REVIEW: “Of Warps and Wefts” by Innocent Chizaram Ilo

Review of Innocent Chizaram Ilo, “Of Warps and Wefts”, Strange Horizons 5 Mar. 2018: Read online. Reviewed by Danielle Maurer.

Hmmm. Well, this is a strange one.

It’s hard to discuss “Of Warps and Wefts” without explaining the central conceit: that in this world, when one marries, one begins leading a split life of two marriages, one as husband, one as wife. As far as I can tell, that includes a physical transformation. So it’s definitely an interesting way to explore gender and gender roles.

But this is also a case where the story’s concept is perhaps more interesting than the actual story. Our narrator, Chime/Dime, is unhappy with their marriages, particularly their marriage to their husband. And there’s really not much of a story here on that front: at the end, after following the narrator for the day, Chime talks to him as he is transitioning, and her husband agrees that he needs to make more room for her. That’s it. Problem apparently solved. There’s no real intermediary step, no real interaction between the two for most of the story.

What’s more interesting is the stress of living a double life; all the married characters seem to be feeling it, to some degree, and dealing with it in different ways. Chime’s husband is lost in her new wife; Dime’s wife has taken on destructive drug and alcohol abuse. Yet we’re barely able to explore any of this. This is one case where I think the story and characters would benefit from a longer setting.

An interesting story, with a lot of unrealized potential.

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REVIEW: “The Sound a Raven Makes” by Mathew Scaletta

Review of Mathew Scaletta, “The Sound a Raven Makes”, in Steve Berman, ed., Wilde Stories 2017: The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction (Lethe Press, 2017): 104-120 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

He yearned for the spark that would flare against the low alder and tall draping hemlock that surrounded the compound. He yearned for the bloom that would illuminate them all. His gaze shifted between the fireweed, his lover, and finally onto the muskeg plain that started at the bottom of the hill and stretched for miles until it slammed into foothills of another devastated mountain.

Ash works with his grandmother and uncle in a meat processing facility in southeastern Alaska, taking in the kills of rich men who fly in to hunt there and butchering them, smoking them, turning them into teriyaki—it all seems perfectly ordinary enough reading until the first customer arrives and Scaletta skirts deftly around the issue of what it is that is being hunted. Same with the next, and the next, until I’m getting increasingly anxious because I know it can’t be anything good.

Spoiler: It’s not anything good.

Such darkness needs to be balanced by light, and in this story that light comes in the form of Ash’s love for JB and JB’s for him. It is a peculiar little story, but that thread running through it lifts it from being just a little too depressing for me.

(Originally published in Gigantosaurus 2016).

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “The Palm Bride” by Diana Hurlburt

Review of Diana Hurlburt, “The Palm Bride”, Luna Station Quarterly 33 (2018): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Any man might create a Palm Bride…It’s made of dreams.

I love me a good historically-influenced fantasy story, and Hurlburt’s story set in St. Augustine-of-the-past, -of-the-not-quite-here-and-now, delivers.

The setting of the story is post-war, when those who returned from the fight are still alive but now old and grey, and the war is near enough so that the uneasy tension between black and white remains, along with the uncomfortable matter of unchaperoned, unmarried young girls. Miss Randolph has traveled to St. Augustine from Seneca Falls to pursue a matter of ghosts, or spirits, but what she finds at Mrs. Cobb’s mansion, Villa Reina, is not at all what she expects. That which inhabits the Palm Bride is “a spirit now, and a bit livelier than most, but there was a time in which she was a goddess”. Miss Randolph is there both to study the spirit and exorcise it.

It’s a pretty standard ghost story; I kept waiting for some twist at the end, but I never quite got it.

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REVIEW: “Early Morning Service” by Irette Y. Patterson

Review of Irette Y. Patterson, “Early Morning Service”, Strange Horizons 19 Feb. 2018: Read online. Reviewed by Danielle Maurer.

This story struck me as a bittersweet reflection on the nature of present-day Christianity. Our protagonist is the stereotypical “old church lady” at an African American church in Georgia, though she’s anything but ordinary. She has some kind of power, fueled by faith and worship. But the church she patronizes is slowly dying, and so, therefore, is she. When the story opens, she can’t even conjure candy anymore.

She has a rival, of sorts. Someone who “feeds” off the stadium-seated megachurches. He is still powerful, still able to use the abilities that Miss Geneva, our main character, has lost in her quieter, more personal world. The story isn’t 100% clear on who he is, but it’s implied that he’s some form of Jesus, though not the humble, kind Jesus Christianity teaches. This one is associated with coldness, and “ebbing power” attracts him.

But there’s still hope here, a reprieve in the kindness of a child. Miss Geneva has a strong will to persevere, and the end rests on her determination: not today. She will not give up today. “Early Morning Service” is a quiet, yet powerful tale.

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REVIEW: “Three Petitions to the Queen of Hell” by Tim Pratt

Review of Tim Pratt, “Three Petitions to the Queen of Hell”, Apex Magazine 106 (2018): Read Online. Reviewed by Joanna Z. Weston.

Apex is really out to make me question my own reading preferences with this issue. I generally do not care for love stories – they’re fine and all, but I bristle at the implication that sexual or romantic love is the most important aspect of our lives. And then a beautiful little love story about the queens of hell shows up, and I’m head over heels for it.

Marla and Zufi, the dual queens of hell (and married, naturally), have been fighting for eight years, and neither is feeling particularly motivated to apologize. One of them decides to alleviate her boredom by re-opening the paths by which mortals can petition them, thus kick-starting some change. Also, ice cream is an important plot element.

The tone is exactly the sort that I fall for, and hard. It’s poetic and sarcastic at the same time, maintaining just enough distance from the bickering queens to recognize that they are being ridiculous, without holding them in contempt (no matter how Marla and Zufi may feel at any given time). There’s also a contrast between moments of formal speech and casual phrases that pleased me. It’s funny, without being a humorous story.

This story also does a nice job of incorporating mythic themes without hewing to any one mythology. It probably draws most from the Greeks and Romans, what with the ties between the underworld and the seasons and the flavor of the guardians set to make it hard for petitioners to get to the land of the dead, but it is it’s own thing, and well executed.

Best of all, this is a queer love story with a happy ending, which is all too rare. Recommended for fans of romance and people who like their love stories with a touch of the macabre.

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REVIEW: “Episode 14” by Shannon Ryan

Review of Shannon Ryan, “Episode 14”, in Abandoned Places, edited by George R. Galuschak and Chris Cornell (Shohola Press, 2018): 131-145 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

This story takes the central conceit of the anthology and runs with it from the very start: A group of Minnesota teenagers take a car and a cameraman and go off to film — not ghosts, but abandoned places. This is not a ghost story and these are not ghost hunters: “We’re not going to run around screaming like girls and taking our shirts off” (p. 131).

This is not the first time they’ve done this. In fact, they’re up now to their 14th episode, and their goal is an abandoned recycling plant that closed up shop quite suddenly a few years ago. It is dark of night when they reach the deserted building, but inside there is a noise.

Of course it’s not a ghost, because this isn’t a ghost story. And it certainly couldn’t be the giant rooster it sounds to be…

This story was a perfect treasure hunt of clues; I was pretty sure I’d figured out where it was going about half-way through, but there was just enough uncertainty that it was resoundingly satisfying when my hunch was confirmed.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Carnivores” by Rich Larson

Review of Rich Larson, “Carnivores”, in Steve Berman, ed., Wilde Stories 2017: The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction (Lethe Press, 2017): 239-256 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

The restaurateur leaned forward. “You’re a survivor from the original batch, then? From the Bangkok biolabs?”

This story wears its Sci Fi badge with pride, announcing its genre in many different ways in the first few sentences. We have decaying engineering AIs, neural implants, Neanderthal hybrids, and autocabs before we finish the first page. Rather miraculously, these details don’t come across as info-dumping, nor as overwhelming.

Finch and Blake are planning a heist, of a restaurant “kitschy as fuck” (p. 241). The modus operandi involves getting Finch in under false pretenses — and prepared to make false promises. Once inside, what they find is more valuable, and more dangerous, than their wildest imaginings.

The story is visceral, it is tender, it is horrific, and it is sweet. It’s a mess of contradicting experiences, yet nevertheless all balancing each other. And for all of its darkness, it ends with hope. We always can do with a little more hope in our tales.

(Originally published in Strangers Among Us: Tales of the Underdogs and Outcasts 2016).

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “The Tale of the Costume Maker” by Steve Carr

Review of Steve Carr, “The Tale of the Costume Maker”, in Steve Berman, ed., Wilde Stories 2017: The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction (Lethe Press, 2017): 1-10 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

In the normal light of day, in this room with light streaming through the window, the costume maker is exceedingly handsome. His pale face is as clear as an unpainted porcelain figurine. He resembles Montgomery Clift or Paul Newman or Louis Jordan or none of them, or all of them all at once. His eyes react slowly to the light, as if he is waking from a dream — a dream of lazy, ethereal lovemaking.

This story was a strange one…it started off beautiful, with lovely words and lovely images, but then we are suddenly observers to a scene which should have been private — or rather, which should never have happened at all, because the costume maker did not ask for it, did not consent to it.

This is the first story in the anthology, but I’m glad it’s not the first that I read, for I think it might have put me off. I am increasingly uncomfortable with and intolerant of non-consensual sexual encounters in fiction, even when they play an important role in the story (and sometimes, precisely when they play such a role). If you share my sentiments, then you might wish to skip this story.

