REVIEW: “Hell’s Bells” by Cass Sims Knight

Review of Cass Sims Knight, “Hell’s Bells,” Luna Station Quarterly 56 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Sexual harassment, physical assault.

Annie’s a telepath whose abilities tend to get herself labelled as a witch. When her horse throws a shoe, she is forced into town to find a blacksmith to replace it.

What a curious little story this was: No grand narrative, no momentous goal or quest arc, no moment of discovery. Just the story of a woman and her horse who came into town, got into trouble, and got themselves back out of trouble again. And, yet, I really enjoyed it.

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REVIEW: “A Unicorn’s Horn is Proof Against Poison” by Clare Packard

Review of Clare Packard, “A Unicorn’s Horn is Proof Against Poison,” Luna Station Quarterly 56 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Assassination plots! Intrigue! Spies! Unicorns! True love! All in the court of Queen Elizabeth I of England. This story had just enough history and just enough fantasy to hit a sweet spot, for something really fun and enjoyable to read.

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REVIEW: “High to Kolob on a Cosmic Clydesdale” by Katrina Carruth

Review of Katrina Carruth, “High to Kolob on a Cosmic Clydesdale,” Luna Station Quarterly 56 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Be wary what you wish for when you go to your friend’s new moon crystal party — the narrator of this story wished for manifest destiny and ended up with a cosmic Clydesdale in her livingroom!

For the most part this was a quick read despite being a long story, light and humorful, but towards the end it turned surprisingly deep, in a way that made it feel like more than fluff. It can be hard to shift tone midway through a story like this, but I feel Carruth pulled it off well. It all made sense, which feels like an odd thing to say about a fantasy story, but it’s true.

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REVIEW: “Rodney’s Request” by Mary Jo Rabe

Review of Mary Jo Rabe, “Rodney’s Request,” Luna Station Quarterly 56 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This story about a Scottish unicorn visiting Iowa (a state I know well through my husband, also an Iowa State alumni!) made me laugh, which was exactly the tonic I needed amidst some dark times. Sometimes, I am incredibly grateful that short fiction is a thing, and that places like LSQ and authors like Rabe make it so easy for us to have.

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REVIEW: “Of Tales and Dreams” by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar

Review of Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Aysel K. Basci (trans.), “Of Tales and Dreams,” Flash Fiction Online (August 2023): 19-21 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Death of a parent.

This is a meandering story, starting here and moving to there, and then to elsewhere, with no underlying sense of narrative, just the reflections of someone who grew up beside the Tigris and both cannot imagine ever leaving and yet yearns to be free. There’s a lot of lush imagery in it, and I felt I got to know the narrator quite well even in such a short excerpt.

(Original published in Hikayeler (Short Stories / Evin Sahibi), Dergah Yayinlari, Istanbul 1983.)

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REVIEW: “Nancy Shreds the Clouds” by Phoenix Alexander

Review of Phoenix Alexander, “Nancy Shreds the Clouds,” Flash Fiction Online (August 2023): 11-14 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Domestic abuse.

This was a strange little story. Starting off as it did, the story of a lonesome, friendless child who quickly learned that being good meant being alone, it ended up not in some righteous justification of taking the high road, but in a raw, sordid triumph.

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REVIEW: “Let the Field Burn” by M.C. Benner Dixon

Review of M. C. Benner Dixon, “Let the Field Burn,” Flash Fiction Online (August 2023): 7-9 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Death of a parent.

There was something really beautiful in this story about just how ordinary it was. Clearing out a house after the death of a parent. The teen who’d been co-opted into mowing the lawn. The minutiae of life and death. But one of the best thing about fiction, about telling stories, is how the ordinary becomes extraordinary. Dixon nailed that, in this lovely little tale.

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