REVIEW: “The Last Light” by Miranda Suri

Review of Miranda Suri, “The Last Light”, in Abandoned Places, edited by George R. Galuschak and Chris Cornell (Shohola Press, 2018): 147-162 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

“Piracy” has had a variety of connotations and meanings over the years, from armed hijackers sailing the seas to Robin-Hood-esque hackers who redistribute music from the rich to the poor. Suri’s story taps into an intersective version of piracy, one in which hackers can hijack space-ship computers and take them wherever they want in the universe, wherever they can then put the most pressure on those who carry priceless cargo — in space, there are many abandoned places.

One thing about the “Robin Hood” pirates is that they always think what they are doing is morally superior. We praise the historical Robin Hood as all the tales are told from his perspective as he fights against the evil, conniving, and greedy Sheriff of Nottingham and Prince John. The Robin Hood in this story is the antagonist, though, and what I enjoyed most about the story was watching the main character, Miss Song, slowly realise that maybe, just maybe, she was one of the bad guys.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Angel, Monster, Man” by Sam J. Miller

Review of Sam J. Miller, “Angel, Monster, Man”, in Steve Berman, ed., Wilde Stories 2017: The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction (Lethe Press, 2017): 123-151. — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Because to succeed as myth, Tom had to be dead. Otherwise the charade became too complicated to maintain. And who would know, in this city where the dying stacked up faster than firewood, that this one particular name in the long litany had never been an actual person?

A thought occurred to me, while reading the title of this piece, that while women have the threefold “Maiden/Mother/Crone” division, there isn’t really anything equivalent for men. What would such a tripartite characterisation of men look like? What types of myths and history could such a division tap into, in the way that the one for women does?

Miller’s story doesn’t actually address this question, but these were the thoughts playing in the back of my mind as I read it. I really enjoyed the complex narrative structure: Three parts, one for each portion of the title, one for each of three named narrators, the three that gave birth to Tom.

I loved the way the story operated at two levels, at one, just a story, at the other, an interrogation of the limits and boundaries of lies, fiction, and myth. Above all that, I loved the beauty of the story, with fine, delicate, ugly language. (The story is so full of lines I’d like to quote that if I quoted them all, I’d just be reproducing the entire story. “Adulterous toad-priests”. “Being a criminal is not so different from being an artist.” “Because of course it will hurt, because the things we need most always do.” “Love is the disease.” Ah! So many beautiful words.)

There is a rawness to the stories in this anthology that is unlike anything in any of the other anthologies I’ve reviewed for SFFReviews. It is hard to read these stories, Miller’s included especially, and not be moved. I also think I will be hard pressed to find a more powerful story in the collection than this astonishing one.

(This story first appeared in Nightmare, 2016).

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “The Last Shaper at The Witch City’s Waypoint” by Emily Lundgren

Review of Emily Lundgren, “The Last Shaper at The Witch City’s Waypoint”, Luna Station Quarterly 33 (2018): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This story has a gorgeous opening line:

Ess sang he found me in the reeds in the heat of summer, my mother a crow lying dead.

(Even if every time I read it, my eyes see “cow” instead of “crow”, and I can’t help but think that that would also work, and perhaps be even more interesting.)

The rest of the story was as beautifully crafted, full of lovely language like a song itself, and the rhythm and pacing and descriptive imagery of a fairy tale. Except part-way through it shifts from a fairy tale into something more akin to science fiction. The story transcends boundaries and classification, and is just really good.

Sara L. UckelmanLeave a comment

REVIEW: “Bull of Heaven” by Gabriel Murray

Review of Gabriel Murray, “Bull of Heaven”, in Steve Berman, ed., Wilde Stories 2017: The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction (Lethe Press, 2017): 83-99. — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

So much calculation had gone into giving Francis realistic human coloration: olive skin, brown eyes, brown hair a little lighter than the eyes, striated and naturalistic. No one had done the same with the android Moses: they’d just painted him in tones they found beautiful, which occurred on no living man, which Francis found garish.

This is another story of automata, religious automata programmed and constructed so that they are “born” already knowing all the catechism, already capable of experiencing “the mystery of the faith” (p. 85). It is easy, in this story, to slip into the uncanny valley; it is only in consciously self-reflective narration that we are reminded that Brother Francis is no ordinary temple cleric. Moses, too, is an android, and what I find most fascinating in this story is watching Brother Francis go through his own uncanny valley, to see the automaton respond to the not-quite-right, the too-almost-organic android. “The humans might not have noticed, but Francis did” (p. 86). But there remain many things that Francis does not notice, not until he is confronted with them, not until it is almost too late.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Of All Possible Worlds” by Eneasz Brodski

Review of Eneasz Brodski, “Of All Possible Worlds”, in Steve Berman, ed., Wilde Stories 2017: The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction (Lethe Press, 2017): 223-236. — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Warning: This story contains a rape.

Ehud. I had slept with him years ago. I had loved him for awhile. I should have known he would be found out. A stone flew from the crowd and tore his ear open. It bled black.

This story was a feast of detail — Romans and Jews, slaves and centurions, Colosseum fights, monstrous grotesque animals, a wizened wizard. To every animal, human or beast, that Marad sends into the Colosseum, he offers the following apology: “You must die so that I may live. I don’t ask your forgiveness; this is the way of life. But know I wish this world was different” (p. 225).

