REVIEW: “Ghosts of Bari” by Wren Wallis

Review of Wren Wallis, “Ghosts of Bari”, Shimmer 46 (2018): 114-124 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Empires rise and empires falls, but against this grand backdrop, “salvage is the only long-term game in the universe” (p. 114). Eli, Mati, and Kin are a team of salvagers who work in the Bari region of the universe — a place that few other salvagers go — harvesting whatever they can from the ghost ships that float through there. They’re well-trained, they’re well-informed, they are good at what they do. But no amount of knowledge or experience can prepare the crew for a ship so old it doesn’t turn up in any of the Oracle’s databases. Not only that — this ship isn’t dead.

The story ultimately circles back to where it starts: The rise and fall of empires, how empires can be remembered and memorialised. There is a sharp pathos to this story that nearly brought tears to my eyes.

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REVIEW: “Murder By Magnetism” by Damon L. Wakes

Review of Damon L. Wakes, “Murder By Magnetism” in Ten Little Astronauts, (Unbound Digital, 2018): 69-71 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

This brief non-fiction interlude follows “Ten Little Astronauts” and describes some of the motivation behind the story, as well as the author’s choices concerning how to incorporate the science into the fiction. I found it interesting to read Wakes’ explanation for why he chose a relatively hard SF framework for the story, ensuring that “easy” answers to the whodunit question could be excluded (this despite the fact that briefly the characters entertain the possibility that the killer is an alien).

I myself didn’t know enough of the science to know, while reading the story, how well Wakes accomplished what he set out to do, so I appreciated the chance to read a bit more about the fact behind the fiction. In reading this I also found out that a promotional video for the novella was filmed onboard HMS Alliance. For those of you who are interested, you can view it on youtube here; however, I would recommend reading the story first.

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REVIEW: “The Time Traveler’s Husband” by A. C. Wise

Review of A. C. Wise, “The Time Traveler’s Husband”, Shimmer 46 (2018): 61-68 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Regarding the title, it’s nice to see the man identified purely by his relationship to someone else, for once! (And while it isn’t immediate from the title, that “someone else” is herself a woman.)

But if you came to this story from its title hoping for time-travel, you might end up being disappointed — it really truly is the story of her husband, the story of the one who is left behind and who has to make a life living each moment in time successively. We never know his name, but we learn intimate details of his life, his relationship with his wife, and also his relationship with his father. The time traveling isn’t incidental, but it is definitely the backdrop for the telling of the relationships, not the story itself.

It was a beautifully sad story, and also a beautiful story. Midway through, it felt like it could continue in the vein it opened in without any resolution, but then it looped back on itself coming around full circle. I found the ending satisfying.

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REVIEW: “Ten Little Astronauts” by Damon L. Wakes

Review of Damon L. Wakes, “Ten Little Astronauts” in Ten Little Astronauts, (Unbound Digital, 2018): 1-67 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

This story is billed as “Agatha Christie in Space”. I’m not actually a Christie reader myself — somehow, mystery has never made it high enough up my priority queue to read, though I’ve enjoyed TV adaptations of Christie’s stories — so I can’t speak to how well the Christie-style was rendered, but as a mystery it held up well. We got our first body on the first page, and very quickly after that we were given a panoply of possible suspects, each with their own very different and very strong preferences and motivations. The opening pages fairly teemed with conflict. After that, the story was stuffed full of uncertainty, second-guessing, mistakenly drawn conclusions, and even a possibility that would not have been available to Christie — that the murderer might be an alien. All in all, I found it exquisitely composed.

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REVIEW: Ten Little Astronauts by Damon L. Wakes

Review of Damon L. Wakes, Ten Little Astronauts, (Unbound Digital, 2018) — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This collection contains the titular story, “Ten Little Astronauts”, an Agatha Christie-style hard SF/mystery novella; a brief nonfiction interlude, “Murder by Magnetism”; followed another novella, which provides an alternative approach to setting a mystery story in space, “Six Years Stolen”. It’s an unusual combination, but the three pieces ended up making a coherent whole in my opinion.

As usual, we’ll review each individually, and link the reviews back here when they are published:

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REVIEW: “Things Forgotten On the Cliffs of Avevig” by Wendy Nikel

Review of Wendy Nikel, “Things Forgotten On the Cliffs of Avevig” in Rhonda Parrish, ed., Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline: Dieselpunk and Decopunk Fairy Tales, (World Weaver Press, 2019): 288-292 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

The final story in the anthology is the shortest. It was less clear than some how it fit the theme of the anthology; but taken on its own merits it was a sweet little story about the importance of memory.

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REVIEW: “One Hundred Years” by Jennifer R. Donohue

Review of Jennifer R. Donohue, “One Hundred Years” in Rhonda Parrish, ed., Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline: Dieselpunk and Decopunk Fairy Tales, (World Weaver Press, 2019): 275-287 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Lew, Marek, and Iga escaped the burning of their farm and managed to find and join the resistance. Now, a year later, they are on a quest, to convince the gunsmith to make them a magic gun, something that they can use in their fight for freedom.

The weight of the quest has proper fairy tale feel to it, and so too the mysteries that they find when they finally meet the gunsmith. The quiet events of the week in which the gunsmith made the gun for Iga were full of warmth and compassion, which provided a sharp contrast to the unexpected, sudden, and deadly ending.

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REVIEW: “Make This Water No Deeper” by Blake Jessop

Review of Blake Jessop, “Make This Water No Deeper” in Rhonda Parrish, ed., Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline: Dieselpunk and Decopunk Fairy Tales, (World Weaver Press, 2019): 257-274 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

The setting of this story is the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station, which I enjoyed reading up on before getting mired in the story itself; having some knowledge of the dam’s history and strategic importance helped me appreciate the role that it played in the story. I enjoyed the way Jessop wove impossible creatures — “there are no such things as girls who live forever and drown unfaithful men” // “there are no such things as women engineers, either” (p. 264) — in his story, and the way in which Yulia and Maritchka came alive in each other’s presence.

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REVIEW: “As the Spindle Burns” by Nellie K. Neves

Review of Nellie K. Neves, “As the Spindle Burns” in Rhonda Parrish, ed., Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline: Dieselpunk and Decopunk Fairy Tales, (World Weaver Press, 2019): 234-256 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Science is often portrayed as the great saviour, in SF. Science will save us from climate change (either telling us how to reverse it, or getting us off this planet for another one), science will stop wars because of the new weapons it builds, science will overcome illness, science will do and be all. So what I really loved about this evocative retelling of The Twelve Huntsman was the way in which science was cast as the antagonist — not in an anti-elite/anti-science sort of way, but in a “we may have opened Pandora’s box” way. Science has brought so much to the world of this story, but that doesn’t leave the characters from wallowing in a deep uncertainty as to whether this is a good thing. There was quite a bit more ambivalence threaded through this story than some in the anthology, and I enjoy a story that shows just how complex and difficult life really is.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Ramps and Rockets” by Alicia K. Anderson

Review of Alicia K. Anderson, “Ramps and Rockets” in Rhonda Parrish, ed., Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline: Dieselpunk and Decopunk Fairy Tales, (World Weaver Press, 2019): 220-233 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

This was a lovely queer retelling of Rapunzel (with disabled Prince(ss) Charming!), sticking close to many of the details of the original story, but picking carefully which details to change. In the end, it was Rapunzel who saved herself, who let her hair down and walked through the door out of the cage that trapped her.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment