Review of Cynthia Gómez, “Lips Like Sugar,” Luna Station Quarterly 55 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Oblique references to sexual harassment and assault.
If you’re looking for an amusing and slightly raunchy bisexual vampire urban fantasy, this is a story for you.
Review of Libby Feltis, “Fittonia,” Luna Station Quarterly 55 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
There were so many little bits and pieces in this story that are things I love — an emphasis on the importance of names, throwbacks to classic literature, sass, innuendo, writers writing stories as a means of currency, and happy endings. It was such a fun read. It was always an extremely realistic and believable account of the life of a highly sensitive and empathetic person.
Review of Victory Witherkeigh, “Hedwig Eva,” Tree and Stone 2 (2022): 43-47 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was a particularly odd time travel story — I’m not entirely sure what the motivation was for this specific combination of fictional character and
historical person, or what I was supposed to get from it. It was, nevertheless, compellingly told with beautiful details.
Review of Carol Scheina, “Things You Carry in the Underworld,” Tree and Stone 2 (2022): 33-36 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Dead children.
This was an absolutely heart-breaking and gorgeous story.
Review of Marisca Pichette, “Before We Dance,” Tree and Stone 2 (2022): 29-31 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
The story begins with lichen and ends with bones, and in between it’s all music. There’s very little in terms of character or narrative, but plenty of gorgeous language.
Review of Deborah L. Davitt, “Madder and Woad,” Tree and Stone 2 (2022): 14-18 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
God, the way in which some stories cut straight to the chase without any prevarication: This is one of those. The fight between survival and death, the ways in which this strips away all parts of our humanity.
Read this story and weep. What else can you do?
Recommended especially for weavers and dyers. So much power in the work of women, the work that is so often discarded as meaningless.
Review of Naomi Eselojor, “Hykena,” Tree and Stone 2 (2022): 4-6 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
The village Isoko is destroyed by a monster, burned to the ground overnight. Only the trapper’s boy, who tried to warn the village of Hykena’s approach, and his family survived. But the reasons why the villagers wouldn’t listen to him are the same as the reasons why the monster was there in the first place, which made for a satisfying resolution to this story.
Review of E. M. Linden, “When the Forest Comes to You,” Flash Fiction Online (July 2023): 12-15 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This is more a series of vignettes than a story, snapshots of Keith’s life from when he was 5 to when his son was 5, all tied together by an underlying layer of sadness, culminating in an ending that feels like an ultimate betrayal.
Review of Brent Baldwin, “Dave the Terrible,” Flash Fiction Online (July 2023): 7-10 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This story of the merging of real life and fantasy life was simultaneously deeply hilarious and deeply saddening. I really enjoyed it. The excerpt of the author interview included in the issue is worth the read, as it adds another layer to the story.
Review of Tania Fordwalker, “Lapis Lazuli,” Flash Fiction Online (June 2023): 18-20 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Enslavement.
I love it when an author can successfully take all the typical elements of a fairy tale, and turn them into some new, which is exactly what Fordwalker does in this story.
(First published in Andromeda Spaceways 58, 2013.)
SFF Reviews