All the stories in this anthology make my heart ache, from sadness, from gladness, from a desire that the world is other than how it is. This one left me with a feeling of sadness and fear too complex to be articulated. The horror in it is shattering.

(This story was originally published in 2016 in Swords vs. Chthulhu, Jesse Bullington & Molly Tanzer, eds.)

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Heart Proof” by Holly Schofield

Review of Holly Schofield, “Heart Proof”, Luna Station Quarterly 33 (2018): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

There is a lot of world-building that has gone into this story — always a plus — but the flip side of it is that I’m not sure I got the details I needed to get when I needed to get them.

The story opens with a strong sense of anger and antagonism between the two main characters, Kamik and Techan. The tension is palpable, but I found it difficult to figure out where it came from. I feel like I’ve been dumped into the story a bit too precipitously and so I don’t know enough of their history to understand why their tempers are so short and why they are so angry with each other, because it is also clear that they have known each other for a long time and were, at least once, friends. It is only later that one very oblique comment makes me realise that they are — or at least once were — lovers.

The classic fantasy story involves a quest, and the quest in this story is one of pilgrimage — pilgrimage to make sacrifice, “a sacrifice to a god I no longer believe in!” (so says Kamik). We learn that the pilgrimage is one that every member of the village one makes, but it takes a long while to find out why Kamik and Techan are making the pilgrimage now, so late in their lives — it is nearly half-way through that I find out that the pilgrimage isn’t a one-time thing, but something that is done every time the god Welmit eats the moon.

So the story took me awhile to suck me in. But when Kamik reaches the edge of Welmit’s Maw and begins to contemplate heresy, then I was hooked. My only complaint by the end is that I wished the heresy had been a bit more heretical, a bit less orthodox.

Sara L. UckelmanLeave a comment

REVIEW: “There’s No Need to Fear the Darkness” by Heather Morris

Review of Heather Morris, “There’s No Need to Fear the Darkness”, Luna Station Quarterly 33 (2018): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Brenda is one of those characters where a few paragraphs in, already I’m thinking, I like her. I want to get a beer with her sometime and hear stories about her job. She wouldn’t bore me with small talk, and I bet she has had some interesting adventures. And I bet she wouldn’t mind if I whittered on about my job; she strikes me as someone who both gives and takes. Morris describes Brenda as “petty and mean-spirited”, but I’d call her “honest” rather.

I like her no-nonsense approach to her work and to the stupidity of humanity, and I love the casual and easy love and friendship that flows between her and the other two “Lazes” (short for “Lazaruses”; I did make the mistake of mentally mispronouncing the word the first time it was used, not (yet) knowing it’s origin). I love the humor that Brenda, Cade, and Aage have — I laughed out loud more than once reading this story.

I like reading stories like this because I wish there were more people like this in the world, and since there aren’t, I just have to settle with reading stories about them instead.

Sara L. UckelmanLeave a comment

REVIEW: “C-a-l-l-a-s” by Katharine Coldiron

Review of Katharine Coldiron, “C-a-l-l-a-s”, Luna Station Quarterly 33 (2018): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

“C-a-l-l-a-s” is the story of Solomon’s quest to obtain access to a piece of history that has been fervently suppressed in the wake of a cataclysmic event which we, the readers, simply know of as “the bacteria”. The effects of this bacterial event are pervasive and widespread — society is now quite dystopian and dictatorial — and there appears to be a connection between it and the lack of voice, quite literally, that people have. Communication happens primarily by sign language, or by electronic voice boxes; those who are bred to be able to speak command positions of power as literal mouthpieces for the government.

In such a world, what is it that takes the role of the most sought after, most precious? Why, music of course, and Solomon’s quest is a quest for opera, and in particular, a single opera singer, Callas.

For those who wish to experience a part of what Solomon experienced at the culmination of his quest, I leave you with this.

Sara L. UckelmanLeave a comment

REVIEW: “On Your Honor” by Kat Weaver

Review of Kat Weaver, “On Your Honor”, Luna Station Quarterly 33 (2018): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

I found this story rather hodgepodge — fanciful titles and clothing and the affected speech of a genteel historical fantasy; heavily Greek names as if (but not actually) from classical myth; bits and bobs of rather generic SF elements. It seemed like it didn’t quite know what genre it was supposed to be, and not in the “genre-transcending” sort of way but in the slightly confused and muddled sort of way. Sadly, this just wasn’t the story for me; but if you like political intrigue combined with parrots, it might be the story for you.

Sara L. UckelmanLeave a comment

REVIEW: “Das Steingeschöpf” by G. V. Anderson

Review of G. V. Anderson, “Das Steingeschöpf”, in Steve Berman, ed., Wilde Stories 2017: The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction (Lethe Press, 2017): 13-28. — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

A hundred million things to paint, to write, to carve, to compose, all trapped in a body that’s failing. Awareness of a brother come to save them at last, separated only by Ambroise’s skin.

An unexpected commission, a journey in the dark, a hidden treasure in an attic, a stone man already alive and ready to be loved…so begins a sort of Pygmalion-in-reverse story.

The best of stories are the ones you read and wish they were real. Everything about this story was perfect — the level of detail to set the scene, the historical references to set the time, the way in which the creation of the Steingeschöpf’s seems so perfectly natural — every aspect of their construction and composition is exactly what you’d expect it to be, so that even though this should be utterly unfamiliar and new, it is not, it feels familiar and already known.

Part of me wishes the story had a happy ending, but even for that I cannot wish this story other than it is.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment