REVIEW: “Frostbite” by Jessica Walsh

Review of Jessica Walsh, “Frostbite”, in Little Creepers (Sewn Together Reflections, LLC, 2018): 10-16 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

The opening scene is of a man driving along a deserted winter highway early in the morning, and Walsh uses few words to effectively evoke that sense of emptiness and desolation and cold. But as the man drives along, it becomes increasingly clear that he is not as alone as he thinks — or hopes — and that no amount of turning up the radiator will keep out the cold.

This story hit a sweet spot for me — it was short enough to be a quick fix before bedtime, but long enough to really sink my teeth into — and the carefully placed miniature illustrations contributed nicely to the feeling of foreboding that grew with the story.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “In the Pipes Below” by Jessica Walsh

Review of Jessica Walsh, “In the Pipes Below”, in Little Creepers (Sewn Together Reflections, LLC, 2018): 5-8 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Something is lurking in the pipes. The narrator can’t quite come out and say what it is, can’t even name it, merely calling it it. It slithers out of drains, and hides in toilets, and it is drawn to places where the scent of sweat is heavy.

That’s one problem with it. The other is that no one other than the narrator seems to know that it exists. That doesn’t make it any less fiercesome — and indeed perhaps makes it even more! For how can one escape something that maybe isn’t even there?

This is a straight-up creepy-crawly horror story, ending on a “what if” cliff edge. I didn’t find it particularly scary myself, but for anyone who has their own fears of what lies in the pipes below, this would probably be quite an unsettling story to read.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Toothache” by Jessica Walsh

Review of Jessica Walsh, “Toothache”, in Little Creepers (Sewn Together Reflections, LLC, 2018): 30-32 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Content note: This story is not for those who dislike dentists!

I’m not someone who dislike dentists (I worshipped my childhood dentist, who pulled 11 of my teeth and yet I still always looked forward to seeing him!), which means that I whole-heartedly enjoyed this story of someone waiting in the dentist’s to have an aching tooth removed. It was one part horror and one part humor and the two parts fed into each other beautifully. Gold star to Walsh for this one!

Sara L. Uckelman2 Comments

REVIEW: “For Sale” by Jessica Walsh

Review of Jessica Walsh, “For Sale”, in Little Creepers (Sewn Together Reflections, LLC, 2018): 99-102 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

This was a smashing story to end the anthology on. The basic premise — what it is that the narrator is selling — made me laugh with delight as soon as I clocked what it was. And then came the true chilling horror as the details of the premise got successively filled in. No gore, all psychological games, and the ugly enjoyment that comes from watching someone rationalise the impossible.

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REVIEW: “Lovely Decisions” by Jessica Walsh

Review of Jessica Walsh, “Lovely Decisions”, in Little Creepers (Sewn Together Reflections, LLC, 2018): 95-98 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Summary in one sentence: In a setting that could be either post-apocalyptic or merely futuristic (one sometimes looks at the world’s current trajectory and wonders if there’s any difference), Ash and her lover Rebecca are forced to come to terms with the consequences of decisions that neither of them really wanted to make.

I found this story raised more questions than it answered; it felt lacking in details needed to help me understand the importance of the situation that Ash and Rebecca found them in. As a result, I never quite felt like I was following the conversation properly. This was particularly bothersome in the opening paragraphs when I was unable to tell whether the topic of their conversation was rape, or not — something pretty important to determine so that I can put appropriate content notes on reviews! In this case, I think the answer is “not rape”, but the story still involves a degree of sexual violence that some might wish to stay away from.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “I Wake Up in Strange Places” by Jessica Walsh

Review of Jessica Walsh, “I Wake Up In Strange Places”, in Little Creepers (Sewn Together Reflections, LLC, 2018): 46-50 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

When it came time to settle down and read a story before bed, I picked this one because of its excellent title. It’s the sort of title that clearly has a story behind it, begging to be told, and yet the reader has no idea what kind of story it will be.

The story opens on the unnamed narrator awaking yet again in a strange place, and follows what happens after. It is remarkably factual: As a reader, I get told what happens, but not how or why. And even some of the what questions remain unanswered, as even the narrator themself doesn’t know the answer. In the end, I felt the story lacked resolution: Without the background hows and whys, I didn’t care enough about the narrator for the whats to matter.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “White Noise” by Jessica Walsh

Review of Jessica Walsh, “White Noise”, in Little Creepers (Sewn Together Reflections, LLC, 2018): 35-38 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Sometimes, all it takes is a single moment for a person’s life to change irrevocably. In “White Noise”, we get to see one of these moments in the life of an unnamed narrator, and to see how she must grapple with the consequences of that moment and the decisions she must take afterwards.

If I had to classify the genre of this story, I’d put it firmly in “paranormal” rather than “horror”; it may read as horror to some, but I found I had figured out what the ending would be too soon for the story to have any uncertainty or weighty anticipation for me.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Giving In” by Jessica Walsh

Review of Jessica Walsh, “Giving In”, in Little Creepers (Sewn Together Reflections, LLC, 2018): 24-26 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Content warning: Suicide.

This brief story starts off dark and tremendously sad — Christmas night, a man contemplating suicide, awash with memories of committing his senile mother to care, how in the aftermath he lost not only his mother but his wife and son, too. The thread that runs through all the events and emotions, past and present, is a music box that once played on the man’s mother’s dresser, and which he hoped would one day play for his son. In the end, the song of the music box is, I think, intended to leave the reader with a sense of hope, but I’m not sure how successfully it did so: I just felt rather down after finishing it.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: Little Creepers by Jessica Walsh

Review of Jessica Walsh, Little Creepers, (Sewn Together Reflections, LLC, 2018) — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This year, SFFReviews participated in #RevPit on twitter for the first time — where authors promote their books for review and reviewers indicate which books they’d be interested in reviewing — and that’s how we received a copy of Jessica Walsh’s short collection of horror stories. Two of the stories, “Whispering Waters” and “Lurking Status”, had previously been published, but the rest are new. Interspersed throughout the tales are interesting illustrations which lend a new dimension to the stories.

It is an eclectic collection, ranging from the single-page almost flash-fic story “And Then There Were One Hundred and Twenty-Eight” to the nearly-novellette 43-page story “My Life”. As a result, I read the stories out of order, rather than sequentially, so that I could pick a length that suited my reading desires at a given time. As is customary, we’ve listed the contents below (pretty much my only significant complaint is that I would’ve liked to have had a table of contents in the book itself!), and will review the stories individually and link the reviews back here as they are published:

To speak to the collection as a whole: I often struggle with where “horror” fits into SFFReviews. It certainly can fall under the umbrella of “speculative fiction”, especially in its psychological guises. Sometimes horror can be purely mundane, though; for instance, when it stems from physical violence and gore. It was hard to categorise these stories, some of which were definitely on the speculative end of things, while others (like “Giving In”) were so mundane as to be merely depressing rather than horrible. Good speculative horror that is well done I truly enjoy, and that’s what keeps me dipping back into the horror genre time and time again. In this collection, some of the stories lived up to my hopes and satisfied my desires; but unfortunately only some.

Sara L. Uckelman14 Comments

REVIEW: “Tenari” by Michael Merriam

Review of Michael Merriam, “Tenari”, in Catherine Lundoff, ed., Scourge of the Seas of Time (and Space) (Queen of Swords Press, 2018): 168-180 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Captain Reed’s ship, the Black Manta, hasn’t always been black. Decades ago, the ship was just the Manta, an attack ship in the Colonial Defense Forces. At the time, Captain Reed wasn’t captain, merely senior lieutenant, and her current XO, Roger Baldry, was navigator and second officer. But it’s been a long time since Reed and Baldry encountered the mythical alien race, the Tenari, and — when no one else did — lived to tell the tale. Now the Manta is a pirate ship, no longer a military ship, and Reed and Baldry are facing the Tenari again. They were lucky once to escape with their lives; will they be lucky enough to escape a second time?

Merriam’s story is filled with rich detail and a panoply of characters, which I liked. However, two things about this story bothered or confused me. First, half the time the captain was named Kathleen Reed, the other half she was Katherine Reed, and I was never sure if this was intentional or just something that slipped past proofreading. Second, with almost no exception, the female characters were referred to solely by their given name, while the male characters were referred to by either their surname or surname + title. It’s such a small thing, but to see “Janet” (Sobrinski) working side by side (Roger) “Baldry”, “Mr. Roberts” the helmsman working with crewmember “Tilly” (no surname), was a constant reminder of how even when female characters are given equal screen time with male in a story, they are still treated unequally. We’ve come so far in terms of representation in SFF stories; but there is still so much further left to go.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment