 205-215. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

This is the story of how Emily Shen seeks out Valentina (sometimes Knyazev; today, Knyazeva), hedge-magician and curator of the poetry of war museum, at the suggestion of her friend Chand, for help dealing with the last remnant of her beloved grandfather — his treasured gun. This gun represents everything she hates — war that goes against her pacifist views, and a reminder of the fact that her beloved grandfather was not what she is:

Besides, the pistol feels like it doesn’t represent Yeye so much as it represents all the pieces of him I didn’t know or didn’t understand (p. 209).

It’s a story of how she must grapple with “the cognitive dissonance” — the cognitive dissonance that comes from being a pacifist raised by a war veteran, of the dissonance that comes from the juxtaposition of the two themes of the anthology: poetry, so beautiful, so vital, so full of power; and war, so ugly, so atrocious, so deadly. Valentina offers to write her a poem of her grandfather, noting that it will be “Messy. And human” (p. 214). Like life. Like war. Like poetry itself.

Huang’s telling of how is so full of piercing sentences that I could write a review just quoting all the ones that cut quick. But then I’d basically be replicating the story here, so I’ll just end this review with: Go read the story for yourself.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “And the Ghosts Sang With Her: A Tale of the Lyrist” by Spencer Ellsworth

Review of Spencer Ellsworth, “And the Ghosts Sang With Her: A Tale of the Lyrist”, in Aidan Doyle, Rachael K. Jones, and E. Catherine Tobler, Sword and Sonnet (Ate Bit Bear, 2018) — 189-203. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

I’m not a huge fan of 2nd-person narration when the narrator’s “you” is directed at me, but when the audience of the narration is not the reader but a clearly defined character who is listening to an oral tale, then I like it very much. I sometimes feel that a lot of modern fantasy storytelling has lost some of its connection with its oral past, and that we don’t write enough stories that are designed to be read aloud any more. (Having a 6yo means I spend a lot of time reading stories out loud.)

Not only does the narration capture the oral aspect of this thousands-and-one-nights-inspired story, the story itself works well not merely read aloud but performed; it would be a lovely choice for someone to recite around a campfire as the late summer sun is setting.

And it had a fabulous, vengeful ending.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “The Bone Poet and God” by Matt Dovey

Review of Matt Dovey, “The Bone Poet and God”, in Aidan Doyle, Rachael K. Jones, and E. Catherine Tobler, Sword and Sonnet (Ate Bit Bear, 2018) — 175-186. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

I’m not sure I’ve ever read a fantasy story aimed towards adults (in the sense of “not a children’s book, rather than “containing ‘adult’ content”) where the main cast of characters were anthropomorphised animals. I found it an interesting narrative choice, for other than the ways in which the characters interact with each other as a result of disparities in, eg., size and strength, none of them seemed particularly animal. If anything, Ursula the bear felt more human than many of the other magical poets featured in this anthology. Ursula’s story is one of figuring out how one is supposed to be themself. Ursula climbs the mountain to find God thinking that only God can help her choose who she wants to be. In the end she finds God, but what else she finds is not what she expects.

This story comes with a somewhat heavy handed moral; but I don’t mean this as a criticism. The story is a vehicle for teaching a lesson; the lesson is overt; and the lesson is a good one.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Heartwood, Sapwood, Spring” by Suzanne J. Willis

Review of Suzanne J. Willis, “Heartwood, Sapwood, Spring”, in Aidan Doyle, Rachael K. Jones, and E. Catherine Tobler, Sword and Sonnet (Ate Bit Bear, 2018) — 163-172. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

This is the first story in the anthology to be set in the future — a post-apocalyptic future where humanity has broken into factions and the enemy fears the power of the written word. In such a world, libraries become the bastions of rebellion and words tattooed upon skin provide one last barrier of protection — tattoos made from ink created from the ashes of the books that were burned, libraries filled with books made of word indelible not upon vellum but upon a different sort of skin.

This story in all rights should be horribly, terribly gruesome and macabre. But it just isn’t, and that is what makes it so magical.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Labyrinth, Sanctuary” by A. E. Prevost

Review of A. E. Prevost, “Labyrinth, Sanctuary”, in Aidan Doyle, Rachael K. Jones, and E. Catherine Tobler, Sword and Sonnet (Ate Bit Bear, 2018) — 151-160. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Over centuries, Constance has built her sanctuary, stone by stone. But to the poet Daylily, the sanctuary is a labyrinth within which Constance seems trapped.

Indeed, both Constance and Daylily seemed trapped by constraints of their own making; Constance, caught within the stone walls she has built, Daylily, by thinking that the only way to save the poems is to keep them to themself. Each needs the other to find the way to break free, and leave the labyrinthine sanctuary. For “there is so much there, in the world beyond” (p. 160).

I found that this was another story where the presence of the author’s note at the end significantly deepened my understanding and appreciation of the story, and the ways in which Constance and Daylily fight both to protect and save themselves and to keep themselves at bay. It was a quiet story, more words than action, very apt for the theme of battling through and with words.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “The Words of Our Enemies, the Words of Our Hearts” by A. Merc Rustad

Review of A. Merc Rustad, “The Words of Our Enemies, the Words of Our Hearts”, in Aidan Doyle, Rachael K. Jones, and E. Catherine Tobler, Sword and Sonnet (Ate Bit Bear, 2018) — 133-148. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

“A shiny new story with dinosaurs” is how the author’s note describes this story, and Rustad delivered exactly that — not only with dinosaurs, but also an Ever-Hungry Queen, the tomeslinger Yarchuse who uses a set of neopronouns I’d never come across before (“ae”, “aer”), which I found read surprisingly smoothly and easily for being unfamiliar, a forest fighting for its right to survive, and (tapping into all my own desires) an Unearthly Library that people pray to instead of a deity. There was a lot going on packed into this story.

Yarchuse is the focus of the story, ae and aer quest to find the Ever-Hungry Queen’s son Prince Aretas, and the greater quest to end the war with the trees, but it was the Ever-Hungry Queen that intrigued me the most. Why does she hunger? What does she hunger? Was she the Ever-Hungry Queen three years ago, before the death of her daughter the princess? She remained throughout stubbornly peripheral and absent; I would have liked to have had more of her.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Her Poems Are Inked in Fears and Blood” by Kira Lees

Review of Kira Lees, “Her Poems Are Inked in Fears and Blood”, in Aidan Doyle, Rachael K. Jones, and E. Catherine Tobler, Sword and Sonnet (Ate Bit Bear, 2018) — 125-130. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

A plague of ill-fortune is besetting the emperor; five courtier-poets have been killed in the last year, and no one knows how or by whom. Under Minister Ushiwara is the most recent to die, and no eulogy poem in his honor is better-crafted than the one Uguisu composes, and speaks using Ushiwara’s own words and images and voice.

Lees’s story set in Heian era Japan is blood-thirsty and vivid. Uguisu is not fighting to defend her land or her people or even herself, but something even more fundamental: Her voice, and her right to be remembered. I particularly enjoyed the quite long and detailed author’s note for this story which emphasises how little we know of the lives of historical Japanese women, often not even their names.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Phalium arium ssp. anam” by Victoria Sandbrook

Review of Victoria Sandbrook, “Phalium arium ssp. anam”, Luna Station Quarterly 35 (2018): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Nora Sullivan, “the strange one”, will take any justification she can to go see the sideshow, even if it means accompanying John Reidy (“a nice young man from a nice family”, for all that he seems uninterested in the company of the woman he invited to come with him). Much of what is at the show are disappointing fakes, but some…some of them were real, and magic, and crying out to Nora to be rescued.

This rather quick and quiet story reminded me of Mommy Fortuna’s Carnival in Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn. But here, things end hopefully, rather than in chaos.

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REVIEW: “The Firefly Beast” by Tony Pi

Review of Tony Pi, “The Firefly Beast”, in Aidan Doyle, Rachael K. Jones, and E. Catherine Tobler, Sword and Sonnet (Ate Bit Bear, 2018) — 115-122. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

The City God of Chengdu outsources his city’s security needs to demons “seeking atonement for past wrongs by defending the city” (p. 116). But what happens when the demon defending the city becomes the demon that the city must be defended from? Pi’s story pits the turncoat Firefly Beast against the White-Gold Guest, who defends the city with a flute rather than a sword.

For the White-Gold Guest, poetry is not a means of destruction; it’s not a weapon at all, but rather the first step on her path to atonement, and, later on in that path, a shield of protection for her adopted city.

I read this story on a night when I needed something good, something supportive, something that focuses on strength and hope and things like that. This story delivered that. I loved how the White-Gold Guest turned her power to battle against her own inner appetites, used it to seek to better herself, and later on another, rather than to destroy. And I was absolutely delighted to find out, reading Pi’s author’s note, that the White-Gold Guest’s poetess mentor, Xue Tao, is a real, historical poet. I look forward to reading more of her poems.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “The Mothership” by K. Bannerman

Review of K. Bannerman, “The Mothership”, Luna Station Quarterly 35 (2018): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Miscarriage/stillbirth, violent labor.

Fifty sleeping women set off for Titan, populating a mothership whose purpose is both figurative and literal. The problem is that only one of the women managed to become, and stay, pregnant. For all the other forty-nine, either the procedure didn’t work or they awoke before the end of nine months, miscarrying. Now Kyana is awake…and the news is not good.

It’s a rather horrific story, not because it is gruesome or gory or particularly vivid, but just because of the strength of the sadness that comes with that much loss of life and hope. It’s much easier to deal with the abstract notion of the end of the human race, when the last adult dies and there are no new babies left to be born. It’s another when those babies die before they have even had a chance to live. There is a twist of hope at the end, but it’s hardly enough to offset all the bleakness.

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