Review of Gabrielle Roselynn Dina, “The Dragon Hunter’s Daughter”, Luna Station Quarterly 45 (2021): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
An excellent story with the feel of a classic fairy tale.
REVIEW: “If a Tree Doesn’t Fall” by Jerry Oltion
Review of Jerry Oltion, “If a Tree Doesn’t Fall”, Analog Science Fiction and Fact March/April (2021): 69–74 (Kindle) – Purchase Here. Reviewed by John Atom.
During a camping trip in the woods, Vance discovers an antigravity device up on a tree. Thinking it as humanity’s solution to the climate crisis, he risks his life to collect it.
This is a simple and straightforward story, effective without relying on many bells and whistles. Vance’s excitement about the antigravity device and his herculean attempts to recover it from the tree are conveyed excellently by the author and create enough tension to make the reader care about the outcome. I’m not sure if Vance’s optimism about the device is warranted, but I doubt the author intended for the story to have any prophetic value. Overall, a delightfully entertaining read.
REVIEW: “Blood Feathers”
Review of Anonymous, “Blood Feathers”, Luna Station Quarterly 45 (2021): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This is a story of a woman who is lost inside herself, lost inside the trapping of being a woman, being a mother, being “a support, a failsafe, for her family.” She doesn’t have time for friends, for hobbies, for anything more than a linear life of one thing after another. But there’s more to Ren’s life than that, and we the readers are given intermittent glimpses, as the unfamiliar breaks through the routine, as the fantastical interferes with the normal, as Ren herself tries to reconstruct the memories she once lost. It’s an eerie, unsettling story, smashingly done.
REVIEW: “The Blinded God” by Greta Hayer
Review of Greta Hayer, “The Blinded God”, Luna Station Quarterly 45 (2021): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
I love a short story that can convince me it has an entire world built behind it in the very first sentence, and this story is one of those. A pure joy to read, from start to finish.
REVIEW: “Heaven-Bound” by Hayli McClain
Review of Hayli McClain, “Heaven-Bound”, Luna Station Quarterly 45 (2021): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
College student Ann — disowned by her family, with no friends or connections, no one to miss her — goes off into the woods one night, intending to disappearing. Instead, she meets Percy, who is trying to pull down the moon, and all in the name of true love.
This was an absolutely adorable and delightful love story and I really enjoyed it!
REVIEW: “Mars Ascending” by Hannah Whiteoak
Review of Hannah Whiteoak, “Mars Ascending”, Luna Station Quarterly 45 (2021): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: death of parent, stillbirth.
Living amongst the effects of climate change is something so close to our present lives that it seems more like ordinary fiction rather than science fiction; living at a time when people can escape the rising seas by jetting off to Mars, however, feels still like a distant dream. And yet, stories like Whiteoak’s make it clear how quickly these two lives are converging. I found “Mars Ascending” poignant and touching and it felt very, very real. (And Whiteoak nailed the ending.) Well done!
REVIEW: “Come One! Come All!” by Pamela Love
Review of Pamela Love, “Come One! Come All!”, Luna Station Quarterly 44 (2020): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was a wonderful little story, of how Millicent Dalrymple (“one of those Dalrymples”) got caught up in the magic of the circus and became a little bit magic herself.
REVIEW: “Crab Pots” by Amanda Baldeneaux
Review of Amanda Baldeneaux, “Crab Pots”, Luna Station Quarterly 44 (2020): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Skyla’s life is ordinary, mundane, and miserable — husband, two children, no more job once she had her children, doing all the parenting while her husband loafs amongst the crab pots. “Weekends always made her feel like a failure,” we are told, and it that sentence I, and I am sure many other readers will see themselves reflected. The most exciting thing in her life is the gift of a new bikini, and even that comes with demands. There’s no way she could wear it without at least getting waxed. “If her family would just leave her alone she could get everything done without falling behind” — another line that will hit close to home for many mothers.
It’s a cliche to say “everything changes when” but everything does change for Skyla when Gwyn, the optometrist’s office manager, invites Skyla and her sons to an anti-circus protest — after all, mermaids weren’t meant for captivity.
REVIEW: “Leonardo’s Children” by Katerini Koraki
Review of Katerini Koraki, “Leonardo’s Children”, Luna Station Quarterly 44 (2020): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
A circus of cyborgs coming to perform for an audience of lumberjacks on the planet Hathor — that description both perfectly summarises the central plot of this story, and completely fails to capture the way in which this story felt weighty and serious, not haphazard and humorous, as you might expect from such a description. This story had a real quality to it; well done.
REVIEW: “The Harvest-Bringers” by Natasha Grodzinski
Review of Natasha Grodzinski, “The Harvest-Bringers”, Luna Station Quarterly 44 (2020): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
My overwhelming impression of this one was uncertainty. After a string of circus stories, I was surprised by this one, which didn’t have any identifiable circuses in it for a very long time. Between the rather excessively-long build-up and the large quantity of prolix sentences in this story, I felt like I spent a lot of waiting simply wading through words waiting for the story to start. There was a close encounter with a circus, but then there were equally many, equally slow-moving words on the other side of that encounter, so I just struggled to enjoy it. It didn’t quite make the fairy-tale-esque mark I think the author was shooting for, sadly.
SFF Reviews 