REVIEW: “Dust & Bone” by Michael McGlade

Review of Michael McGlade, “Dust & Bone”, Persistent Visions (4 August 2017). Read online. Reviewed by Essence B. Scott .

Michael McGlade’s “Dust & Bone” was a difficult read; it felt to me that the story was romanticizing impending death and drug use, though the drugs are supernatural. The blurb says that this story about a guy who “lives a hard life on the edges of society and his relationship with his supernatural supplier and love interest Dust is beautiful, poignant, and, as it goes in many love stories, tragic.” I personally did not find this story to be tragic. I felt distant from the characters and their lives. Bone was too clingy to Dust. I understand that Dust is his love interest, but it’s tragic to see Bone feel like he’s nothing without Dust. Is that what love is like? If so, It is not something I’d want.

Having said that, there are some good bits in this story. The beginning, though it feels thin, is decent. Bone is angry and grieving. This story feels retrospective in that it takes us back through the middle-ground of their relationship—before Dust’s death, before her grip (so to speak) on Earth began to weaken when she discovered lumps on her body. Still, though, she will do anything for Bone, and that feels unhealthy to me also. Shouldn’t there be a limit to what you’ll do for a person before you put yourself at risk? I guess this feels unhealthy because I see that I do the same thing in my own life and know it is unhealthy, but still do what I do.

“Dust & Bone” was slow-paced for eight printed pages. The end made everything neatly packaged, but this story felt very thin and heavy on destructive behaviors. I barely highlighted anything on my printed copy because nothing made me curious; McGlade told us everything that happened, as though he was in the room watching. There was no distance.

Overall, this story was not one of Persistent Vision’s best. I hope to read more immersive stories in the future.

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REVIEW: “Pan-Humanism: Hope and Pragmatics” by Jess Barber and Sara Saab

Review of Jess Barber and Sara Saab, “Pan-Humanism: Hope and Pragmatics”, Clarkesworld 132: Read online. Reviewed by Kerstin Hall.

Two people strive to restore a broken Earth, even as their efforts push them apart. Amir and Mani are devoted to renewing toxic cities and waterless countries, and they are devoted to each other. Circumstances encourage them to choose between their purpose and their feelings, in a world which demands pragmaticism.

This story is gentle and romantic and elegant. The characters are nuanced. They grow together and apart and together again, and their relationship serves as both a source of conflict and of comfort.

This story wasn’t necessarily my favourite of the September selection, purely based on personal preference. There was much that I found poignant, and even more that I found clever, but I never felt fully invested. For me, the plot was too dispersed. My impression was of a series of vignettes.

The reader is offered snippets of a post apocalyptic life. We flit from one small triumph to another and nothing ever goes catastrophically wrong. There are small disappointments, but the trajectory of hope is always upwards.

Maybe this one was simply too melancholy for me, even in its ultimate optimism.

 

 

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REVIEW: “Penelope Waits” by Dennis Danvers

Review of Dennis Danvers, “Penelope Waits”, Apex Magazine 101: Read Online. Reviewed by Joanna Z. Weston.

I love a light piece of science fiction, and “Penelope Waits” delivers in spades, from the opening monologue about Penelope and her suitors, through to the most optimistic take on alien abduction I’ve seen in prose.

The main character, Cindy, has a sharp mind, a mediocre job, and a cheating boyfriend. Her cynical narration has just enough bite, without succumbing to jaded apathy. In fact, this is a remarkably hopeful, sweet story. When Ralph reports that he’s been abducted by aliens, she assumes he’s spent the week with another girl. When she discovers the truth, her love of literature (and the textbook from the course she’s taking, having gone back to school to better herself) help her recognize the opportunity to strike off on her own adventure.

Though this is a humorous story, the references to classical literature – The Odyssey is obviously featured, but Dante’s Inferno comes up as well – are well-integrated and really contribute to the story. A sincere belief in the importance of literature flows through the story and gives weight to both the narrator and the narrative. I love that Cindy is defined by her insight into literature, curiosity, and compassion, and not by acts of ninja-level acrobatics, sex-appeal, or daring. She’s a remarkably realistic and sympathetic heroine.

The ending brings a sense of freedom, of possibility and expansiveness that surprised me. I think this is a story I’ll be revisiting in the future, when I’m feeling hopeless and need to rest in a better, brighter version of the world. This is a story that not only made me smile, it left me feeling genuinely hopeful, which is no small feat.

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REVIEW: “Emshalur’s Hand Stays” by Anaea Lay

Review of Anaea Lay, “Emshalur’s Hand Stays”, Podcastle: 489 — Listen Online. Reviewed by Heather Rose Jones.

The interplay between gods and their mortal worshippers reminded me a bit of Lord Dunsany’s mythic fiction. What responsibility does a god have for his people? And is it possible for devotion to reflect only love and joy when it’s tied so closely to salvation? I thought the gradually unfolding understanding of the narrator’s identity was cleverly done, though I had to work hard to suspend my need to figure things out and found the first half of the story confusing to follow. I can’t say that this story is one of my favorites–it just missed some of the aspects that make a story click for me. But the originality and the subtle worldbuilding were impressive.

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REVIEW: “Blessings Erupt” by Aliya Whiteley

 

Review of Aliya Whiteley’s, “Blessings Erupt”, Interzone #272: Purchase here. Reviewed by Mark Hepworth

A little way into the future, an ecological catastrophe has left us with a society plagued with the after effects of radioactive plastics. Hope seems to be one of a small number of people able to treat the many people who are dying of tumours caused by the ubiquity of these plastics left over from our former world. The style of setting puts me in mind of her “Brushwork” (Giganotosaurus, May 2016), as it focuses on a small, personal element in the middle of a much larger story. Intriguing elements pop up – some sort of eco-religion, a new economic basis – but the focus tightens on Hope.

Hope is not a well person – quite literally, as she takes the sickness into herself while curing others – and this life with a rare gift has left her bitter yet determined. The real meat of the story is in how others treat her – with thanks, and awe, and gratitude, but maybe not as a real person. The people around her want her to feel her sacrifice makes her a good person, but only because they will feel better if a saint is sacrificing herself for them, rather than them taking advantage of a scapegoat to save themselves.

With prose both beautiful and effective, this story leaves you pondering.

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REVIEW: “The Gates of Balawat” by Maria Haskins

Review of Maria Haskins, “The Gates of Balawat”, Strange Horizons (Samovar) 25 Sept. 2017: Read online. Reviewed by Danielle Maurer.

Set in a post-apocalyptic future, this story follows its nameless main character into the ruins of the British Museum. The main character and his team have been tasked with scanning the artifacts so limited edition replicas can be produced and sold to wealthy collectors. The originals will then be destroyed to preserve the company’s license. During the course of this job, the main character encounters one of the titular Gates of Balawat.

On the outset, this seemed like a story I would enjoy. Museums are some of my favorite places, and I’ve made an amateur’s hobby of learning about archaeology. The twist of setting it in the future addresses the old question of so many archaeologists: what will the archaeologists of the future think of us when they dredge through our ruins? Haskins touches on this throughout the story, and the bits and pieces of her larger world that leak through make the reader curious to learn more.

However, I found the execution lacking in places. Haskins makes it clear that the doors, the Gates of Balawat, have some special significance for the main character; they cause a “dream” that stirs within him throughout the novel. Yet the story never satisfactorily answers what, precisely, that significance is. We learn so little of the character’s past that we cannot guess at why the doors affect him so, or why he should dream of them so often. Ultimately, it causes the climax to fall short of what it could have been.

Despite that, there are still moments of beauty in the translated prose, filtered through a message about how meaningless our remnants will be once we are gone, that make this story worth reading.

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REVIEW: “Hunting the Blue Rim” by R. L. Martinez

Review of R. L. Martinez, “Hunting the Blue Rim”, Luna Station Quarterly 31: Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

The story opens with quite a bit of scene and history setting: We are told much about the geography, and about physical aspects of Spur herself, but what is most interesting are the references to “What Came Before”. It is clear that this is intended to be what we are familiar with today in our ordinary world and lives — oceans, cities, etc. — but what is intriguing is the question that is left unanswered at the start: Before what?

This question is never answered.

There are other aspects of the logic of the story that I find perplexing. “Hunting was not a sport or game,” we are told, but when Spur kills her first quarry, she does so to obtain favor from the Green Lady, not from any need. Though she eats the heart and the liver, she then leaves the rest to be despoiled. As we are told her purpose in searching for her true quarry, we find it is not for any bodily need but a social one — unless she kills her quarry on this, her third attempt, Spur will “spend her life in perpetual childhood and servitude while her magic remained asleep and caged until it shriveled and died inside her”. It is hard to see how this doesn’t make the hunting a game or sport, albeit one with important social consequences; even with these, it is still a game to be played, to be won or lost.

In the end, I felt like I was never quite as invested in Spur and her hunt as I should have been; nor was there any final twist at the end to surprise me in the climax. It was a solid story, but not sparkling.

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REVIEW: “The Watchers” by Shelly Jones

Review of Shelly Jones, “The Watchers”, Luna Station Quarterly 31: Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

The telling of this story has a fairy-tale like quality. No one is named. It is the man, and the woman, and his mother, and her grandfather, and the baker, and the other people of the town. But the story does not involve any of the standard fairy tale tropes; it is, instead, entirely of itself.

The title of the story is not especially explanatory, and even 3/4 of the way in, it is not at all clear who the watchers are. Sometimes, though, reading Jones’s detailed and precise prose — such as the following:

The single bee squatted there, its wings pressed back taut against its body. He could feel each of its legs, thin wisps of muscle, begin to give way as the bee slowly crawled up his leg. It moved methodically, each leg stepping in syncopated intervals, up his thigh and past his waist to his belly.

— one feels like it is the reader themself who is watching.

From start to finish, I had no idea where this story was going or where it would end up. I would love to hear it told aloud, around a flickering campfire on a dark night.

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REVIEW: “Crossing” by A. C. Wise

Review of A. C. Wise, “Crossing”, Podcastle 488 — Listen Online. Reviewed by Heather Rose Jones

This was a very lightly fantastic piece–the sort where a slight shift in point of view could make it simply imaginative realistic fiction rather than outright fantasy. It builds up gradually following the swimmer Emma Rose and her love affair with the sea and the idea of some day crossing the Channel. The figure that she meets beneath the water might be a mermaid, or it might be a personification of her obsession and self-doubt. We see the protagonist from childhood to early adulthood, working out how to balance her love for swimming with the other things she desires. Learning whether the mermaid is a jealous lover or simply herself. In some ways, I found the story a bit slow. More atmospheric than plot-driven. But the overall shape worked in the end, like a wave building up in the sea and eventually breaking on the shore.

(Originally published 2017 in LampLight.)

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REVIEW: “While the Black Stars Burn” by Lucy A. Snyder

Review of Lucy A. Snyder, “While the Black Stars Burn”, Apex Magazine 100: Read Online. Reviewed by Joanna Z. Weston.

This is a story about scars, both literal and figurative. Caroline is a gifted violinist, but her enjoyment of the art is tainted by her father’s expectations and abuse (Please consider that a trigger warning). I am not generally a horror fan, but I deeply enjoyed the blend of real work and fantastical horror at work here. Caroline is a rich, fully developed character, and her experiences broke my heart and chilled my spine.

The story builds up the ordinary world of Caroline’s life beautifully, providing a solid ground for the supernatural horror that is to come. I’ve heard that it’s important to establish a story’s genre immediately, but in this case the slow build pays off in the end.

The ending is one of unearned consequences. Caroline does not deserve the things that have happened to her, but at the same time, she can not escape them. It’s not a happy ending, but I’ve been mulling over it for days. It refuses to let me go, which is the mark of a powerful story.

Recommended for people who like their horror mixed in with the real world.

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