REVIEW: “Give a Smile at Ye Olde Photographie Shoppe” by Carol Scheina

Review of Carol Scheina, “Give a Smile at Ye Olde Photographie Shoppe,” Flash Fiction Online 131 (August 2024): 8-11 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Mal runs a photography shop, offering services no other shop does — a chance to get your photograph taken with a dragon! A real dragon — who happens to be Mal himself. He longs for a chance to be a real photographer and not just a gimmick, and this story offers him the chance to be so.

I loved the ending, which was sweet and happy, but something about the story also made me terribly sad, as it made me think of this story from a few months ago.

Humanity can be really awful sometimes. That’s why we need happy, sweet stories.

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REVIEW: “One More Fairy Tale” by Carol Scheina

Review of Carol Scheina, “One More Fairy Tale” Cossmass Infinities 9 (2022): 20-24 — Read or purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This story is both one final fairy tale that a mother tells her child, of bargains made for wishes fulfilled, and a pretty classic SF story, of genetically engineered soldiers and trans-world travel. I like it when authors play with genres like this, and Scheina’s touching story does so successfully.

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REVIEW: “The Midwife” by Carol Scheina

Review of Carol Scheina, “The Midwife”, Luna Station Quarterly 42 (2020): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Childbirth.

Hannah is a midwife of whom it is told she has never yet lost a mother or child. When she’s called to Emmilene’s childbed (far too late, in her opinion), she must draw upon all of her skill and experience to ensure her streak is not broken.

I found the story weirdly glorifying of the mystical experience of childbirth; it was also uncomfortably exclusionary (falling back into the default assumption that no husband could ever have a place beside his laboring wife). Just little things, but as a result, this story didn’t really do it for me.

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