Review of Rebecca Schwarz, “The Gyre,” Luna Station Quarterly 21 (2015): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Part mermaid fairy tale, part commentary on the crisis of pollution in our seas, part “first-contact”, Schwarz’s story effectively wove togethre many different threads, and executed an unusual view-point shift. So many things to love about this story and how it was told.
Review of A.E. Ash, “Daughter of the Sun,” Luna Station Quarterly 21 (2015): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Dr. Lian Leandros is the only one left alive on the crippled space ship Aldebaran. Once she has sent out a distress signal, there is nothing left for her to do but wait.
It’s a premise that sets a story up for nothing happening: And yet, even though very little does happen in it, the way Ash brings the reader into Leandros’s world, helps us to understand her mind, is compelling and enjoyable, and in the end extremely beautiful.
Review of Sam Butler, “Sweet,” Luna Station Quarterly 21 (2015): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
If ever there were a “good” mood-altering drug, it would be Sweet: Non-addictive, no harmful side effects, no psychosis, no hallucinations, just: a feeling of happiness, of content, a sweet feeling. But of course, no such substance is ever going to be as good as it seems, and Sweet is no exception, as Charlie is about to find out after her childhood friend Charity takes the pill.
The strongest thread in this story is that of friendship, but it’s also a story that is reflective of a deeply unhappy society.
Review of Erin Kennemer, “Another Young Girl,” Luna Station Quarterly 21 (2015): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Top rate Baba Yaga story here, it kept me on my toes, never guessing what might happen next. And Mila is more than just “another young girl,” she manages to be a fairy tale heroine without being a trope.
Review of Kim Mary Trotto, “The Gold Fish,” Luna Station Quarterly 21 (2015): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
There aren’t enough mermaids stories where the mermaids are in fact hideous sirens. Top marks to this one for being one! Well done, full of delicious creepiness and a tinge of horror.
Review of Tina Shelton, “Bits & Pieces,” Luna Station Quarterly 22 (2015): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Systemic misogyny; racial stereotypes.
Heelee is a member of the Chiaxxa Bia, the one all-woman warrior caste that devotes its life to the defense of the people against smugglers and other raiders. Despite a life bend on killing and destruction, she one day saves the life of an innocent baby, and in return is exiled by the Chiaxxa Bia. In the end, a man comes in and rescues her, and takes her away to a new life.
I was a bit disappointed in this story, mostly because it reinforced the trope of a “strong woman character” being one who fights, who kicks and bites, who is feared. There is a place for women like that, but if that’s the only notion of “strong woman” that a story contains, I always come away a bit sad. It also felt weighed down by all the worldbuilding, which had to be established before the story itself could even begin. It just didn’t work for me.
Review of Ashley M. Hill, “Her Data Like Fingerprints,” Luna Station Quarterly 22 (2015): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
I was intrigued by this story right from its very excellent title. In this story, Mary Morales has been called in to see if she can help repair the arX AI that her parents created when she was a child. It’s a very simple, spare story: a conversation between Mary and arX. But in the span of that conversation Hill gives us a glimpse into Mary’s familial bonds, her childhood, her complicated relationship with the arX, as well as forces us to grapple with the question of the boundaries of AI. Really enjoyable (even if a bit sad, too)!
Review of Jayne Moore Waldrop, “Tidings,” Luna Station Quarterly 22 (2015): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Infertility; racism.
This was a sensitive, delicately written story revolving around Ruthie, and her struggle to conceive with her husband Joe, and her great-aunt Astrid, who too had faced barrenness all her life. When Ruthie receives a phone call that Astrid has died, aged 92, neither she nor the reader expect what follows afterwards at all. I spent much of the story anxiously awaiting the resolution, utterly unable to predict it, and if I didn’t quite get what I was waiting for, I got a very sweet happy ending.
Review of Dina Lyuber, “The Meadow,” Luna Station Quarterly 22 (2015): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Jaydren lives in a world that feels very much like a version of what our own future could be like: Technology at every turn, that links us to our social media, our entertainment, or transportation. All of his actions are directed at or built around things these. Lyuber did a good job of taking our current technology the next few steps down the line; what was less successful was the way this was integrated into the story, as I often felt like the story was the vehicle for the cataloguing of the technology, rather than the other way around.
Review of Melissa Embry, “Planet, Paper, Space,” Luna Station Quarterly 22 (2015): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Max Villafranca is an origami artist who has paid for two weeks’ visit to the orbiting station Gaia, where he is very much the bumbling tourist that the long-suffering crew puts up with because it pays the bill. This was such an utterly charming mixture of the strange and unfamiliar and the ordinary, almost mundane. Max was an extremely disarming hero, and I felt great sympathy for Captain Nguyen having to put up with him. And I loved the way in which this story was slightly more than science fiction, it also had a fantastical element that segued always into horro that I was not expecting.
SFF Reviews