Review of Patrice Rivara, “Vegoia”, Luna Station Quarterly 46 (2021): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was a story richly full of entirely foreign tradition and ritual. I really enjoy it when a story can nail the sense of the world being written about is not ours, not just because it is “ours but tweaked” but because it is wholly different. This can be hard to do in a short story; but Rivara does it, and the skill with which this is done makes the ending all the more unexpected!
Review of Laurel Beckley, “Love and War Aboard the Peregrine Zircon”, Luna Station Quarterly 46 (2021): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was a lovely sweet wlw romance with the added bonus of more than one nonbinary character. With the addition of a dash of political intrigue and heartbreak, you’ve got a winner of a story here.
Review of Jennifer Shelby, “The Voiceless of Shalott”, Luna Station Quarterly 46 (2021): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
I didn’t dare tell them that I wanted to be more than my virginity or someone’s wife.
Tasilinn is taken by her parents to Shalott where she will be kept under guard for the seven years of her adolescence, to ensure her purity is maintained. She has no say in the matter — literally, for before they leave her on the island, they fill her throat with scriptures and burn them until her voice is burned away as well.
I really enjoyed Shelby’s story of which focuses on how silence is used to control women. It is a sharp, harsh commentary on modern misogyny, and well written.
Review of Gillian Parrish, “City Light”, Luna Station Quarterly 46 (2021): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Drug addiction/abuse; death.
I liked the second half of this story, but not the first; I think I was not the target audience for it.
Review of Maeghan Klinker, “Mother Haskell”, Luna Station Quarterly 46 (2021): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
I feel like this story needs a warning, do not read if hungry! Mother Haskell tends an orchard that always bears, and bakes the best apple pies from the fruit; and after reading all the descriptions, now I want pie! Pies so good, you could almost bribe Death with them…and that’s exactly what Mother Haskell tries when her trees start to die.
A fun, yummy, sweet, story. (I was a bit surprised, though, by “the sweet maple syrup she’d collected herself when the maples were vibrant and blushing with fall” — I thought syrup was collected in early spring!)
Review of E. A. Fowler, “Swallows (Or How the Men Lost Their Magic)”, Luna Station Quarterly 46 (2021): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
The parenthetical in the title sums up the gist of the story: But what’s distinctive about it is whose viewpoint Fowler has chosen to portray the events through. The result is raw and powerful and more than a little disturbing. Thumbs up!
Review of Nancy Kress, “Little Animals”, Clarkesworld Issue 177, June (2021): Read Online. Reviewed by Myra Naik.
A beautiful, arresting story with lovely imagery. It expertly combines love, microbiology, clinical depression and quantum entanglement. Our researcher, Elena, is currently focusing on studying the life of Maria van Leeuwenhoek, and she finds startling similarities that she did not anticipate. She can empathize with Maria and wants better – for Maria and for herself. She handles both the past and present – not as well as she would like to in either case – and her quiet yet loyal personality shines through. A tale of empathy, longing and wanting better.
A lovely and powerful novelette.
Review of Sheree Renée Thomas, “River, Clap Your Hands”, Uncanny Magazine Issue 40 (2021): Read Online. Reviewed by Isabel Hinchliff.
Ava lives a life of waterborne mystery: she was abandoned on a riverbank as a child, her neck has gills, and she pines after her lost baby, birthed in the midst of a flood. Told in a series of striking vignettes, her story is heartbreaking and yet still offers glimmers of hope, like the play of sunlight over deeply ridged scales. It is an exquisite piece of craft, and a vivid picture of a life strung between two irreconcilable worlds.
This haunting and deeply poetic story has layers; I enjoyed luxuriously re-reading it and hunting out new strands of meaning. On my first read, I found myself fascinated by piecing together the vignettes in chronological order and discovering the true nature of Ava’s physical condition. On my second, with the entire premise already in mind, I discovered many instances of nuance and poetic meaning that I had originally missed. Ava’s rain- and grief-drenched world is deeply relatable at some moments and distantly beautiful in others. It is a delicious mix of craft, imagery, and catharsis; I highly recommend it.
Review of Shveta Thakrar, “Heart Shine”, Uncanny Magazine Issue 40 (2021): Read Online. Reviewed by Isabel Hinchliff.
Kamal is lonely, so she turns to research on the Faerie, a mystical otherworld guarded by a tiny black kitten and green-glowing fireflies. She tries to sacrifice her entire history of memories to Faerie in order to become one of its denizens, but something goes wrong, and she finds herself wandering its borders, memories frustratingly intact, hopeless. A year later she finds a boy with a glowing peridot heart, and finally she experiences recognition and learns to appreciate her own inner worth.
This piece revels in its description, eschewing the stripped narrative style that so many short stories use to build suspense and keep a plot moving. While it seemed a little decadent at times, I generally found it refreshing; Thakrar builds a magical border realm full of hidden meaning out of Komal’s house and haunts.
Perhaps the most stunning aspect of this piece, though, is its depiction of Komal’s invisibility: the way her parents ignore her and the way that she feels, perpetually, that her dreams and creations matter to no-one else (and therefore matter to no-one at all). It’s a devastating theme, and one that I suspect more of us can relate to than ever before, after such a long period in pandemic isolation. What Komal needs is not necessarily friends to validate her, but the ability to believe that she herself is worthy, and that her creations are worthy of attention. It’s a confidence that you can only find within yourself, and personally I found Komal’s path to finding her inner magic very heartwarming.
Review of Sameem Siddiqui, “Dancing with Ereshkigal”, Clarkesworld Issue 176, May (2021): Read Online. Reviewed by Myra Naik.
A poignant story that goes all over our solar system and spans goddesses, non-binary characters, low-gravity art forms, and dance. Our protagonist narrates the story as if they are speaking to Pyn, their spouse. The narrator has created, or rather been swept into, a different sort of life since they met Pyn. As we learn more about them, both individually as well as as a couple, we see things are different from what the narrator had initially believed. A moment of clarity reshapes much, so that the dance of the goddess makes more sense.
A lovely story, and I don’t say this just because I already have a weakness for goddesses in fiction.
SFF Reviews