REVIEW: “Many Mansions” By K.J. Parker

Review of K.J. Parker, “Many Mansions”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue 313 (September 24, 2020): Read online. Reviewed by Richard Lohmeyer.

If you’re a fan of K.J. Parker’s work, as I am, you’re likely to enjoy this story—the first of four in BCS’ over-sized 12th anniversary issue. I have read many of Parker’s stories and enjoyed his amusingly cynical characters. I can’t help pointing out, however, that there is a certain sameness to much of his work. Most (if not all) feature a first-person narrator who smugly believes himself smarter and more capable than other people only to get his come-uppance by story’s end. In this case, it’s the snobbish, too-sure-of-himself Father Bohenna who has been sent by his religious order to investigate why two seemingly bewitched girls each claim that a woman entered their dreams and stuck them with a brooch pin. The identity of this woman, how Bohenna locates her, and the way each are eventually humbled through the intervention of a third party is what the story is about. It’s a well-told and amusing story, even if long-time readers can detect a hint of familiarity in the plot. 

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REVIEW: “The Space Beyond Cubicle Twenty-Nine” by Chelsea Sutton

Review of Chelsea Sutton, “The Space Beyond Cubicle Twenty-Nine”, Luna Station Quarterly 43 (2020): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This story was a fun mixture of time travel and space exploration. About two years ago from the present day was when humans were first visited by Humans, our own race from the future, come back to the here and now to rescue humanity from a dying earth, so that one day Humanity might still exist. All that humans need to do is follow the Humans — taking flight from earth and heading into space.

Sutton’s recounting of what had happened over the last two years, told through the experiences of Lucy who works at Earth Interface Publishing, was fun and engaging, and full of likeable characters.

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REVIEW: “For God is in Sleep Also, and Dreams Advise” by D. L. Podlesni

Review of D. L. Podlesni, “For God is in Sleep Also, and Dreams Advise”, Luna Station Quarterly 43 (2020): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: suicide.

It’s a testament to the quality of Podlesni’s story that I didn’t even realise it was a “little green aliens arriving on earth” story until I was flat out told so. The Immigrants that came to Matewan were presented so thoughtfully, and so intriguingly, that stereotypes were entirely avoided. And the rest of the story continued smashing stereotypes — for the most part; I’m not familiar enough with Deaf culture to know what the import of Podlesni’s choice to not capitalize ‘deaf’ throughout is. That caveat aside, this was a lovely story that foregrounds friendship, and I enjoyed it.

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REVIEW: “The Patron” by Derrick Boden

Review of Derrick Boden, “The Patron”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue 312 (September 10, 2020). Read online. Reviewed by Richard Lohmeyer.

 In this excellent story on the origins of compassion and empathy, The Patron is a woman who cares more deeply than she realizes about the people who come to her seeking vengeance on others. She has spent seven years as a prisoner negotiating, day after day, the terms for such retribution. But the chain that binds her ankle to her chair—as well as to the need to negotiate these vengeful transactions—is largely symbolic. The Patron believes she is imprisoned and controlled by daemons who thrive on physical and psychic pain and who perform the vengeful acts. She’s wrong, though, and her eventual recognition of the genuine nature of her imprisonment gives rise to a selfless act that ultimately frees her (in a sense). In turn, hope is born, where previously there had been only darkness and despair.  

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REVIEW: “Yolk” by Morgan MacVaugh

Review of Morgan MacVaugh, “Yolk”, Luna Station Quarterly 43 (2020): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

The story had a strong fairy-tale quality to it; it’s the sort that I could see myself reading aloud to a child not for the strong characters or fast-paced plot but for the beautiful language and the pictures it draws, of a little girl who makes friends with a man who walks the line between day and night, and shares some toast with him dipped in the yolk of the sun.

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REVIEW: “10 Spells the Glasbläser Family Is Not Sharing With Each Other, In Order of Secrecy” by Elisabeth R. Moore

Review of Elisabeth R. Moore, “10 Spells the Glasbläser Family Is Not Sharing With Each Other, In Order of Secrecy”, Luna Station Quarterly 43 (2020): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Abortion.

First off, I love this title. It’s basically a story all on its own!

Second off, the story lives up to the title. It’s 10 little vignettes, each centered on a different member of the Glasbläser family, saying something about the spell each won’t share, where it comes from, what it does, and — perhaps more importantly — why each individual considers their spell so precious. In the end, the story says just as much about what we need from our family as it does the secrets that we keep from each other.

Loved, loved, loved this story. Sweet, sad, funny, pragmatic.

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REVIEW: “Dead Katherine” by Victoria Zelvin

Review of Victoria Zelvin, “Dead Katherine”, Luna Station Quarterly 43 (2020): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Everyone fears the mine-owner William Dawes but the only thing that Dawes fears is the outlaw Dead Katherine. Everyone, that is, but Dead Katherine herself, who has returned to the mine to exact her revenge.

But revenge for what? And why is she called Dead Katherine? These were the two questions that drove my reading of the story, but it took long enough for them to be answered that I read less in anticipation and more in frustration because I couldn’t understand how she had ended up where she was and doing what she was doing. When the answers did finally come (but only to the first question, not the second), it felt a bit too late.

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REVIEW: “The Family Recipe” by Alexandra Grunberg

Review of Alexandra Grunberg, “The Family Recipe”, Luna Station Quarterly 43 (2020): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Though the title of this story talks of the family “recipe”, in truth, it’s recipes: The star of the story is a cookbook collated and then handed down from generation to generation. Some recipes get lost through sticky mishaps; others are written down and added; the entire life of the cookbook a repetition of losses and additions. I liked the cyclic structure this forced onto the story, which was otherwise remarkably devoid of plot in a way that did not make the story feel deficient. My only complaint is that I found the ending weak; I would probably have stopped with simply “Everyone knew that it was never just a cookbook.”

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REVIEW: “Deep in the Drift, Spinning” by Lisa L. Hannett

Review of Lisa L. Hannett, “Deep in the Drift, Spinning”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue 312 (September 10, 2020): listen online. Reviewed by Richard Lohmeyer.

I found this to be a rather frustrating read. Though the story is certainly well written—Hannett has won four Aurealis awards, so that’s no surprise—I find it difficult to muster much enthusiasm for it. Mostly that’s because I don’t find the point-of-view character, Winnifletch, very engaging. She’s a witch, of sorts, living a solitary, regret-filled life outside the sea town of Baradoon, whipping up magical broths to help her neighbors-in-need. Her daughter Shales is, or perhaps fancies herself, a harpy, while her mother pictures her more as a sailor on a galleon crewed by mermaids. Unfortunately, we don’t actually meet Shales; we learn about her and her desires only from her mother’s somewhat meandering perspective. That’s too bad. I would have liked to learn more about the lives of harpies and mermaids in the world of Baradoon, and what tugs a person more in one direction than the other. 

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REVIEW: “A Worship” by Andrea Goyan

Review of Andrea Goyan, “A Worship”, Luna Station Quarterly 43 (2020): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Detective Angie Ferguson has been assigned to investigate the death of Henry Van Patten, a case in which “nothing in the account, detailed by an Officer Benton, appeared abnormal.” Except, of course, that would be too easy…

And so what we have here is a fun little mystery/SF story as Angie solves the farmer’s mysterious death. Goyan captured perfectly the way a mind can flit from one subject to another, seeing strange patterns, identifying connections (even if those connections aren’t really there) — it’s not often I read a character and think “oh, she thinks like I do”, so I really enjoyed this. But don’t read it if you’re squeamish about graphic descriptions of bugs.

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