REVIEW: “Old Habits” by Nalo Hopkinson

Review of Nalo Hopkinson’s, “Old Habits”, Uncanny Magazine Volume, 21 (2018): Read Online. Reviewed by Jodie Baker.

Like many classic ghost stories, “Old Habits” is a study in futility, stasis, and regret. There’s nothing the dead in Nalo Hopkinson’s story can do about their situation. Trapped in the mall where they died, they have almost no agency, and are forced to regularly relive their own deaths. There are no heroes in Nalo Hopkinson’s ghost mall; no magic bullets, no tantalising opportunities to rejoin the living. And the mall they haunt isn’t exactly Valhalla.  

The mundane, slightly sordid, nature of the afterlife Hopkinson has created, and the powerlessness of her characters, could have made this story a frustrating experience for a living, breathing reader. This story rejects well-worn fantasy plot structures that focus on active questing characters changing, or finding, their fates through sheer force of will. It also centres the experience of a group of powerless ghosts instead of, as so many ghost stories do, concentrating on the living, or giving the ghosts powers. And finally, this story pushes readers to face the banal ways in which mortality can be brutally stripped away. “Old Habits” is not a comfortable read, and that’s before the reader finds out that these ghosts can be hungry, and vicious, when provoked by their own kind.

However, out of all this difficult material, I think Hopkinson has created an affecting, quiet story about the pettiness of loss. Partly that’s because its conception of death is so rooted in the mundane, and everyday; presenting, like much apocalyptic media, enticing details of a world which, at least for these ghosts, cannot be regained. And that central concentration on the powerless is a theme carried through to great effect. The story opens with the death of a disenfranchised woman, crushed by corporate security, in a nod to many real life deaths in custody. While it’s not a story I’m in a rush to read again (facing this vision of an afterlife is a hard ask) it’s certainly a well-crafted piece that plays on my mind. “Old Habits” is a reminder that ghost stories can be just as inventive as every other part of the SFF and horror genres.

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REVIEW: “The Breakdown of the Parasite/Host Relationship” by Paul R. Hardy

Review of Paul R. Hardy, “The Breakdown of the Parasite/Host Relationship”, Unidentified Funny Objects 6, 2017.  pp. 28-42. Purchase here. Review by Ben Serna-Grey.

Have you ever had to work on a group project with someone you just don’t get along with? Now imagine this person was fused to your body and you couldn’t communicate with them while you were awake. That’s the conceit of “The Breakdown of the Parasite/Host Relationship,” told through the chat logs between the project coordinator and the host and parasite who have been paired together for the job.

Through a mix of stubbornness and misunderstandings things escalate until intervention is needed, despite expense to the project. This is another one that didn’t make me laugh out loud, but I still appreciated the cleverness and odd familiarity of it. It brought me flashbacks of when I had to work in a group project in grad school and no one really had a personality that meshed.

Another recommended story, so we’re two for two with this anthology.

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REVIEW: “What the Dead Are For” by Terry Grimwood

Review of Terry Grimwood’s, “What the Dead Are For”, The Future Fire Volume 2, 2005: Read online. Reviewed by Elliott Baye.

In “What the Dead Are For”, when someone dies they wake up in a mysterious graveyard, and there are two paths to consider. They could head to the forest and river to rest, or they can make the climb up the looming hill freckled with gravestones. Pastor Bob Williamson, as a man of strong Christian faith, believes that heaven is surely earned by climbing the hill, and thus tries to make his ascent.

This is a really interesting piece. It takes a proud, devout character and challenges him physically and mentally, making him rely on his own choices rather than a prewritten scripture. His ideas and morals began to conflict, and doing good became a different concept than doing “the right thing”.

Religion can be quite tricky to write about, since a lot of people can become defensive when their faith is questioned. I’m not as passionate about my religion as a great many of people, but I still think that Terry Grimwood did a pretty good job of not stepping on toes and more than necessary to tell the story. The story, to me, didn’t feel pro- or anti-religion. It was more of a “what if” scenario, and I found it fascinating.

I enjoyed the way the story ended, as it concluded Pastor Bob’s story, but I have a suspicion it will frustrate certain readers that like definitive answers to all the questions. Still, I recommend this to readers that like to wonder about life after death, as I do. Just read it with an open mind, and I think you’ll find yourself pleasantly surprised.

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REVIEW: “A Dream of This Life” by Andrea Blythe

Review of Andrea Blythe, “A Dream of This Life”, Luna Station Quarterly 35 (2018): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Drug use.

This was a grey, dismal story, of insomnia, of drug-use, of the wretched dullness of life. The narrator (never named) used to be a dreamer of dreams — and, more importantly, a seller of them too. Now she dreams no longer, at least, not any dream that anyone would want to have, because

No one wants to buy a dream that leaves them with the same unsettling boredom they experience every day of their lives.

