REVIEW: “Meat Me in the Livingroom” by Michelle Enelen

Review of Michelle Enelen, “Meat Me in the Livingroom”, in David G. Clark, Callum Colback, Joe Butler, and Alex Hareland, eds., Beneath Strange Stars, (TL;DR Press, 2020): 325-340 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Before reading this story, whenever I saw this title I kept interpreting “meat” as a verb, a la its homophone “meet”, but no — Meat Me is a person, who is confined to the livingroom. She is visited regularly by Selene, who comes to tell her about the world outside (note: I was somewhat confused by Selene. First, Selene’s pronoun is “they/them”, except in the plural not the singular. And yet, when they refer to themselves, they use the singular “I”. Later on, “she” is apparently used in reference to Selene), as well as the egotistical, jerkish Poppy, who forms the final third of the trio. We never learn why Meat Me cannot leave the Livingroom, only that she is lonely there, despite visits from Selene and Poppy…until the Shipman arrives. Shipman brings with him many things Meat Me desires: he is new and exciting, he is interested in her and her life, he brings company to lonely days. But he also brings with him new, unpleasant ideas, and a purple-black smoke that follows his footsteps and leaves death in his wake.

The allegorical nature of Shipman is quite overt in the story, almost heavy-handed at times. Still, it wasn’t so overt as to make the ending foreseen, and I continued to read with interested to see who would win out in the end. I did feel that the Epilogue had no place in the story, though; it raised more questions than it answered.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Four Horsemen of London” by L. H. Westerlund

Review of L. H. Westerlund, “Four Horsemen of London”, in David G. Clark, Callum Colback, Joe Butler, and Alex Hareland, eds., Beneath Strange Stars, (TL;DR Press, 2020): 309-323 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Content warning: References to bulimia.

Premise: When the apocalypse is cancelled, the four horsemen are left at loose ends, so they relocate to London.

Execution: Pretty much no attempt to execute this premise is going to surpass Gaiman and Pratchett’s, and every attempt to do so will be unflatteringly measured against theirs. Alas, this one is not the exception.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Good Riddance” by Jennifer Worrell

Review of Jennifer Worrell, “Good Riddance”, in David G. Clark, Callum Colback, Joe Butler, and Alex Hareland, eds., Beneath Strange Stars, (TL;DR Press, 2020): 291-307 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

“Do you want to be a hero?” the story opens up: Who wouldn’t want to say ‘yes’ to such a question? Robert, the main character, is also tempted, and signs up for the info session to learn more.

What both he and the reader learns is quite an interesting proposal — from the point of view of present-day medical technology, it’s hard to believe the proposal could ever be actually realised, but, hey, this is fiction, I’m willing to give it a pass. The result is a comfortable piece of dystopian fic, well set up enough that I did feel a pang of sympathy for Robert at the end of the story, even if for most of it he comes across as a rather self-absorbed jerk.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Summer’s End” by Alexis Ames

Review of Alexis Ames, “Summer’s End”, in David G. Clark, Callum Colback, Joe Butler, and Alex Hareland, eds., Beneath Strange Stars, (TL;DR Press, 2020): 195-209 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Matthias and his husband Eitan are two of the last surviving Competitors: People who were forced to murder each other for public entertainment in the worst sort of reality TV show. The only way they escaped that fate themselves was that there was a coup and the Commissioner’s government fell. Now, five years on, the Commissioner’s trial has reached its conclusion, and Matthias, Eitan, and thousands of others must await the verdict. Surely the one who orchestrated such casual death must be found responsibility for it…

This was an absolute stonker of a story: Heart-wrenching, gut-turning, so horrific it could not be, so real it could be true. Easily my favorite of the volume.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Freedom in Briers” by Rachel Hailey

Review of Rachel Hailey, “Freedom in Briers”, in David G. Clark, Callum Colback, Joe Butler, and Alex Hareland, eds., Beneath Strange Stars, (TL;DR Press, 2020): 275-290 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Thorn, Caleb, and Theresa are each one of the Magic-Touched — people who have special abilities (or “banes”) that set them apart from the rest of humanity. Though it’s not clear to me how or why, their status as magic-touched puts them under the power or control of the non-magic-touched; e.g., Thorn has a keeper named Jasper who dictates her actions. Together, Thorn and the other magic-touched people are all part of an eerie circus, one that is constantly recruiting from amongst their audiences.

