REVIEW: “Watch Out, Red Crusher!” by Shel Graves

Review of Shel Graves, “Watch Out, Red Crusher!”, in Glass and Gardens: Solar Punk Summers, edited by Sarena Ulibarri, (World Weaver Press, 2018): 51-66 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology).

In the world of Aberdonia, citizens have nanites injected beneath their skin. These nanites help power the community, but they also glow in colors reflecting the owner’s moods. I’m not sure if Graves intended this to be a terrifying set-up, but I certainly found it to be so; one of the benefits of being an ordinary human (in my point of view) is that one can use one’s physical body to mask one’s inner turmoil. Certainly Andee, whose nanites glow a “despondent blue” (p. 52), would prefer that her fears and worries not be betrayed so clearly to all who see; in fact, it is precisely so that she can learn to hide her feelings that she is visiting the mind-matriarch, Madame Morell.

Andee isn’t the only one visiting Madame Morell; one of her childhood classmates, Irwin, is there too, seeking to change the shade he glows. But while Andee wallows in blue despondency, Irwin’s shade is the red of anger. As we learn more about Andee and Irwin’s history, the more sinister the notion of our feelings and dispositions being on display for everyone becomes; for it was quite literally an accident that made Irwin red in the first place, and once he gained that shade he has not been able to escape it. Andee’s generation is the first to have had the nanites injected at birth, before consent could be offered, and thus it is the first generation to see the consequences. Andee’s mother only sees the benefits: “Now we can see them coming” (p. 65), the dangerous people. But Andee wonders if maybe there isn’t another way…

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REVIEW: “What to Do When It’s Nothing but Static” by Cassandra Khaw

Review of Cassandra Khaw, “What to Do When It’s Nothing but Static”, Apex Magazine 107 (2018): Read Online. Reviewed by Joanna Z. Weston.

This is a glorious blend of the strange and the heartfelt, a story about aging and moving on from loss, set in a world in which a team of five (formerly six) little old ladies mentally link up to pilot a mecha and fight giant monsters. We don’t see them do this at any point, but it colors the whole story with a sense of the bizarre. And while the monsters never appear on-screen, the psychic link up is vital to the plot, as the narrator is trying to come to grips with the grief of losing one of her sisters.

I have so many questions about the world. Are all the pilots teams of little old ladies, and if so, why? If not, how did these grandmothers get the job? But of course, that doesn’t matter to the story. I just loved this so much that I wanted more. Some of the dialogue was confusing at first to my North American inner ear, but it really didn’t take long to adjust and figure out what the various interjections indicated.

This is a compact story, short enough to enjoy during a quick break. I recommend that you do so!

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REVIEW: “The Satyr of Brandenburg” by Charlotte Ashley

“The Satyr of Brandenburg,” by Charlotte Ashley. Fantasy & Science Fiction 135, 3-4 (2018): 8-30 — Purchase Here. Reviewed by Standback.

Ashley continues to make creative use of duelists and swashbucklers. In a previous story, Ashley introduced La Héron and Alex, making their way through successive stages of a fairy duel. In this story, Héron enters an exhibition duel – seemingly a far safer, more straightforward situation. But one of her opponent has a reputation for “winning without setting foot in the arena,” which he does by manipulating others and making puppets of them. Héron’s first duel is a sordid affair, threatening to cast her as more of an executioner than a duelist.

The story focuses more on the Satyr’s mocking manipulations than on Héron and Alex as substantial protagonists. While the situations Héron is thrust into are compelling, it’s also fairly evident that she’s tackling matters in a very ineffective way — the structure is almost that of a horror story, with circumstances becoming increasingly, inevitably dire, with no real expectation that the protagonist can affect anything. That being said, it’s a very entertaining story, and there’s enough character here to make further outings with this duo an appealing prospect.

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REVIEW: “New Siberia” by Blake Jessop

Review of Blake Jessop, “New Siberia”, in Glass and Gardens: Solar Punk Summers, edited by Sarena Ulibarri, (World Weaver Press, 2018): 149-158 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology).

The story opens with the narrator, Nadezhda, falling off a solar collector and needing to be rescued from quicksand. Reading this I was immediately reminded of a recent meme I’ve seen, which is basically that childhood movies and books lead one to believe that quicksand is a far greater danger than it actually is. But it is a real and present danger for Nadezhda, and she is lucky that Amphisbaina is there to rescue her.

What I loved most about this story was Jessop’s use of language, which is truthful, staccato, and beautiful:

There are only so many ways to become sapient. Evolution converges. We killed the Earth, destroyed the Garden of Eden, and have taken up residence with the snakes (p. 150).

Nadezhda is haunted by what her kind has done to their planet, the slow way in which we killed our Earth even knowing that we were doing it. But this story, like the rest in this anthology, is hopeful; in it, humanity has learned that it is not their right to take but their requirement to ask: They share the planet with Amphisbaina and the other Nagans because they asked to share it, not because they conquered it. And Nadezhda and Amphisbaina together share something even more important: Hope, heat, life.

This was a beautiful, touching story.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Iron Aria” by A. Merc Rustad

Review of A. Merc Rustad, “Iron Aria”, Podcastle: 518 — Listen Online. Reviewed by Heather Rose Jones

A fantasy of ecological catastrophe and the need for skills and approaches outside the default to heal the land. Kyru has a talent for speaking with metals. He might have spent his life simply as an excellent blacksmith, except for the part where flaws in a dam threaten to destroy his entire community when it fails and no one else can sense the looming peril the way he can. Both the problem and its solution are conveyed in the impressionistic experiences of the protagonist–although told in the third person, it has a very first-person feel to the point of view. I loved the imaginative worldbuilding and poetic language used to describe it.

This next bit is more of a meta-commentary on storytelling within our particular present moment and is only slightly relevant to the content of the story. There’s another entire layer to this work, separate from the functional man-against-nature plot, involving non-default identities and negotiating how to exist in a world not designed for you.

Two central characters are trans and their recognition of each other’s experience is a key part of their bond. The protagonist is also neuro-atypical, which is tied in with–though not equated with–his unusual metal-sensing/healing skills. The ways in which these aspects are integrated into the story point up some of the awkwardness of our current balance point with regard to representing non-default identities in fiction. We aren’t yet at a stage where representation can be successful simply by casual and neutral inclusion because–to many observers–that approach can feel a bit too similar to erasure. It’s perfectly possible to write a story featuring a trans character where their transness is never explicitly addressed because it’s not relevant to the plot, but at our current moment in the cultural timeline, it’s hard to count that as representation.

All of this is to say that, within the context of the storytelling, it felt to me that the communication of both trans identity and neuro-atypicality were over-telegraphed within the story and that the over-telegraphing interrupted the flow of the storyline. But at the same time, I recognize that dialing those narrative aspects back to a level that wouldn’t have felt overdone would have made it possible (perhaps even likely) for a majority of readers/listeners to miss them entirely. I see what the author is trying to do, and I appreciate the approach, and at the same time I would have loved to see how this story could be told in a context where the potential presence of those aspects of character identity could be more taken for granted rather than needing to be fronted in the way they were here.

Originally published in Fireside Fiction.

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REVIEW: “Murders Fell from Our Wombs” by Tlotlo Tsamaase

Review of Tlotlo Tsamaase, “Murders Fell from Our Wombs”, Apex Magazine 107 (2018): Read Online. Reviewed by Joanna Z. Weston.

A village in Motswana is haunted by a serial killer. Every month, a woman is killed. Every month, a young woman watches the murder happen in her dreams, during her menstruation. This young woman, Game, wants nothing more than to escape her village, her poverty, her curse, and to attend university. One month, the pattern shifts, and men become the victims. This small shift causes a huge cascade in Game’s life, and forms the heart of the story.

It’s an enticing premise, braiding together a feminist sensibility with cultural awareness and a clear understanding of poverty and how all of these can trap a person, bend their lives in ways that they can’t really control. To call it intersectional feels like an understatement.

The setting is phenomenally realized, which makes sense, since the author is Motswana herself. She does a fantastic job of painting a clear picture of that world, both the isolated village that Game comes from, but also the city that she eventually moves to for university. I felt transported to a place far outside of my experience, which seems to me to be one of the best things fiction can do.

I wanted to like this story more than I did. It’s obviously brilliant, dealing with big, important themes with subtlety, grace, and intelligence. Despite that, I had some trouble following the plot. I suspect that this story just isn’t meant for me, a white middle-class American, and that is fine. I can still tell it’s a masterful story, and well-worth reading.

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REVIEW: “Caught Root” by Julia K. Patt

Review of Julia K. Patt, “Caught Root”, in Glass and Gardens: Solar Punk Summers, edited by Sarena Ulibarri, (World Weaver Press, 2018): 1-7 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology).

What took my breath away from the very first paragraphs was the depth of hope in this story. The future that both Hillside and New-Ur occupy is quite a bit different from the present we are currently in, but true to the anthology’s self-description of “optimistic science fiction”, Dr. Orkney of Hillside and Dr. Khadir of New-Ur meet not as antagonists but “for an exchange of ideas”, in hopes that each settlement can benefit the other. Every single thing about how Orkney and Khadir meet, grow to trust each other, and forge a future together is hopeful, and reading this story made me happy.

There was one strange aspect about reading it, though. The story is narrated in the first-person, and I, somewhat surprisingly for my usual reading habits, defaulted to reading the narrator as being a woman. It wasn’t until the second page when Dr. Orkney’s given name is mentioned that I was jarred from this default; and even then, only when his name or some other explicit reference was made was I reminded that he was a man. On the one hand, it sort of felt like a trick might have been missed, that the story could only have been made stronger by the presence of a female scientist as the lead. On the other hand, without Ewan being who he was, the sweet romance that developed would not have been the same. I would like to complain about the fact that I couldn’t have both, but it’s churlish to expect authors to perform contradictions, so I will be satisfied with being contented with how the story was written.

Sara L. Uckelman2 Comments

REVIEW: “A Fine Balance” by Charlotte Ashley

Review of Charlotte Ashley, “A Fine Balance”, Podcastle: 517 — Listen Online. Reviewed by Heather Rose Jones

In an early-modern secondary world setting that gave me an Ottoman Empire feel, the social and political balance between two ethnic groups is maintained in part by an elaborate system of ritual dueling and economic forfeiture. But the power differentials that underlie the superficially “fair” system come to a head when one side is willing to cheat to claim permanent advantage. The story is told from the point of view of an apprentice duelist who witnesses and participates in the crucial confrontations.

I really enjoyed the worldbuilding in this story and how the listener’s understanding of the social conflicts and function of the dueling rituals builds gradually to support the main conflict. The one flaw for me was that the play-by-play of some of the duels themselves got tedious, but I know this is a feature that people with more direct familiarity with martial arts may instead find a plus.

I particularly enjoyed how women were given pride of place in the narrative without needing to erase the underlying patriarchal nature of the cultural setting.

Originally published in Fantasy & Science Fiction

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REVIEW: 10th Anniversary Special by multiple authors

Review of multiple authors, 10th Anniversary Special, Podcastle: 516 — Listen Online . Reviewed by Heather Rose Jones

To celebrate their 10th anniversary of publication, Podcastle ran a poll to choose people’s five favorite episodes and then re-broadcast them. I won’t be doing individual reviews of these stories, but you might want to check out why people chose these from the entire set of 500+ options:

516a: “Without Faith, WIthout Law, Without Joy” by Saladin Ahmed – A retelling of an Arthurian tale from the point of view of one of the many Saracen characters from the greater Arthurian mythos.

516b: “In the Stacks” by Scott Lynch – When graduate school involves a self-aware magical library, returning a book to the stacks is no trivial task. (full cast narration)

516c: “Saints, Sinners, Dragons, and Haints in the City beneath the Still Waters” by N.K. Jemisin – Dangerous things lurk in the flood waters left by Hurricane Katrina. This was re-aired fairly recently and I reviewed it here.

516d: “Makeisha in Time” by Rachael K. Jones – A woman who involuntarily slips back and forth through time turns her fate into a struggle and triumph for women throughout the ages. There’s a reason this story has been regularly celebrated and praised since it first came out.

516e: “The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu – Everyday magic and the difficult journey of the son of a “mail-order bride” to properly appreciate his mother’s love and sacrifice.

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REVIEW: “The Sharp Edges of Anger” by Jamie Lackey

Review of Jamie Lackey, “The Sharp Edges of Anger”, Apex Magazine 107 (2018): Read Online. Reviewed by Joanna Z. Weston.

In a world in which anger is a physical substance that can be pulled out of the body, women are expected to relinquish theirs whenever it bubbles up, to swallow it down or squash it. Rose refuses to do that. Obviously, there are consequences, both for her and her loved ones.

The structure of this story really works, touching on Rose’s life between the ages of 10 and 29. It’s hard to cover that much time in a short story, but Lackey manages it well. By letting the story span almost two whole decades, we get a comprehensive look at how Rose’s life plays out, rather than focusing on just one incident. This is necessary in order to tell the story that needs to be told.

The poignant depiction of how removing anger can also remove agency moved me, and the ending, though difficult to read, felt real and inevitable. Highly recommended for anyone (of any gender) whose anger has been silenced.

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