Blythe describes the experiences of the narrator in painfully evocative language: Very well written, but what’s being written is not necessarily something you want to read. What I found most interesting, reading this story, was how much reading the story felt like experiencing one of those dreams. No one wants a dream that resembles the dullness of their life; but few would want to read a story that is full of the boredom of life, either. In sum: The story was well-written, but I am unsure that it is a story that people would want to read.

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REVIEW: “The Other Foot” by Margo Lanagan

Review of Margo Lanagan, “The Other Foot”, in Aidan Doyle, Rachael K. Jones, and E. Catherine Tobler, Sword and Sonnet (Ate Bit Bear, 2018) — 95-101. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

This short story is a retelling of one of the lesser known Anderson fairy tales, the tale of The Red Shoes. It’s a tale I hadn’t read since childhood and had only the vaguest memories of, but Lanagan’s story stands on its own: Full of the gruesome horror that all proper and good children’s fairy tales have — though this version is not one that I would share with a kid. After finishing the story, I then went to read Anderson’s version, and that only increased my enjoyment of Lanagan’s version, by adding more layers and depth.

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REVIEW: “The Ghol” by Rose Strickman

Review of Rose Strickman, “The Ghol”, Luna Station Quarterly 35 (2018): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

After the death of her husband, James, Miranda and her two daughters, Lily and Violet, find themselves struggling to keep the farm — and the family — together as a ghol comes to haunt them. Their only defense against the ghol is the poems that James wrote, poems which are consumed in the act of defense, so that Miranda knows it is only a matter of time before there are no poems, no defense, left. And it is only James’s poems that work: Poems written by Miranda and the girls are useless.

The only way to destroy a ghol completely is to find what it is that it craves and give it a poisoned version of that. Strickman gives a satisfying resolution to this conundrum, making a neat little story of haunting and horror.

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REVIEW: “Rain Like Diamonds” by Wendy Nikel

Review of Wendy Nikel, “Rain Like Diamonds”, Luna Station Quarterly 35 (2018): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

The queen hoarded the barrels of seed, keeping them locked within her coffers…

The kingdom is caught in the throes of famine. Every day people plead with the queen to help them, to help their starving children. And every day the queen refuses, knowing the grain must be saved until the dragon-scorched land is healed and it can be planted. But only tears can bring the rain like diamonds.

This is a quiet story of sacrifice and duty.

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REVIEW: “El Cantar de la Reina Bruja” by Victoria Sandbrook

Review of Victoria Sandbrook, “El Cantar de la Reina Bruja”, in Aidan Doyle, Rachael K. Jones, and E. Catherine Tobler, Sword and Sonnet (Ate Bit Bear, 2018) — 79-92. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Reina Alejandra chained her goddess soul in order to seduce a king. Now she is his captive, and the king is on crusade to woo a new queen, using Alejandra’s magic as his weapon. Submitting to his will is the only hope she has of one day freeing herself.

I found this story perplexing. It was beautifully written but it felt like certain pieces to the puzzle were missing. Alejandra clearly loved her king — or at least did once — not just lusted after him. But never are we shown why; there seemed nothing loveable in him. As a result, Alejandra seemed more to be pitied than to be sad for. I also missed a piece in the way in which she won her freedom; when Alejandra and her rival queen finally meet, it seems as if they must have met already, but we are not told how. Or perhaps it just is that Alejandra loves widely, and without reason.

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REVIEW: “Candied Sweets, Cornbread, and Black-Eyed Peas” by Malon Edwards

Review of Malon Edwards, “Candied Sweets, Cornbread, and Black-Eyed Peas”, in Aidan Doyle, Rachael K. Jones, and E. Catherine Tobler, Sword and Sonnet (Ate Bit Bear, 2018) — 63-76. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

“Candied Sweets, Cornbread, and Black-Eyed Peas” is the third story in Edwards’ “Half Dark” series, set in an alternate-universe Chicago where there is a strong Haitian (sub?)community and featuring the same heroine, but can be read independently of the first two (as I did; though afterwards I read the SFFRev review of the second story).

This story forced me to work at reading it, to savor the sound of the syllables and not just their meaning. It was rewarding work, for the most part, but there were a few things that caused me to stumble. Three pages from the end of the story — at a point where I was still waiting to find out who the poet of the story is — the point of view shifts from 1st person into addressing an unnamed “you”. Shortly after that, the unnamed “you” is lost, but there is a shift in tenses, so that paragraphs alternate between present and past tense. It was not clear to me why either of these choices were made, and the abrupt shifts without any clear reason for them unfortunately detracted from my enjoyment. And I never did find out who the battle poet was.

It was a good story, reading it made me want to read the others in the series, but I am not sure I see how this particular one fits into this particular anthology/theme.

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