REVIEW: “The Darwinist” by Diaa Jubaili

Review of Diaa Jubaili, “The Darwinist”, Strange Horizons 30 Oct. 2017: Read online. Reviewed by Danielle Maurer.

It’s inevitable when writing regular reviews of a publication that a reviewer will find a story that doesn’t resonate with her. “The Darwinist” is one of those stories for me.

Set in 20th century Iraq, the story tells of the birth of Shafiq, a boy with a furry, banana-shaped birthmark and the son of a reviled Darwinist. After leaping back in time to discuss the boy’s father, the story then tells of Shafiq’s adulthood, searching for a banana to give his pregnant wife, and how that search ends in tragedy.

When I say “the story tells,” I do mean tells. “The Darwinist” has a distinctly newspaper-like quality to it as it lays out the events of Shafiq’s life. It maintains a birds-eye view, never taking the time to deeply explore any of the characters or moments it discusses. There’s little dialogue or opportunity to show the story. Instead, it reads like a synopsis of a novel without much plot (save for the banana search that takes up the last third).

It’s entirely possible that this story is meant as an allegory, and I’m missing some political or cultural connotations that would give it greater emotional depth (it is told in translation from Arabic). But as it is, the narrative distance from the characters and the lack of a clear direction for the early plot kept me from fully engaging with the story.

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REVIEW: “Mourners” by Joe Baumann

Review of Joe Baumann, “Mourners”, Syntax and Salt 4, 2017: Read Online. Reviewed by Tiffany Crystal

I read a story once about a person who woke up and had completely forgotten how to read. He could write, but he was unable to read the words that he had wrote. He had to relearn the sounds each letter made, and how they went together to form words. The premise of “Mourners” is very similar to that idea, but instead of a mental ability, the people woke up missing body parts. One person woke up without feet, another without eyes. Someone else lost their nose, and a famous singer lost their vocal cords.

The author never goes into why it happened, a decision I’m not entirely sure I agree or disagree with, but he does a good job of painting a picture of how people might react to the sudden change. The “why” of it still bugs me though. Was it mother nature getting revenge? Was it aliens? Was it a shifting of realities?

The last one is the only one that makes sense, to me, considering that there was no blood or anything when the body parts went missing. They just disappeared as if they had never been there in the first place. I would love to hear other theories, so feel free to read and share your thoughts on the matter.

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REVIEW: “The Case of the Mysterious Meat” by Kate Ingram

Review of Kate Ingram, “The Case of the Mysterious Meat”, Apex Magazine 101: Read Online. Reviewed by Joanna Z. Weston.

This light noir tale won a high school literary competition, with the prize of publication in Apex Magazine. You might expect me to comment on the youth of the author, or to make qualified remarks about the quality of the work. Honestly, the constraints of the competition are even more interesting than the age of the writer! Yes, Ms. Ingram is currently a high school junior. But this piece was written for a competition in which the participants were given a prompt and had only one hour to write flash fiction in response. An hour, from inspiration to completion! I marvel at the audacity of the task. And yet, despite these limitations, Ms. Ingram put together a story that made me literally laugh out loud more than once (and let me tell you, that’s tough; I am easily amused, but it takes a lot to get more than a smirk out of me)

Recommended for those who enjoy noir stories with more than a touch of the ridiculous, and for anyone who is curious how the next generation of writers is coming along.

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REVIEW: “Suffer Little Children” by Robert Shearman

Review of Robert Shearman, “Suffer Little Children”, Nightmare Magazine 61: Read Online. Reviewed by Winnie Ramler.

What is it about governesses and boarding schools that make for such excellent spooky stories? Perhaps it’s the constant cold and rain that seems to be associated with such locations as well as the creepy old schoolmarms who always show up at the most suspect moments.

Part of what lends to the tension in this particular story is the way the reader is let in on the details slowly. This slow reveal allows the reader to speculate as to why the main character- Susan Cowley- was fired from her governess position. She is sent to the suspiciously named H___ Priory where her interactions with the children are a little bit abnormal. How does everything tie together?

While not outright “scary”, Shearman’s story was unsettling in that there is a natural distrust of every character borne out of my own paranoia vis a vie other horror stories as well as the crafting of characters whose motives are as muddy as the ground after the constant rain. While I enjoyed trying to figure out what was going on, I was also surprised by the ending and pleased at what was still left open for interpretation.

If you enjoy creepy children in a Victorian setting, give this a read. It’s a fun classic spooky story.

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REVIEW: “Singularity Alice” by Lorraine Schein

Review of Lorraine Schein, “Singularity Alice”, Syntax and Salt 4, 2017: Read Online. Reviewed by Tiffany Crystal

No sugar coating, no lying: I was bored. I was expecting so much more, especially when I saw that it was a human exploring a supermassive black hole. I have been fascinated by that very idea since I was eight, okay? So you can imagine my disappointment when I found myself skimming – skimming – through it, trying to see if it picked up along the way. It didn’t. I kept finding myself adding “with zombies” at the end of sentences, thinking maybe it was just too passive voiced. I finally just had to admit that I was bored because it was…well, boring.

I’m willing to cut it some slack though. I liked the “White Hole” ending, and it’s possible I was just too excited about the idea, and was unfairly biased. I suggest reading it for yourself, just to be on the safe side.

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REVIEW: “Children of Air” by Gabriela Santiago

Review of Gabriela Santiago, “Children of Air”, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #36 Early Autumn: pp. 2-8. Purchase here. Reviewed by Ben Serna-Grey.

 

Second-person narrative is something that can be a bit of a barrier for me in terms of really getting into a piece. This story is opened up with a lovely little selection from Robert Lois Stevenson, then jumps right into second-person narration, which admittedly raised my hackles a little bit.

The saving grace of this work is that the narration is fairly loose; it reads more like guidelines as opposed to a sequence of actions and thoughts you’re supposedly taking.

The story tells, in a sequence of vignettes, about the Children of St. Paul, aka the children of air, who are ghost-like figures.

Everything blends together into a dream-like blur as the story goes on. It starts out telling you about the park, and the plaque there dedicated to the Children of St. Paul, and how the park isn’t so suited to living children. Then the “you” addressed in the story falls asleep, falls into a surreal dream, wakes up and take seven of the children home for a sleepover. Meanwhile the weight of the children begins to weigh heavily on your emotions, and you’re urged over and over to drink milk to help with that burden. I don’t want to give away spoilers for anyone interested in the story, so I’ll just say the ending does come with an implied message.

I enjoyed the surreal aspects of this story, and the overall arc and message of it. The only thing that still ended up keeping me from really connecting was the second-person narration. Even still, I’d recommend a read, as it’s still skillfully made with a nice blend of melancholy, surrealism, and wit.

 

 

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REVIEW: “The Future of Hunger in the Age of Programmable Matter” by Sam J. Miller

Review of Sam J. Miller, “The Future of Hunger in the Age of Programmable Matter”, Tor.com (2017): Read Online. Reviewed by Danielle Maurer.

I’m not sure what I expected when I picked up this story to read, but it wasn’t a gay love story of sorts told during a post-polymer kaiju apocalypse. That said, I’m certainly here for it.

The story takes a science fiction framework and props it against a very human backdrop. The technobabble we expect is here, but it takes a back seat to a story about three core characters: Otto, our first-person narrator and former drug addict; Trevor, Otto’s controlling boyfriend with the too-perfect exterior; and Aarav, the visitor who comes between them. The story is split into two distinct halves: a key night before the kaiju made of programmable matter wreck New York City, and life in the refuge camps of upstate New York.

The prose has its moments of beauty, though in places it leans toward the overwrought. The frequent run-on sentences give it a breathy, babbling, almost nervous quality which can sometimes be grating.

But despite the mechanic flaws, the emotional core of the tale is powerfully depicted. Miller draws a realistic picture of Otto as a recovering addict, constantly worried that he’s not good enough, that he’ll fall back into his old destructive habits. And even though Otto thinks Trevor is perfect, Miller’s skillful depiction lets the reader know how much Trevor takes advantage of Otto’s mindset. It’s a heartbreaking tale, for much is lost on both macro and micro scales, but it’s also one of self-empowerment for Otto. Well worth a read.

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REVIEW: “Seven” by Sarah Krenicki

Review of Sarah Krenicki, “Seven”, Syntax and Salt 4, 2017: Read Online. Reviewed by Tiffany Crystal.

I cannot express just how much I love this story. It has magic, and children, and growing up, and fireflies, and magic. Sarah Krenicki takes us for a short trip into a world where children gain magic on their seventh birthday, and lose it the day after they turn eight. It’s a rite of passage all kids go through to become “big kids.”

All kids except for little Katy. She turns seven, gets her magic…and never loses it, even when she turns eight, then ten and twelve. In this, Katy is almost a Peter Pan figure, with her older sister (or so I assume) playing the part of Hook. Or perhaps it would be better to say that Katy is Peter, her magic is Wendy, and her sister is the jealous fairy Tinker Bell.

However you want to look at the characters, the story is definitely worth a read…or two or three.

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REVIEW: “The White Fox” by L. P. Lee

Review of L. P. Lee, “The White Fox”, Podcastle: 492 — Listen Online. Reviewed by Heather Rose Jones

“The White Fox” is an evocative fantasy-of-agency, though of a somewhat displaced agency. The protagonist is escaping from a briefly-sketched prison camp in Japanese occupied Korea and receives the assistance of a supernatural figure when she (I think it’s a woman? It’s told in first person and the reader is female–not sure if gender was explicit) is in danger of being recaptured. While the story was solidly written, I felt distanced from the immediacy of the action. The memory and threat of the prison camp didn’t feel viscerally tangible, and thinking back, I cant remember a clear motivation for why the protagonist was offered protection and assistance. I thing part of my reaction is that the protagonist was a bit of a “damsel” – in peril and rescued, but saved by outside agency. I liked the way the mythic elements were solidly rooted to place and culture and time. And, as usual, I really enjoyed how the setting was established with casual brushstrokes, leading the listener to construct their own understanding rather than having it handed to them. But overall the story felt…thin.

(Originally published 2015 in Eastlit.)

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REVIEW: “The Fall of Tryos” by Eddie D. Moore

Review of Eddie D. Moore, “The Fall of Tryos”, in Starward Tales II, edited by CB Droege (Manawaker Studio, 2017): 85-95 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

This retelling of the siege of Troy is an eclectic mix of archaic and futuristic. The details of the story are little changed — Helen has been abducted from Menelaus; Menelaus’s friends are called to make good upon the Oath of Tyndareus; Ulysses (yes, he’s called that and not Odysseus) arrives belatedly to save the day — and many of the details are not made explicit, as Moore presupposes the reader’s familiarity with the original. For example, one must already know who Paris is to know who the character Pari or Peri (both names are used; I’m not sure if this is intentional or if one is a systemic typo) is.

It’s never entirely easy to simply transpose an ancient story into a futuristic setting. Many things — names, titles, ranks — can be kept the same, with other things — technology, for instance — simply being upgraded (the original Odysseus could only dream of space ships, laser swords, and Aspida fields). But there are certain aspects of the past that one can only hope will not be present in the future, and it is always a bit disappointing when one reads a futuristic story that still clings to the negative parts of the past. Sometimes it can be a very small thing, such as when Ulysses tells his Strategos that “our wives, children, and neighbors will feast our victory for weeks” (p. 85). Only their wives? Are none of them married to men? Are there no women in the fleet? One can only hope that in the future, it will be “our husbands, wives, and children”, or even better just “our family and friends” that celebrate our victories with us.

Like other stories in the anthology, this one is somewhat let down by the proofreading. In addition to the Pari/Peri fluctuation, there are again many missing commas, which detract (even if only minimally) from the pleasure that the story itself gives.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment