Review of Carly Racklin, “Live Oak,” Luna Station Quarterly 52 (2022): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Rory and Finn have just moved to a new house, and it’s not the happily ever after they hoped for. The big tree looming over Rory’s bedroom is clearly haunted — but whoever heard of a haunted tree? Maybe truth of the matter is even deeper and darker than they can imagine.
A lovely creepy little forest horror story.
Review of Carly Racklin, “Our Lady of the Wasteland”, Luna Station Quarterly 34 (2018): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This story has that chatty, conversational tone between narrator and reader that can work very well if the reader is given enough clues in order to know how to fit themselves into the context, but less well if the reader is left a bit floundering as to the who-what-why. I had enough details to place myself — a hot, dusty place, where shelter is hard to find — but I felt that the story was much more a monologue (and this despite the fact that it is clearly conversational!) than it was a narrative or a story. I felt like the speaker’s words should have moved me at the end, but unfortunately, I was left unmoved.
SFF Reviews