REVIEW: “Heirlooms” by Rosalind Alenko

Review of Rosalind Alenko, “Heirlooms”, in Myths, Monsters, and Mutations, edited by Jessica Augustsson (JayHenge Publications, 2017): 324-332. — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Alenko devotes nearly two pages simply to setting the scene, with such attention to detail that when there is a mismatch between expectations and the story, it comes a bit jarring. (Tegan is much more commonly a female name than a male name; given the surfeit of Welsh names, I expected the story to be set in Wales…until a raccoon showed up.) There is a level of detachment that comes with this level of description, which Alenko uses to balance the strong emotional thread that runs through the story. Enid herself is a strange narrator; it is not clear how far we can trust her. She complains about the lack of road to the cemetery that “it’s not the dark ages!” but later seems to accept unquestioningly the existence of ghosts, witches, and faeries. Later, when Enid returns to her grandma, one wonders what story it is she will tell her.

This is the first story where I’ve found any editorial issues, a minor lapse resulting in “it’s” where there should be “its”.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Belong to Me” by Rachel Harrison

Review of Rachel Harrison, “Belong to Me”, Syntax and Salt 4, 2017: Read Online. Reviewed by Tiffany Crystal

Well, gee, this one isn’t creepy as all get out or anything. It’s sunshine and lollipops, and okay, that’s enough sarcasm for now.

For something that starts out as a love story (kinda), the end is…huh. Rachel Harrison takes you through a tale that is, on the surface, anyway, similar to the premise of “My Best Friend’s Wedding.” If the best friend was a Martian, and the other woman was the main character’s other best friend.

Okay, so the comparison isn’t the best, but it’s better than using “Coneheads,” and the point remains. The story really shouldn’t be as creepy as it is, though to be fair, the creepy part is entirely conjecture. You aren’t given enough information to justify the chills that start creeping in, but you also aren’t given any reason to not get them.

Is the cousin telling the truth? Or was he lying? Where are all the Martian women? Who does Becky care about more? All it says is that she discovers who she loves more. The story leaves you with so many questions that demand answers, but in a way that you can’t really be mad at the author for.

And guys? It has aliens. Aliens. And UFO’s. Am I entirely too happy about that? Possibly. Go read it anyway. (Aliens!)

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REVIEW: “Watching You Without Me” by Todd Summar

Review of “Watching You Without Me”, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #36 Early Autumn pp. 25-31. Purchase here. Review by Ben Serna-Grey.

“Watching You Without Me” is a story about death, time, and life. The main character is a woman who is recently deceased, and she finds time is not linear because she keeps jumping around in her own timeline. She relives difficult tumultuous times. Her husband growing distant, her child growing without her.

It’s not the usual shtick of watching yourself from the outside, A Christmas Carol style. Our main character is reliving these vignettes in the moment, remembering she is incorporeal at increasingly more distressing times: when she can’t hold her child up to keep him from drowning when he’s learning to swim, when her husband gets called out to the hospital after she is late coming home. She begins to be pulled further and further away from these moments by some sort of unseen force, and the scenes get more heartbreaking as she is now looking at what has happened to the people in her life now that she is gone.

It’s not all doom and gloom. There is some actual closure and acceptance at the end, but it also doesn’t soften any blows. Like the previous story, “Evidence of a Storm,” there is necessarily some darkness here, a bleak make, but the theme that pushes through most is acceptance. She did what she could while she could, but now that she’s gone it’s time to let things go. This is another recommended read.

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REVIEW: “The Edge of Things” by Katharine E.K. Duckett

Review of Katharine E.K. Duckett, “The Edge of Things”, Apex Magazine 103: Read Online. Reviewed by Joanna Z. Weston.

An endless party with representatives from all eras of human history, containing the breadth and depth of human knowledge, sounds like a dream come true for any curious person. But is it really? And what would you have to give up to get there? These are some of the questions posed by “The Edge of Things.”

I’m not sure I’m smart enough to fully understand this story. Halfway through, I recognized a few characters as characters from famous literature. Were others literary allusions as well? Maybe if I were better read (or had a better memory), my experience of this story would be completely different.

What I did understand of the story was fascinating. Duckett set herself the difficult task of describing a nonsense world from the point of view of someone who recognizes that it does not make sense, and is struggling to find the underlying structure and meaning almost as much as the reader. The only difference is that the narrator has been at it for some time already, and her energy for the task has almost run out, whereas the reader is new to the confusion. We also don’t have to struggle with it for as long, because at least some of it is resolved by the end.

I appreciate that Duckett does not leave us hanging, and provides some explanation. She doesn’t give us a pat ending, because that wouldn’t be satisfying. We learn what is going on in this mysterious house, but not what exists outside of it. That is enough.

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REVIEW: “Earth Music” by Jennifer Lee Rossman

Review of Jennifer Lee Rossman, “Earth Music”, Syntax and Salt 4, 2017: Read Online. Reviewed by Tiffany Crystal

I really really like this work. I love the premise, and I loved how Ve is blind, but was still allowed on the trip. Instead of her people thinking that she was defective and leaving her behind, they brought her with them to Earth, and I love that. I love how, even without looking it up, I knew exactly what song was included on that disk, the one that Ve was so obsessed with. I love the way Ms. Rossman lets us imagine the aliens the way we want to, while still giving us hints of how they’re different from us.

I absolutely adore Ve, just all around. Something about her…she just seems sweet. Like one of those people you see and you instantly want to smile and hug them. Those are some of my favorite people, and that’s the vibe I get from her. I love how she comes across as intelligent, or intuitive, at least. She knows she has a weakness, but she thinks of how she can use it as a strength for her people. She isn’t afraid to put herself on the line, to try and ensure the best for her people. I love so much about the story, and most of it centers around Ve…which makes sense, considering she’s the focus of the story, but anyway.

The ending, ah, the ending. It’s so bittersweet. I can’t decide if I like it the way it is, or if I’m mad cause there’s not more to read. Either way, this is a gem, and I recommend it.

TiffanyCrystal2 Comments

REVIEW: “Blood-Stained Letters Found in a Roadside Shrine on the Outskirts of Kyoto” by Stewart C. Baker

Review of Stewart C. Baker, “Blood-stained Letters Found in a Roadside Shrine on the Outskirts of Kyoto”, Syntax and Salt 4, 2017: Read Online. Reviewed by Tiffany Crystal

This one sucks you in. I didn’t think I was going to like it at first, to be honest. I’m really not fond of first person POV, whether it’s in the form of a letter or journal, or, well..anything. So I saw this and resigned myself to misery. That lasted about, oh, three minutes? Give or take? Then I started going “….waiiit a minute….” By the end, I was leaning forward on my elbows, nose thisfar from the monitor, and probably looking like an absolute loon.

So now I’m left with a different problem. I have to review this story, but I don’t want to ruin it for anyone, either. Some of you, if you know anything about Japanese mythology will probably be able to figure out what’s going on before it gets to the end. The rest of you though…well, you might just find yourself browsing through Wikipedia for more information. The story…shouldn’t be cute, but it kinda is? Mostly because of the mental image I have of the person writing the letters. Ahh, I don’t want to spoil anything. Let’s just say, at the end? The story is no longer cute. It is a story of bloody revenge that is very satisfying.

I’m looking forward to reading more from this author.

TiffanyCrystal1 Comment

REVIEW: “Red Queen’s Lullaby” by Ariel Ptak

Review of Ariel Ptak, “Red Queen’s Lullaby”, in Myths, Monsters, and Mutations, edited by Jessica Augustsson (JayHenge Publications, 2017): 321-322. — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Ptak’s story includes an impressive amount of scene-setting for being as short as it is, painting a clear and vivid picture of place and history. There is not much to the story itself, but there is a clear resolution at the end. I do wonder, though, if the final three paragraphs are necessary or if, perhaps paradoxically, the story would’ve been stronger with a more ambiguous ending.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “The Smile” by Irene Grazzini

Review of Irene Grazzini, Joyce Myerson (trans.), “The Smile”, Luna Station Quarterly 32 (2017): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

What I often find frustrating about short stories is that they are just so…well, short. It’s hard to do a lot in not many words. So when I get a story like this, where all it takes is the title, a name, and a few words from the first paragraph to make me go “I know what this is going to be about!”, it makes me very happy.

The story did not live up to this initial rush of happiness as much as I wished it would, though. It takes quite a long time to get started, with the narrator spending a lot of precious words on description. Now, this complaint is squarely situated in my mouth as someone who tends to skip over a lot of purely descriptive scenes. In novels, I don’t mind them as much as they’re easy to skip, but in a short story, it sort of feels like a waste. I want the action, not the descriptions!

This story is translated — I assume from Italian but do not know for certain. If there is one thing harder than writing speculative fiction, I’ve always thought it must be translating it, because you have to be true to the original story and the original voice, and neither of these is a trivial matter. There is an added layer of difficulty when rendering a story in another language that arises from distinguishing what must be translated from what must be not. Names, in particular, must be handled with care. Given that I knew from the start of the second paragraph who the narrator was, the naming of her child as “Andrew” jarred me. Knowing what I know about the narrator, and especially given that her husband is named as “Francesco” a few sentences later on, this makes me wonder if “Andrew” in the original was “Andrea”; a later pair of names had me wondering the same thing, where it felt like one had been translated but not the other. Were I standing in Myerson’s shoes, I would probably have translated either all of the names (Andrew, Catherine, Francis etc.) or none (Andrea, Caterina, Francesco, etc.).

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REVIEW: “Wasteland” Stephen R. Smith

Review of Stephen R. Smith, “Wasteland”, in Myths, Monsters, and Mutations, edited by Jessica Augustsson (JayHenge Publications, 2017): 267-268. — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

The guiding question throughout this story is “Who is Eliot?” Despite being introduced to us in the very first sentence — and indeed being the only character that we meet — this question is not clearly answered until the very end of the story, at which point one lingering question remains — why is he named ‘Eliot’? But that question is never answered because this story is quite short, almost more a vignette than a story, and resolution does not need to be the order of the day here.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “In This Life and the Next” by Katherine Inskip

Review of Katherine Inskip, “In This Life and the Next”, Luna Station Quarterly 32 (2017): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

I struggle with second-person POV so much. I can totally understand why an author would choose it — I’ve had my own fair share of writing something that simply need to be written in that voice — but as a reader I find it so often off-putting, because if the “you” is “me”, then the narrator has gotten something totally wrong, this isn’t me, this isn’t my story.

So I always start a second-person POV story with a healthy dose of trepidation. Maybe this one will be the one where the “you” is in fact me.

It wasn’t, oh, it wasn’t. But when I realize who the narrator is, and who she is talking to…I’ll forgive the author pretty much anything, because there is no way this story could’ve been written in anything but second-person POV, and it’s brilliant.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment