REVIEW: “The Einsteiners” by J. Askew

Review of J. Askew, “The Einsteiners”, in David G. Clark, Callum Colback, Joe Butler, and Alex Hareland, eds., Beneath Strange Stars, (TL;DR Press, 2020): 237-247 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

I appreciate a novel take on time-travel, and that’s what Askew’s “skimming” is, liking skipping a stone across a flat pond, but instead of a rock and a flat space of water, it’s a person and a black hole.

Esther, the narrator, is one of the Einsteiners, one of the few people who has a legal license to skim. All she hopes is that she’ll get through to the other side of the black hole known as Lilith — a hundred years into the future — at the same time as her girlfriend, Andee, and before humanity makes first contact with an alien civilisation. Unfortunately, only one of those hopes will be realised…

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: "Expecting to Fly" by Edd Vick and Manny Frishberg

Review of Edd Vick and Manny Frishberg, “Expecting to Fly”, Analog Science Fiction and Fact March/April (2020): 94–100 (Kindle) – Purchase Here. Reviewed by John Atom.

Contains spoilers.

Yetsade is the sole survivor of a spaceship that crashed on an alien planet where the predominant species is a group of bird-like creatures that roam the high skies. Yetsade grows up fully ingrained into the natives’ culture, even though she’s painfully aware that her anatomical differences — the lack of wings — will never allow her to fly. Eventually, another human spaceship arrives on the planet and takes Yetsade back to humanity. With the eager help of her teacher, Rhonda, Yetsade is able to adapt quickly to a human life, though she struggles to consider herself as part of the species. Her heart will always be with her former family.

From a science fictional perspective, “Expecting to Fly” has a rather implausible premise. It is essentially a “Mowgli in space” kind of a story, except that its futuristic trappings somehow make it less palatable than Kipling’s classic. It’s simply inconceivable that a child would survive in such an alien environment, or that it would be allowed to return after such a short acclimation period. This makes it especially disappointing since it is an otherwise fine story. Through the perspective of a well-realized protagonist, the authors give an exquisite description of the planets native life and their harsh customs. It was bold and original. Even Yetsade’s solution at the end was clever despite the overall implausibility of the situation.

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REVIEW: “Blind Charity” by Lyle Enright

Review of Lyle Enright, “Blind Charity”, in David G. Clark, Callum Colback, Joe Butler, and Alex Hareland, eds., Beneath Strange Stars, (TL;DR Press, 2020): 227-235 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

I did not understand this story — too may obscure references to unknown gods and unspeakable heresies. I didn’t grow up in this world, so I didn’t understand all the cultural references, or even what, exactly happened. And though the Huntress, Viorica Zelgathi had a revelation at the end of the story, the reader, unfortunately, was not party to the same revelation, so I was just left in darkness.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Perennial” by Laura Duerr

Review of Laura Duerr, “Perennial”, in David G. Clark, Callum Colback, Joe Butler, and Alex Hareland, eds., Beneath Strange Stars, (TL;DR Press, 2020): 221-226 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

The best near-future/dystopia is the sort that seems so plausible, you half expect it to already be true. Even though we don’t currently have body mods like MalibuGlow or enlarged irises or GentleTone arms, they’re all plausible enough, and once you entertain the idea of cosmetic body mods then it’s an easy hop, skip, and a jump to government-required, industrial mods for manual labor, the sort you get when your “parents were either critically ill, dead, absent, or in so much debt that their only solution was to enroll their daughter in a government work program and have her transformed into a machine” (p. 223). A scarily realistic story, softened by some really likeable characters.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Kaitlin’s Unicorns” by L. L. Asher

Review of L. L. Asher, “Kaitlin’s Unicorns”, in David G. Clark, Callum Colback, Joe Butler, and Alex Hareland, eds., Beneath Strange Stars, (TL;DR Press, 2020): 211-220 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Content note: death of a child, death of a disabled person, cruelty to animals, contemplation of suicide, ableism.

I kept adding new items to the content note while reading the story — never a very good sign. In a nutshell, Margret is mourning the recent-ish death of her daughter, Kaitlin, by escaping into the nearby forest that Kaitlin always imagined one day she’d meet a unicorn in. Well, Margret meets the unicorn, and what happens afterwards is not pleasant. I get that Margret is hurting, but despite the obvious pain she’s in, she is not a sympathetic character: Pain and sorrow is never an excuse for violence. Add to this the “twist” that after Kaitlin’s death the “unicorn fixed everything” (p. 220) — i.e., Kaitlin is alive and no longer wheelchair bound — and, well, there was just so much about this story I didn’t like, unfortunately. This is not the disability rep I want to be seeing.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “The Mermaid Astronaut” by Yoon Ha Lee

Review of Yoon Ha Lee, “The Mermaid Astronaut”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue 298 (February 27, 2020): Read online. Reviewed by Richard Lohmeyer.  

