REVIEW: “Peanut Butter Elegy” by Jenna Glover

Review of Jenna Glover, “Peanut Butter Elegy,” Luna Station Quarterly 51 (2022): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Death of a parent.

The story starts off with one parent dying and the other lying about it to their child. It’s a tough start: Not in the sense that it is sad, but in the sense that I am royally judging the narrator and her decision to lie to her child. The narrator thinks she’s being a good mom — but I cannot see any way towards believing that.

As the story progresses it became quite clear that I was right to be on Team Don’t Lie to Your Child, especially as the lies only became compounded. I’m not sure if Glover meant me to feel sympathetically towards the narrator, but, wow, I did not, and ended up (sadly) really disliking this story.

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REVIEW: “Felt” by Denise Khng

Review of Denise Khng, “Felt,” Luna Station Quarterly 51 (2022): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This was a beautiful love elegy — slow paced but never dragging or over written, continually building emotions in layers. Nothing much happened, it mostly meandered from one place to another, but the strength and depth of feeling evoked something visceral in me. And that was before everything turned sad.

It was also very long, and yet, it seemed to be simultaneously exactly the right length. A very well put together piece.

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REVIEW: “The Hall of Being” by T. K. Rex

Review of T. K. Rex, “The Hall of Being,” Luna Station Quarterly 51 (2022): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

SF stories don’t incorporate religion often enough, so Rex’s story, which weaves together, poetry and ritual, science and religion, from the start predisposed me to like it. When the religious aspect were not monolithic, but diverse and varied across cultures, I liked it even more. And when she started poking fun at traditional theism and citing medieval philosophers? I knew I was in for a real treat! This was a wonderful mixture of mysticism and rationalism, and I really enjoyed it.

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REVIEW: “2122, Barrel-Aged and Biding” by Jordan Hirsch

Review of Jordan Hirsch, “2122, Barrel-Aged and Biding,” Luna Station Quarterly 51 (2022): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

I had high hopes for this story, from the title and the opening paragraph, but I’m not sure they were quite met. The story was characterized by sharp, staccato dialogue between two characters who know much more than the reader does; with a richer background context and worldbuilding, this uncertainty could’ve been used to spark interest in the characters and build a connection between them and the reader, but because the depth of background/context wasn’t there, I didn’t feel the urgency of the conversation that clearly the characters did. Overall, it just felt a little bit flat.

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REVIEW: “85 Days in Flight” by Madeehah Reza

Review of Madeehah Reza, “86 Days in Flight,” Luna Station Quarterly 51 (2022): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

I love epistolary stories! This story is told through letters from Amira to her granddad. He remained on earth while Amira and her mother took to space, leaving a dying earth behind. It’s a story of complicated familial relationships, of loss, and of the peace that writing brings. It’s a simple, straightforward, and soothing story: Nice to read if you want something calm and wonderfully positive.

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REVIEW: “Love Like Chocolate” by Risa Wolf

Review of Risa Wolf, “The Long Way Home” Cossmass Infinities 9 (2022): 115-122 — Read or purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Oh, this was a heartbreaker! I could feel it from the very opening scene, when we meet Kari and Sonora (and their new puppy!) and find out just how much they love each other — and also that something is not right. The dramatic tension as we find out what that something is, over the course of the story, is perfectly pitched and left me shattered at the ending.

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REVIEW: “Seraph in Ruins” by Mere Rain

Review of Mere Rain, “Seraph in Ruins” Cossmass Infinities 9 (2022): 98-109 — Read or purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Seraph is a monster, and a loaner; whatever the vampires are hunting isn’t her problem. It’s only boredom, boredom that sees her rescue the woman and ensure she makes her way safely out of the zone that has “more monsters than spare parts” (p. 100). Of course, that’s what Seraph tells herself: we, the reader, know it is far more than that.

There’s nothing more enjoyable than smugly watching two characters convince themselves they are not falling for each other until they give up. This story provides all that enjoyment and more, that I read with a smile that just kept getting bigger and bigger.

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REVIEW: “Victorian Resistance & the Lords Insectile” by M. Legree

Review of M. Legree, “Victorian Resistance & the Lords Insectile” Cossmass Infinities 9 (2022): 93-97 — Read or purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This story has an excellent title. It’s the one I most looked forward to reading after surveying the table of contents. The story lived up to its title, reminding me, in the bones of its essence, of a cross between Kafka’s Metamorphosis and a Dutch Master’s painting, backed up with a mass of science. Overall, extremely satisfying.

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REVIEW: “In the Grip of Yesterday” by P.A. Cornell

Review of P. A. Cornell, “In the Grip of Yesterday” Cossmass Infinities 9 (2022): 90-92 — Read or purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Knife and other physical violence, drugs, stalking.

This is SF tinged with horror: Science has advanced enough to synthesize many emotions, and the drug of choice for the narrator is Nostalgia, and it doesn’t take more than one or two kicks of it for it to become addictive.

It’s quite a remarkable story: There’s basically nothing in it that is redeeming, nothing in the narrator to make him sympathetic, not even the ending!

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