REVIEW: “So Sings the Siren” by Annie Neugebauer

Review of Annie Neugebauer, “So Sings the Siren”, Apex Magazine 101: Read Online. Reviewed by Joanna Z. Weston.

This story sneaks up on you, which is impressive for a 1000 word piece of flash fiction.

A young girl waits with her mother outside the hall where she is going to hear a siren sing for the first time. She asks all sorts of questions, as children are wont to do, and twirls out her excess energy in an innocent scene. That facade crumbles as we learn more about the details of how a musician plays a siren.

There is a beauty that can be born from suffering sometimes, if one is willing to work for it and lucky enough to find it. I believe that this is a story about how best to honor that choice, and whether it is better to turn away from the horror of the source in order to focus on the outcome, or whether we need to acknowledge both. It’s not an easy read, but it is powerful.

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REVIEW: “Möbius Continuum” by Gu Shi

Review of Gu Shi, “Möbius Continuum”, Clarkesworld 132: Read online. Reviewed by Kerstin Hall.

This one didn’t work for me, and it may be the case that I was simply the wrong audience. As it stands, I found “Möbius Continuum” to be amongst the weaker pieces published in this issue of Clarkesworld. I believe that readers with a taste for the philosophical may find more to admire – that’s not what floats my boat.

In part, the story functions as a thought experiment, a sort of mental repositioning. It is interesting, but there’s little more I can say without giving major spoilers. And even though I anticipated the ending, I still didn’t quite buy it. The conclusion necessitated a kind of tidiness which I experienced as anti-climactic.

Early in the narrative, the protagonist crashes his car over a cliff. Both he and his passenger survive, but the protagonist is left paralysed from the neck down. His enigmatic companion urges him not to despair, and to see his injuries as an opportunity.

I think my largest problem with “Möbius Continuum” is that I never received a strong enough impression of the protagonist’s character. I found it difficult to care about him, and thus the stakes of failures never raised my heart rate. I can see how this nebulousness served an ultimate thematic purpose, but I experienced it as a structural problem. Why should I be invested in this story, what is there to keep me reading? The answer is probably intellectual curiosity, but I wanted emotion on top of that.

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REVIEW: “I’m Your One-Way Street” by Naomi Libicki

Review of Naomi Libicki, “I’m Your One-Way Street”, Persistent Visions (7 July 2017): Read online. Reviewed by Essence B. Scott.

After the slog that was the last couple of stories from Persistent Visions, I was definitely looking forward to reading the next story in the queue (working backwards from the most recent story): Naomi Libicki’s “I’m Your One-Way Street.”

This story, though a little shorter than the previous ones, did not disappoint. I was immediately drawn into the world established for the reader. It also was a bonus that this is a love story and I don’t read many love stories. However, the header photo and the title got me curious to see what this story was about.

“I’m Your One-Way Street” reads like a stream of consciousness; the reader becomes one with the story and, much like a something caught in the river, flows along with it, which I think was what Libicki was trying to go for. If so, a job well done. Libicki uses her human protagonist, Josephine’s (or “Jos,” as friends call her) drunkenness to start the story. But, the reader wonders, is Jos so drunk? Is her supernatural lover, Via, real? Is this all happening in her head? Could the story just very well be a dream? I personally don’t think the entire story is a dream; it feels very much real to me. Could it be a premonition? I don’t think so. No matter which way you cut it, Via is real to Jos, and vice-versa.

In the beginning of the story, the lovemaking scene is beautifully written. As my mom would put it, “sexy, but not dirty.” I felt the connection that Jos and Via made and was actively rooting for them to hopefully get back together. I won’t spoil the rest of the story for you. Give it a read…

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REVIEW: “My Struggle” by Lavie Tidhar

Review of Lavie Tidhar, “My Struggle”, Apex Magazine 101: Read Online. Reviewed by Joanna Z. Weston.

Time travelers love to kill Hitler. But what if, instead of time travel to kill him, we had an alt history story in which he was ousted from power before he got going? And what if, after that, he fled to Britain to become a down-on-his-luck PI hiding under the name of Wolf? It’s a weird, borderline offensive premise, but it works surprisingly well. Tidhar hits all the right noir notes, from tight sentences and wry observations, to all the twits and turns and foul play you could hope for.

This was an uncomfortable read for me. I found myself empathizing with Wolf just as much as I reveled in his misfortune, a testament to Tidhar’s skill. It feels sacrilegious to make fun of Hitler, of Nazis, of the the SS and their ilk. They seem to too evil, too huge and looming. There is a fear, when reading this, that to laugh at them (or god forbid, sympathize with their struggles in this alternative world where the Holocaust never happened) is to make light of the evils they perpetrated in reality.

It’s the framing story that allows this to work. A former pulp fiction writer named Shomer is living in the ghetto with the rest of the Jewish people, hearing rumors of trains going east and fearing for the lives of his children. He watches a rendition of Dracula, and reflects on how stories – silly stories, fantastic stories, light stories – are all he has left for comfort. The connection between the framing narrative and the main action broke my heart, and gave the story a surprising depth of meaning.

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REVIEW: “Click” by Brian Evenson

Review of Brian Evenson, “Click”, Nightmare Magazine Issue 61: Read Online. Reviewed by Winnie Ramler.

In a word- creepy. What do you do when you can’t trust your own memory- when you have no memories to trust? When we forget something, we search for clues and cues- something to help everything “click”, but what if that thing never comes?

More than just a story of how frightening memory loss can be, Evenson’s story made me reflect on the nature of hospitals, care from doctors, and the ways in which we can be mislead by those we are supposed to trust. The main character has no concrete memories to hold on to; he must accept what those around him are telling him. He is given conflicting information and finds it hard to trust even the things he sees with his own two eyes. The nature of reality is fickle, and our grasp on it even more so.

I enjoyed the ways this story moved. We keep moving even when we have questions and things don’t make sense. There is no space to pause and try and ruminate. What would be the point anyways? The reader has as little information as the main character which forces us to experience things as he does with only the barest glimmer of hope that we will get some answers. But what if we never do?

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REVIEW: “Crispin’s Model” by Max Gladstone

Review of Max Gladstone, “Crispin’s Model”, Tor.com (2017): Read Online. Reviewed by Danielle Maurer.

Phrases like “sick galaxies of staring, slitted orbs” and “trails of poison paint” evoke the lush-yet-terrifying quality I associate with H.P. Lovecraft’s mythos. So it’s fitting, then, that these phrases are found in Max Gladstone’s Lovecraftian tale of a painter, his model and the twisted things his twisted paintings produce.

Gladstone’s masterful prose gives the story much of its impact. His style evokes Lovecraft’s without cleaving too closely to it, resulting in a story that feels both thoroughly Lovecraftian and yet also thoroughly modern in its presentation.

It’s a simple premise on the surface, yet Gladstone mines it for every ounce of tension, every dram of cosmic horror he can eke from it. The reader knows from the very beginning that something is off, and we discover the source of that strangeness with a slow build that’s always suspenseful and never boring. The climax itself will raise the hairs on your neck, but Gladstone never gives away too much of the monster, preserving the sense of mystery.

A worthy addition to the genre.

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REVIEW: “Fandom for Robots” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad

Review of Vina Jie Min Prasad’s, “Fandom for Robots”, Uncanny Magazine Volume, 18 (2017): Read Online. Reviewed by Jodie Baker.

“Fandom for Robots” is a sweet story about a robot finding a friend, and a voice, in the fandom community. It’s often a funny story, and its humour will resonate with anyone who has ever been really into a TV show:

‘Computron feels no emotion towards the animated television show titled Hyperdimension Warp Record (超次元 ワープ レコード). After all, Computron does not have any emotion circuits installed, and is thus constitutionally incapable of experiencing “excitement,” “hatred,” or “frustration.” It is completely impossible for Computron to experience emotions such as “excitement about the seventh episode of HyperWarp,” “hatred of the anime’s short episode length” or “frustration that Friday is so far away.”’

Computron, ‘The only known sentient robot’, resides in the Simak Robotics Museum. While considered a marvel when originally built in 1954, Computron’s design is now regarded as outdated. He is brought out as ‘a quaint artefact’ in the Museum’s Then And Now show, but no one really engages with him as a sentient being.

One day, a girl asks whether Computron has ever watched Hyperdimension Warp Record, and this launches Computron on a journey of discovery about fandom, friendship, and his own life. As Computron learns more about the anime show, and meets bjornruffian (a fellow fan, robot enthusiast, and fandom illustrator) on fanficarchive.org he begins to develop a wider sense of self.

“Fandom for Robots” is a great look at how empowering fanwork can be. In the museum, Computron is told not to talk too much but fandom allows him to have a voice. Computron provides helpful criticism of bjornruffian’s drawings of Cyro; the robot character on the show, and he writes his own fanfic.

Computron is also able to assert his identity through fanwork by helping to shape the robot bodies and storylines that appear in fanfic. Hyperdimension Warp Record gives him a way to process difficult memories. His friendship with bjornruffian gives Computron a reason to make his own decisions, and determine his own path, when he has so far lived quite a passive life. He makes a real connection with bjornruffian, and he ‘goes into sleep mode less’ which sounds a lot like a robot escaping from depression. It’s really lovely to go on this journey of personal development with Computron, and to see fans enjoying his and bjornruffians slash comic collab.

Vina Jie-Min Prasad’s “Fandom for Robots” is perfect for fans of Merc A. Rustard’s “How to Become a Robot in 12 Easy Steps”, Naomi Kritzer’s “Cat Pictures Please”, and Martha Wells All Systems Red. If you like robots, fandom, internet culture, or if you got emotional about that XCDC Mars rover comic, then this is the story for you.

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REVIEW: “The Names of the Sky” by Matthew Claxton

Review of Matthew Claxton, “The Names of the Sky”, Podcastle: 490 — Listen Online. Reviewed by Heather Rose Jones

It may seem odd that the first description that comes to me for a story set in wartime is “lovely” but the language of this one just flowed over me. It hit my exposition sweet spot in laying out the setting with casual description and character interaction, rather than feeling the need to tell the listener where they are and what’s going on. (But I’ll tell you anyway, so the review makes sense.) Zoya, a Russian fighter pilot in WWII has come down in a rural area behind the front and needs to survive, find shelter, and figure out how to get her plane in the air again, in that order. An encounter in a nearly-deserted village leaves her saddled with a responsibility that threatens those goals, but the seemingly senile old woman isn’t what she seems. A familiarity with Russian folklore will aid the listener in keeping up, given the aforementioned oblique approach to exposition. I loved the casually feminist (or maybe woman-centered is a better term) underlayer of the story that grew organically out of the themes and the historic-folklore roots. (Though now I find myself hungry for a story of “Grandma” and her sisters in their youth–and I wonder how much of that reference is based on the original folklore as opposed to being invention.)

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REVIEW: “Silverlace” by David Barber

Review of David Barber, “Silverlace”, Strange Constellations September 2017: Read Online. Reviewed by Kathryn Kania.

Silverlace tells the story of Anna and her daughter Kate. The Arctic Meltwater has frozen the British Isles, creating a desolate landscape of desperation and fear.

The story structure is presented as a series of “Debriefs” though I was a bit unclear on who was talking to the reader and who the reader was a stand in for. I’ll also be honest with you, a few years ago, I fell down the hole in the internet that is the SCP Foundation and because of the format, I sort of expected something similar to the horror and slow unveiling of a chilling technology from this story as that wiki provides. I did not get that out of this story, though the same feeling of unease and slight body horror is present.

The story is fascinating in its own right, however. It describes a technology that allows rich people to literally jump into the bodies of the poor to play killing games with each other. It’s very expensive, very dangerous paintball with bullets at the expense of their ‘proxies’ and when Kate, Anna’s daughter decides to become a proxy, something unexpected happens.

At the end, the POV shifts from third to first person, leaving me a bit confused, though it brings a shudder to my spine to hear from a bitter, hateful Anna directly. The story was an interesting piece that could be a great look at an almost literal interpretation of ‘eat the rich’ with a little tightening up in places to really impact the reader the way a story like this should, but was an enjoyable read overall.

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REVIEW: “Don’t Turn on the Lights” by Cassandra Khaw

Review of Cassandra Khaw, “Don’t Turn on the Lights”, Nightmare Magazine 61: Read Online. Reviewed by Winnie Ramler.

I love stories which examine the act of storytelling itself. Khaw reminds us that the story can still surprise us. All it takes is the shifting of a few details. The core may stay the same, but the the impact changes. Horror as a genre can be particularly formulaic in its approach. Readers may expect certain things- for the story to be told in a certain way. Khaw plays with these expectations as she crafts a discussion about who is telling the story and why.

Sally (if that is her real name) isn’t a protagonist in the strictest sense. Instead she is the lens through which we view the story. Like a cardboard cutout, she is dressed in different plots and motivations as we are asked to question what we think we know to be true.

The casual voice of the narrator lent itself well to the varying story plots. Like a museum tour guide, we are taken on a journey through perspective, and not knowing where you’re going is part of the excitement. This was a super fun spooky read that reminded me just how much I love horror.

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