This story’s wonderfully imagined central character, is a mermaid who has named herself Essarala, or “seeks the stars.” She is one of many mermaids who dwell “in the deep and dreaming oceans of her world.” But unlike the other mermaids, including her younger sister Kiovasa, Essarala really does long to visit the stars, not just sit on a rock gazing up at them. She gets her chance when traders from off-world arrive. In exchange for a promise to the witch beneath the waves, Essarala gives up her mermaid’s tail for legs and joins the traders on their voyages. After many wondrous years of travel, she finally returns home for a reason much more important than the need to fulfill her promise to the witch. This is a charming story about the competing desire to explore the wider world (or universe) and the joys and duties of home and family. It’s an excellent way to open this special, double-sized issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies.   

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REVIEW: "Camphor" by Mark W. Tiedemann

Review of Mark W. Tiedemann, “Camphor”, Analog Science Fiction and Fact March/April (2020): 84–93 (Kindle) – Purchase Here. Reviewed by John Atom.

Contains spoilers.

Remy serves as the representative of a large interstellar empire to a colony that’s been isolated from the rest of humanity for centuries. After three years on the post, Remy receives a visit from Havelock, another representative sent there to investigate — and if necessary, prevent — the potential spread of a deadly virus that originated from a non-native animal on the planet. Their investigation leads to a surprising revelation about the planet and its native population.

At a time when our own planet is on the verge of a viral epidemic, this story is bound to resonate quite strongly with anyone who’s been paying attention to the news. Even though the story’s conception is likely unrelated to COVID-19, it still manages to hit a nerve.

That said, this story is ultimately not about the epidemic. Rather, it is a slow-building mystery about the secret past of the planet and its inhabitants — and as far as the mystery is concerned, it is a rather weak one. There are several things that don’t quite add up and require a serious leap of faith on behalf of the reader. The explanation for the natives’ inoculation is hand-waved into the story, and so is the solution of the mystery. Moreover, I found the plot seriously lacking in any significant stakes or obstacles for the characters. Things more-or-less fall into place one after another, making for a less than compelling read.

There are things to appreciate in “Camphor,” but the overall plot makes for a weak mystery that does not hold up to its potential.

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REVIEW: “Gliese 581g” by John C. Mannone

Review of John C. Mannone, “Gliese 581g”, in David G. Clark, Callum Colback, Joe Butler, and Alex Hareland, eds., Beneath Strange Stars, (TL;DR Press, 2020): 191-193 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

This poem comes with an informative note! “The exoplanet, Gliese 581g is a highly contested planet about twice Earth’s mass in the middle of the habitable zone” (p. 193), and it is also the subject of the poem…or rather, it’s the objective of the space crew that are en route to colonise it. But of course, we never know what might greet us when we finally do make it to another planet…

The poem itself is written with a repetitive structure — not quite a rondelle, not quite a villanelle, but picking up a phrase from one stanza and reusing or adapting it in the next. I love this sort of poetry, but I felt that this one would have benefited from have a slightly more defined structure — the repetitions felt repetitive, rather than structured, at times. Still, Mannone’s poems remain one of the highlights of the volume.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Haven” by Victoria Kochan

Review of Victoria Kochan, “Haven”, in David G. Clark, Callum Colback, Joe Butler, and Alex Hareland, eds., Beneath Strange Stars, (TL;DR Press, 2020): 177-189 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Apothecary Issabelle and her apprentice Prudence live in a post-apocalyptic world where their role as the sole purveyors of medicine and treatment place them near the top of the food chain — but not quite at the top, as that’s reserved for the Lords and Ladies who rule the rest of humanity with a rather nauseating sense of class privilege. (It is not clear how the Lords and Ladies get to be the Lords and Ladies, or whether they have any special powers or skills that make them better placed to run the world beyond just the fact that they are Lords and Ladies.) So when one of the Ladies becomes ill and Issabelle is sent for, she runs when called.

There’s a strange thread running through the story connected with death — or fear of death — or an inability to die — something I never quite got. Unfortunately, because it was never quite explicit enough, I think I missed out on the significance of the ending. All in all, not a story that worked for me.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “A Different Kind of Death” by A. K. Alliss

Review of A. K. Alliss, “A Different Kind of Death”, in David G. Clark, Callum Colback, Joe Butler, and Alex Hareland, eds., Beneath Strange Stars, (TL;DR Press, 2020): 129-144 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Mischa Sullen-Eye has stolen a magic, glowing orb, and is now on the run, from soldiers of the Perditionist Republic and from rogue magi.

It felt like we went a long time being told of this theft and escape, without being given much context to situation it. There was a lot of name-dropping — the Empire of Sighs, the City of Ghosts, Kottu, the Field of Skulls, Mischa’s erstwhile teacher Coi who was the one who convinced her to go to De’Zhun rather than to Triffid. But none of these names are given any meaning or context, which makes it hard to get invested what is, in the end, just a young girl running, and still being trapped.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment