REVIEW: “Lake Mouth” by Casey Hannan

Review of Casey Hannan, “Lake Mouth”, Shimmer 46 (2018): 37-41 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This was such a bizarre story. Every single statement is clear and precise, but combined together the result is like a weird fever dream. What is strangest about it is the way that every single statement is said as if it is true and ordinary, with no recognition at all of the strangeness of the amalgamation. Reading it was a fascinating experience.

Equally fascinating was reading the author’s interview at the end, which laid a solid foundation beneath the story and made it that much more believable, weirdness and all.

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REVIEW: “The Visible Frontier” by Grace Seybold

Review of Grace Seybold, “The Visible Frontier”, Clarkesworld Issue 154, July (2019): Read Online. Reviewed by Myra Naik.

A beautifully written story, with poignant emotions, a wonderful narrative, and wondrous descriptions. There’s a lot of focus on world-building, and I’d love to read more stories in the universe. When the story starts, you’ll assume a certain timeline and setting, but there’s a Reveal in store. When you realize how different things are from what you expected, it adds another layer of depth to this story.

Our protagonist, Inlesh, is a curious and intelligent young man, and we follow his journey of inquisitiveness throughout the story. Which, honestly, is what makes this story so poignant.

Richly woven in terms of both storytelling and world building.

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REVIEW: “Recovery” by Kate Sheeran Swed

Review of Kate Sheeran Swed, “Recovery”, Luna Station Quarterly 39 (2019): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

For anyone who complains there are not enough SFF stories featuring eldery women MCs, this is a story for you! We learn in the second paragraph that Penny, the narrator, is eighty-six years old, and soon after that we learn that she — like everyone else — has the option of reliving four minutes of her life but — unlike everyone else — she’s lived 86 years without taking up the option. Most people use their 4 minutes long before they ever get old.

Based on a fun, fluffy premise, the story nevertheless has a good depth, balancing the serious question of what one could (or should) do if they got a four-minute redo with a lovely depth of humor. As Penny and her roommate Molly make their escape from the nursing-home to chase down the Well-Dressed Man, at times I found myself grinning in pleasure, and at times I found myself surprisingly touched.

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REVIEW: “The Wiser Move, the Better Choice” by Katherine Kendig

Review of Katherine Kendig, “The Wiser Move, the Better Choice”, Luna Station Quarterly 39 (2019): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

The philosophical premise of this story is the relationship between prophecy and free will — if the oracle at Delphi has decreed that Perseus will one day kill his grandfather, what chance does Perseus have in avoiding his fate? (Not that this is the story at hand here — Prophecy-touched Rien and Tia who makes her question her belief in her own free will are nothing like Perseus and the oracle — but it’s a good illustrative example.) I really enjoyed the precise, argumentative, back-and-forth between Rien and Tia, especially Tia’s insistent picking at Rien’s fundamental principles, it appealed to the philosopher in me. 🙂 While the focus of the story was Rien, the influence of Tia on Rien’s life — an influence nearly as strong as Prophecy itself — pervaded the story, and I enjoyed that.

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REVIEW: “Don’t Stop” by Reneé Bibby

Review of Reneé Bibby, “Don’t Stop”, Luna Station Quarterly 39 (2019): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Death of a parent.

LSQ doesn’t do that much straight-up horror, but that’s what this story feels like. I’d classify this story as “solid but not surprising”, relying on the standard trope of don’t-stop-for-hitchikers — but there’s a reason that that trope became a trope! It works — were it not for one surprising, or at least unexpected, choice, namely, one of the secondary characters is deaf. That was a plus for this story in my book, but minusing it out was the way that mental illness as pathologized. So in the end, I came away from this story rather ambivalent.

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REVIEW: “Keep Moving” by Raluca Balasa

Review of Raluca Balasa, “Keep Moving”, Luna Station Quarterly 39 (2019): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

In this creepy dystopian story, Sarrai lives in a world where social structures are set up to systematically destroy any chance of forming an emotional connection with other people. Love is decried as a spell “that made them hurt when the others did”, and children must be kept moving from one child-rearing institution to another, never knowing their caregivers’ names until they are old enough to do so without forming an attachment to them.

This is quite possibly one of the most horrific foundational principles I’ve ever come across in a story.

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REVIEW: “The Gold Chain” by Lucy Stone

Review of Lucy Stone, “The Gold Chain”, Luna Station Quarterly 39 (2019): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Unfortunately, this story didn’t quite do it for me. As a reader, I felt like I was trying to piece together the setting and the context, and reasons why I should be invested in Khane and her miraculous discovery, but that I didn’t have all the pieces to do so. You know how sometimes you read a story and you get a feel that there is so much more that the author knows that they aren’t telling you? I got the opposite feeling here, which unfortunately detracted from my ability to enjoy the story. I did like the hints of Jewish/kabbalistic background that I got, though. I always want more fantasy stories that are written outside the narrow medieval-white-Christian-European norm!

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REVIEW: “A Report of One’s Honorable Death” by Virginia M. Mohlere

Review of Virginia M. Mohlere, “A Report of One’s Honorable Death”, Luna Station Quarterly 39 (2019): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This makes 2/2 of Mohlere’s stories that I absolutely adored. She has such skill in picking out setting, character, and action with fine precise sentences, no unnecessary words, and constructed to drive straight into your emotional core. In this one, one emotion that kept being tapped was laughter — so many lines that caused me to burst out with it! For example:

“What a curious thing,” the goblin said. “Why would anyone create such an object and then use it only to be rude?”

But it was laughter tempered with the feeling that only comes with the satisfaction of a deep longing.

I can’t wait till I get to read more of her work.

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REVIEW: “The Artist” by Koji A. Dae.

Review of Koji A. Dae, “The Artist”, Luna Station Quarterly 39 (2019): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

All too often, art has no — or not enough — place in science, both in science fiction and science fact. In Dae’s SF story, the titular artist plays a central role: Karla Becker is the one who had the important breakthrough in crystallography, she’s the one that people know that value. But when she cannot replicate her breakthrough of two years ago, her single-minded experiments on the very same crystals end up costing her job. What role, then, can the artist play?

The story started off feeling like it was going to be rather depressing and hopeless, but it did not end that way. I loved the feeling of hope, that art, and life, is worth fighting for, that pervading the ending.

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