(First published in SickLitMag 2016).

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Contingency Plans for the Apocalypse” by S. B. Divya

Review of S. B. Divya’s, “Contingency Plans for the Apocalypse”, Uncanny Magazine Volume, 20 (2018): Read Online. Reviewed by Jodie Baker.

“Contingency Plans for the Apocalypse” is set in a dystopian Arizona where abortion has been criminalised. The narrator and their partner, Chula, have stayed in this dangerous territory with their two children in order to help women recieve safe abortions. The couple fully expect to be found by the law one day, and to have to run, but the narrator, who is disabled, does not expect they will make it out alive. All of their scenarios for the future involve Chula, the woman who is ‘a four-time triathlete, perfect eyesight, no injuries’, getting their children to a safe house. However, everything changes when Chula is killed by a bullet aimed at the narrator. From then on, the narrator has to be the one to survive in order to keep their children alive.

I’ve seen several discussions from disabled commentators about disability and dystopia, and “Contingency Plans for the Apocalypse” definitely feels like it’s in conversation with those discussions. This story adopts a multi-layered approach to depicting a disabled person’s life when the world is in crisis and they’re being chased by the authorities. S. B. Divya shows the practical issues of surviving in a dystopia when you have various disabilities. She allows her narrator to voice genuine concerns about their ability to survive, and to be less than positive about their situation. The fact that the narrator never offers up their name, and is never asked for it, is a subtle reminder that disabled people often don’t exist in dystopian stories.

At the same time, Divya challenges this lack of surviving, disabled characters in mainstream dystopian stories (or just the lack of disabled protagonists in mainstream dystopian stories). This story pushes back against the idea that there’s no place for disabled people in this genre by centring a disabled narrator, writing the story in their first person voice, giving them the tools to save their children, and sending them home alive, and a minor resistance hero. “Contingency Plans for the Apocalypse” creates some much needed space for disability while also providing an action-packed story which comments on the erosion of women’s rights. Try it out if you enjoyed Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” or “Flow” by Marissa Lingen.

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REVIEW: “The Date” by R. K. Kalaw

Review of R. K. Kalaw’s, “The Date”, Uncanny Magazine Volume, 20 (2018): Read Online. Reviewed by Jodie Baker.

In “The Date” an unnamed, female narrator plucks up the courage to ask an enticing woman called Anna out to dinner. From the first description of Anna, where the narrator focuses on ‘the way she swayed, how the sun played off the velvet gleam of her exoskeleton’ it’s obvious that she is something other than human. It also becomes clear that she is direct, purposeful, and quite possibly dangerous. The narrator is well aware that she may, literally, get her head bitten off, but she chooses to pursue Anna anyway. As the story progresses, it’s easy to see why the narrator is so keen on this woman despite the imminent threat of death.

This story is concerned with the idea that women have to suppress their appetites in order to please men. The narrator explains that she’s used to playing a part when dating. ‘I wasn’t usually so forward,’ she says after asking Anna to dinner; ‘too much, too fast, and people bolted like gazelles.’ Selecting an outfit for her date, she discards a red dress in favour of an outfit which signals ‘I’m chill. I don’t need much, don’t take much, don’t need you.’ Anna, in contrast, is unafraid to take up space: laughing loudly, commanding people, and eating with gusto. She comes across as monstrous, and different, in this world of humans, with her ‘mandibles’ and ‘barbed’ arms. And she is a symbolic incarnation of characteristics leave real life women labelled as ‘monstrous’.  

Despite having  sought Anna out because she is ‘dazzling’, the narrator is unable to claim the same kind of space. She has a fear of being rejected for being ‘too much’, and this has been reinforced, repeatedly, by men. On her date with Anna, the narrator looks for a dish that is ‘small and innocuous’ because ‘Most men disliked it when I showed more hunger than they had…’ Anna laughs at this, orders them both rare steaks, and proceeds to tear hers apart ‘ripping a hunk off the bone.’; setting the narrator on a path to freedom by being herself, and granting the narrator the same freedom. ‘I’m not afraid of your appetites,’ Anna says.

It’s at this point that the story twists a little. Is the narrator, although dressed in human flesh, actually something else underneath? Are we talking about appetites or are we talking about <em>appetites</em>? “The Date” never confirms whether the narrator is inhuman, or whether she has just been suppressing a level of human desire that would be deemed ‘unseemly’ in a woman. Whichever way you read it, “The Date” is the vibrant story of a woman set free from binding social expectations by a ‘dazzling’ monster woman who could literally eat a man alive.

At the beginning of the story, the narrator says ‘It was my first time, dating a woman like her.’ And the fact that she only mentions dating men after that makes it sound like this is the narrator’s first date with a woman. The ending, where the two go off together ‘holding each other close, like lovers, like raptors,’ will put a huge grin on your face.  

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