REVIEW: “Field Guide to the UFOs of the Keweenaw Peninsula” by Phoebe Eliza Billups

Review of Phoebe Eliza Billups, “A Field Guide to the UFOs of the Keweenaw Peninsula,” Luna Station Quarterly 59 (2024): 15-32 — Purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Often when I read a slow, protracted story, I put a lot of stake on the ending making itself worth the wait. Billups’s story left a different impression on me: I enjoyed the journey enough that I didn’t need to reach the destination, and the fact that when I did, I didn’t know where I was didn’t take away from my enjoyment.

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REVIEW: “Sparking Joy” by Y. M. Resnik

Review of Y. M. Resnik, “Sparking Joy,” Luna Station Quarterly 59 (2024): 89-96 — Purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

After the death of her husband, Sharon is required to downsize the mass of her apartment in order to ensure that valuable resources are recycled and put back into national service — and she’s been sent an AI to help her deal with the process. It’s a solid premise for a story, but what I loved was that I had a good guess as to how it would unfold, and my guess was totally wrong. I loved the twist, resulting in a story that made me smile and also made me shiver.

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REVIEW: “The Weight of Your Own Ashes” by Carlie St. George

Review of Carlie St. George, “The Weight of Your Own Ashes”, Clarkesworld Issue 212, May (2024): Read Online. Reviewed by Myra Naik.

A deeply layered story of identity, and what a sense of self could mean. The protagonist is multi-bodied, with a single soul. What this effectively means in terms of perception, acceptance, and gender identity to themselves, and to other single-bodied organisms, like humans, is the journey of this story.

There are also moments of beauty, like a passage about symphonies, that also show how all those experiences shape Yonder, the protagonist. A great story with many lovely elements.

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REVIEW: “To Harvest a Cloud” by Rich Larson

Review of Rich Larson, “To Harvest a Cloud,” Flash Fiction Online 132 (September 2024): 21-24 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Tso arrived in town on the driest day of a very dry year, bringing his own cloud in tow. On one reading, this starts off as a gentle story of how he brought his cloud to those who needed it within the town, in exchange for the town’s welcome and hospitality; but while I couldn’t help but think of one of my favorite song lyrics (Genesis, “Mad Man Moon”): “Within the valley of shadowless death, they pray for thunderclouds and rain. But to the multitude who live in the rain, heaven is where the sun shines.” What must it like to be Tso, to always live in the shade, to never rejoice in the warm embrace of the sun? That felt rather sad to me. And then the entire story turned much darker, and the lyrics became even more apt.

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REVIEW: “The Hanging of Billy Crabtree” by H. A. Eugene

Review of H. A. Eugene, “The Hanging of Billy Crabtree,” Flash Fiction Online 132 (September 2024): 13-16 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

The story starts off with an execution and immediately turns surreal. I love it when I read a story and think, “I could never have thought of that,” and that’s definitely the case for this story. So weird.

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REVIEW: “Tornado Breakers Don’t Cry” by Stefan Alcalá Slater

Review of Stefan Alcalá Slater, “Tornado Breakers Don’t Cry,” Flash Fiction Online 132 (September 2024): 8-11 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

On the one hand, this is a story about a tornado breaker whose role is to protect her town from the dangerous twisters. On the other hand, it’s equally a story about how we fail our parents, and how our parents fail us. The metaphor rests upon the story overtly but lightly, never bogging the story down but instead helping it to shine.

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REVIEW: “Reclaiming a Traditional African Genre: The AfroSurrealism of Ngano” by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu

Review of Yvette Lisa Ndlovu, “Reviving a Traditional African Genre: The AfroSurrealism of Ngano,” Fantasy Magazine 84 (October 2022): 39-41 — Read here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

While in the last five years or so I have made an effort to read more spec fic outside the western/European tradition, including especially African speculative fiction, I still feel like quite a novice when it comes to the details and differences of traditions that I didn’t grow up with. Ndlovu’s article is an excellent piece for me, therefore, because it’s a concise introduction to a particular tradition — Ngano — clearly explained with Ndlovu’s own experiences hearing, reading, and writing it interleaved.

AfroSurrealism, for Ndlovu, is a way “to capture the flavor of the absurdity and horror I experience daily as an African woman” (p. 39). Ngano, a story telling genre (traditionally oral story telling) from Zimbabwe, is made up of five elements (pp. 39-41):

  1. the sarungano, or storyteller
  2. shamismo, or fantastical or surreal elements grounded in reality
  3. hunhu/ubuntu, or humanist morals
  4. nziyo, or song/call and a response
  5. tsuro naGudo, or anthropomorphism

I was particularly interested in Ndlovu’s discussion of how each of these elements shape the structure, as opposed to the content of the stories.

I would love to see more short essays on different non-European genres of this type!

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