REVIEW: “Little Animals” by Nancy Kress

Review of Nancy Kress, “Little Animals”, Clarkesworld Issue 177, June (2021): Read Online. Reviewed by Myra Naik.

A beautiful, arresting story with lovely imagery. It expertly combines love, microbiology, clinical depression and quantum entanglement. Our researcher, Elena, is currently focusing on studying the life of Maria van Leeuwenhoek, and she finds startling similarities that she did not anticipate. She can empathize with Maria and wants better – for Maria and for herself. She handles both the past and present – not as well as she would like to in either case – and her quiet yet loyal personality shines through. A tale of empathy, longing and wanting better.

A lovely and powerful novelette.

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REVIEW: “The Notary of No Republic” by J. Byrd

Review of J. Byrd, “The Notary of No Republic”, Luna Station Quarterly 46 (2021): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

“Lucy Carvell had a degree-shaped hole in her heart” is a great opening line — it immediately makes Carvell someone I want to know more about. How do you go about filling such a hole? In Carvell’s case, it’s through forgery, and forging her own diploma was the first step into becoming the titular notary: When the government collapses and the state fails, “it turned out people still needed their milestones marked” — even the milestones that haven’t happened yet.

This was such a fun, hopeful, helpful story, which an ending that made me go “awww”. Loved it.

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REVIEW: “River, Clap Your Hands” by Sherée Renee Thomas

Review of Sheree Renée Thomas,  “River, Clap Your Hands”, Uncanny Magazine Issue 40 (2021): Read Online. Reviewed by Isabel Hinchliff.

Ava lives a life of waterborne mystery: she was abandoned on a riverbank as a child, her neck has gills, and she pines after her lost baby, birthed in the midst of a flood. Told in a series of striking vignettes, her story is heartbreaking and yet still offers glimmers of hope, like the play of sunlight over deeply ridged scales. It is an exquisite piece of craft, and a vivid picture of a life strung between two irreconcilable worlds.

This haunting and deeply poetic story has layers; I enjoyed luxuriously re-reading it and hunting out new strands of meaning. On my first read, I found myself fascinated by piecing together the vignettes in chronological order and discovering the true nature of Ava’s physical condition. On my second, with the entire premise already in mind, I discovered many instances of nuance and poetic meaning that I had originally missed. Ava’s rain- and grief-drenched world is deeply relatable at some moments and distantly beautiful in others. It is a delicious mix of craft, imagery, and catharsis; I highly recommend it.

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REVIEW: “Perihelia” by Elizabeth McEntee

Review of Elizabeth McEntee, “Perihelia”, Luna Station Quarterly 46 (2021): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

It’s not often I read a human-meets-alien story that’s successfully told from the alien’s point of view. Too often, the aliens still feel all too familiar, too like-us. Not so with McEntee’s narrator, living alone on her comet, who is such that when a human arrives, the invader is so foreign, so different, that they are truly the alien. The ending was a bit trite, but the core of the story was solid.

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REVIEW: “A Star for Every Word Unspoken” by Kai Hudson

Review of Kai Hudson, “A Star for Every Word Unspoken”, Clarkesworld Issue 176, May (2021): Read Online. Reviewed by Myra Naik.

A neurodivergent protagonist with sweet and strong scientist / researcher parents would have made for a wonderful story, irrespective of plot. This one takes a great premise and elevates it. This is my favorite story from the May issue.

Love crosses all boundaries, even the fabric of space-time. Scientific inquiry into wormholes and portal turn from curiosity into a way to reach loved ones. Research tainted with grief and longing is still research, and achievements are still to be lauded as achievements. But the reason behind the single-minded devotion changes. The goal towards which progress was made also changes.

And this change makes Na-Yeong throw away all regard for her own safety; her only goal is to be with her mother once again. Her mother – the person who made the world a more understandable place for little Na-Yeong. Neurodivergent children have a tough go of trying to parse the world, and Omma made it a better place for the likely autistic Na-Yeong. An easier place. A place with a little less self-harm.

Now, Na-Yeong wants her Omma back. A very well-written and insightful story. If you read only one story from this issue, make it this one. I loved it immensely.

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REVIEW: “Heart Shine” by Shveta Thakrar

Review of Shveta Thakrar, “Heart Shine”, Uncanny Magazine Issue 40 (2021): Read Online. Reviewed by Isabel Hinchliff.

Kamal is lonely, so she turns to research on the Faerie, a mystical otherworld guarded by a tiny black kitten and green-glowing fireflies. She tries to sacrifice her entire history of memories to Faerie in order to become one of its denizens, but something goes wrong, and she finds herself wandering its borders, memories frustratingly intact, hopeless. A year later she finds a boy with a glowing peridot heart, and finally she experiences recognition and learns to appreciate her own inner worth. 

This piece revels in its description, eschewing the stripped narrative style that so many short stories use to build suspense and keep a plot moving. While it seemed a little decadent at times, I generally found it refreshing; Thakrar builds a magical border realm full of hidden meaning out of Komal’s house and haunts. 

Perhaps the most stunning aspect of this piece, though, is its depiction of Komal’s invisibility: the way her parents ignore her and the way that she feels, perpetually, that her dreams and creations matter to no-one else (and therefore matter to no-one at all). It’s a devastating theme, and one that I suspect more of us can relate to than ever before, after such a long period in pandemic isolation. What Komal needs is not necessarily friends to validate her, but the ability to believe that she herself is worthy, and that her creations are worthy of attention. It’s a confidence that you can only find within yourself, and personally I found Komal’s path to finding her inner magic very heartwarming. 

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REVIEW: “We Who Are Left On This Dying Earth” by Hesper Leveret

Review of Hesper Leveret, “We Who are Left On This Dying Earth”, Luna Station Quarterly 46 (2021): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Reading recent climate news, it’s hard to escape the fact that we are already living on a dying earth; Leveret’s story is timely, then, in the sense that it could easily happen in our near future, maybe a generation from now — enough time for people on earth to figured out how to get off it.

Of course, even if that happens, we all know that not everyone is going to get to go, and “We Who Are Left On This Dying Earth” is the story of two who won’t be, one because she is too old, the other because he is too sick. Because of course it is the old and the weak and the poor who will get left behind.

You might think that this story would be an angry, unhappy story; but instead, there was just enough hope to make it happy, but not too much to make it unrealistic.

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REVIEW: “Dancing with Ereshkigal” by Sameem Siddiqui

Review of Sameem Siddiqui, “Dancing with Ereshkigal”, Clarkesworld Issue 176, May (2021): Read Online. Reviewed by Myra Naik.

A poignant story that goes all over our solar system and spans goddesses, non-binary characters, low-gravity art forms, and dance. Our protagonist narrates the story as if they are speaking to Pyn, their spouse. The narrator has created, or rather been swept into, a different sort of life since they met Pyn. As we learn more about them, both individually as well as as a couple, we see things are different from what the narrator had initially believed. A moment of clarity reshapes much, so that the dance of the goddess makes more sense.

A lovely story, and I don’t say this just because I already have a weakness for goddesses in fiction.

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REVIEW: “The Hungry Ones” by Emma Törzs

Review of Emma Törzs, “The Hungry Ones”, Uncanny Magazine Issue 40 (2021): Read Online. Reviewed by Isabel Hinchliff.

When Aey (a now-unemployed logger struggling with his self-confidence) finds his wife sleeping with another man, he resolves to kill her lover immediately. But to find the resolve to do so he breaks a religious taboo and seeks out the magic of powerful women called the Hungry Ones. Their magic works in unexpected ways and Aey must deal with the consequences, all while regretting his actions and trying to find the courage to remedy them. 

In this story, rage, love, and sex combine to create a remarkably bleak portrait of a relationship in which a man refuses to support his wife and allow her equality. While nuanced and intriguing, the story offers little hope in the way of resolution or character development. I found the seemingly irreparable power imbalance in Aey’s relationship frustrating; perhaps it is naive, but I like to think that women today have enough rights and freedoms that Aey’s unconscious bigotry would be unacceptable and unthinkable. I can’t help but think that there are more pressing and original inequalities to illustrate so incontrovertibly. 

However, beyond the prevalence of misogyny, the piece is a fascinating character study and does not shy away from details. The worldbuilding gives a visceral sense of the religious and cultural beliefs of Aey’s community, and the description of the Hungry One that Aey visits provides a counterpoint to the idea that all the women in this world are seen as lesser and powerless. I found the story’s greatest strength to be its rare focus on women’s sexual pleasure and needs; I still don’t see enough of that in speculative fiction and to look at it from a man’s perspective was certainly innovative.

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