It’s clear from the start of the story that there is something complex going on — what isn’t clear, unfortunately, is what that something is. I was never quite sure, even at the end.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “A Unicorn in the Time of Dinosaurs” by L. C. Street

Review of L. C. Street, “A Unicorn in the Time of Dinosaurs”, in David G. Clark, Callum Colback, Joe Butler, and Alex Hareland, eds., Beneath Strange Stars, (TL;DR Press, 2020): 263-274 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Trek lives in a post-apocalyptic society ravaged by global warming and dinosaurs. Most cities lie abandoned, and much modern tech no longer exists or works. Trek herself makes a living as a messenger, running routes between the isolated civilisations. Keeping to the same route, the same pace, every day is what keeps her safe — any deviation can result in eventual death. So when she drops her canteen one day, she should have left it for lost; but instead, she turns around to retrieve it. A slight pause in her routine, a moment for something to start tracking her, and she ends up in an abandoned village to keep safe overnight. The unicorn she meets that night is not all that it seems…

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Callia” by Justin M. Siebert

Review of Justin M. Siebert, “Callia”, in David G. Clark, Callum Colback, Joe Butler, and Alex Hareland, eds., Beneath Strange Stars, (TL;DR Press, 2020): 249-262 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Content warning: attempted suicide.

This is a story of two interwining threads, of Melissa who is being abused and tortured by a monster she calls Callia (and who only learned how to tell time in 5th grade!), and of Tom, who see this happening when no one else does (and who is a hypochondriac). It takes me awhile to realise exactly who, or what, Callia is (or who they are…) It’s a dark take on the topic (can’t say more without spoilers), but it ends on a hopeful, if not happy, note.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “The Einsteiners” by J. Askew

Review of J. Askew, “The Einsteiners”, in David G. Clark, Callum Colback, Joe Butler, and Alex Hareland, eds., Beneath Strange Stars, (TL;DR Press, 2020): 237-247 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

I appreciate a novel take on time-travel, and that’s what Askew’s “skimming” is, liking skipping a stone across a flat pond, but instead of a rock and a flat space of water, it’s a person and a black hole.

Esther, the narrator, is one of the Einsteiners, one of the few people who has a legal license to skim. All she hopes is that she’ll get through to the other side of the black hole known as Lilith — a hundred years into the future — at the same time as her girlfriend, Andee, and before humanity makes first contact with an alien civilisation. Unfortunately, only one of those hopes will be realised…

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Blind Charity” by Lyle Enright

Review of Lyle Enright, “Blind Charity”, in David G. Clark, Callum Colback, Joe Butler, and Alex Hareland, eds., Beneath Strange Stars, (TL;DR Press, 2020): 227-235 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

I did not understand this story — too may obscure references to unknown gods and unspeakable heresies. I didn’t grow up in this world, so I didn’t understand all the cultural references, or even what, exactly happened. And though the Huntress, Viorica Zelgathi had a revelation at the end of the story, the reader, unfortunately, was not party to the same revelation, so I was just left in darkness.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Perennial” by Laura Duerr

Review of Laura Duerr, “Perennial”, in David G. Clark, Callum Colback, Joe Butler, and Alex Hareland, eds., Beneath Strange Stars, (TL;DR Press, 2020): 221-226 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

The best near-future/dystopia is the sort that seems so plausible, you half expect it to already be true. Even though we don’t currently have body mods like MalibuGlow or enlarged irises or GentleTone arms, they’re all plausible enough, and once you entertain the idea of cosmetic body mods then it’s an easy hop, skip, and a jump to government-required, industrial mods for manual labor, the sort you get when your “parents were either critically ill, dead, absent, or in so much debt that their only solution was to enroll their daughter in a government work program and have her transformed into a machine” (p. 223). A scarily realistic story, softened by some really likeable characters.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment