Review of Alena Sullivan, “Salt Skin and Pie”, Luna Station Quarterly 25 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Miscarriage.
This wonderful story took the usual selkie trope and turned it on its head, and I absolutely loved every single minute of reading it. Definitely one of the better stories to come out of LSQ!
Review of Juliet Kemp, “Halfway Up and Halfway Down and Nowhere At All”, Luna Station Quarterly 25 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: death.
This story explored a darker side of magic and magic use, drawing analogies with drugs and drug use. Mali doesn’t approve of Nick’s getting mixed up with that sort of stuff — but when he turns up dead on her doorstep, she’s not going to let her friend’s death go unavenged. Of course, nothing is ever as easy as that, and the more Mali protests against the use of magic, the more inevitable her own use of it is. This was a pretty dark story, all in all.
Review of Miranda Geer, “The King is Dead”, Luna Station Quarterly 26 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
What I love best about reviewing short stories is when you find something utterly different from anything you’ve read before, and that is what Geer gave me in this story. She took a very simple idea — a veterinarian who is able to take on the thoughts of animals — and used it very effectively.
Review of Melissa Ferguson, “Sergiane’s Choice”, Luna Station Quarterly 26 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Murder, physical violence, threats to children, miscarriage, animal sacrifice.
There was something about this story that felt clumsy; too many, too strong feelings too quickly, in a way that was cacophonous rather than sympathetic. I also found the language of sex, conception, pregnancy, and miscarriage all a bit coy; I think Ferguson was rather aiming for the typical sort of “fantasy language” one uses when one doesn’t want to presuppose modern norms or modern science, but if so, she didn’t quite hit the mark for me.
Review of Patricia Russo, “Feeding is No Crime”, Luna Station Quarterly 26 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Enslavement.
One thing I love about digging through journal archives is finding stories that feel specifically pertinent and present. Reading Russo’s story in the UK in fall 2020, in the wake of the British government deciding, no, actually, it doesn’t need to bother with feeding children during school breaks and holidays, the opening lines of the story hit with a special punch:
“If, as it is stated in the Code of Padrel the Great, that eating is no crime, then it follows by corollary that neither is feeding a criminal offense.”
When a forgotten punishment vault is discovered, revealing prisoners who have been sealed up for a thousand years, undying and crying out for food, Fonell, Canly, Vamma and the others are all faced with the question: What do you do? When Onjar says “You want to call the bloody government in? What’ll they do?”, it’s hard for both them and me, as the reader, not to agree. Fonell calls in his lawyer from Zerna, and Zerna is the one quoting Padrel. And then everything spills over into a dramatic conflagration of the importance of family, the value of a human being, and the fact that “No life is insignificant.”
This was a hard read, a good story. Really good. Chilling and bitter and hopeful and everything in between.
Review of Carlea Holl-Jensen, “The Garden”, Luna Station Quarterly 26 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Cruelty to animals.
The titular garden is the setting for an intimate glimpse into the life of Albie and Evelyn, two peculiar characters that I never really drew a bead on. Were they teenagers? Were they young children? Were they siblings? Were they lovers? At one time I thought one way, at other times, another, and given how inconsistent their characterization were (if they ARE 6-ish years old, why the heavy sexual tension at times? If they’re grown teenage siblings, why are they playing children’s games together?) it was a weirdly uncomfortable read.
Review of Nicole Robb, “The Save”, Luna Station Quarterly 26 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
The premise of this story is simple: Everyone gets one Save, to use as they will (though of course it’s easier to know how and when to use it if you have proper training, hence you practice Saving in elementary school; and of course many people will judge you if you Save the wrong person, or even for Saving anyone at all.) The execution is likewise simple: Janice has long known whom her Save would be for, until she is confronted with a situation where she must make a choice.
Simple, but by no means ineffective.
Review of Suzan Palumbo, “Her Voice, Unmasked”, Weird Horror 1 (2020): 42-49 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
What an absolutely stonking story. It carried me along, gulping for more, with its utterly entrancing Justine, an automaton built to sing opera like no human could ever sing, against a panoply of background characters — the Maestro, the Ballet Mistress, the dancers, and, most importantly of all, Lise, who gives Justine the final secret she needs. It’s the sort of story that telegraphs one ending from the start, but leaves the reader desperately hoping that that is not the actual ending. Really, really enjoyed this one.
Review of Jessica Guess, “Mama Tulu”, Luna Station Quarterly 27 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content warning: Drinking, gambling, domestic abuse.
This urban fantasy set in Jamaica centers around the titular character Mama Tulu, and Sasha, the young woman who goes to visit her to make an unspeakable request. I liked almost everything about it — but not quite everything. I have a deep ambivalence about the use of phonetic representations of dialect in written fiction; I am never sure how appropriate or successful they are. Reading them often feels like an uncomfortable caricature; but on the other hand, I think it’s important to recognise the varieties of ways in which people speak, and to recognise the legitimacy of, e.g., AAVE.
Review of Lindsey Duncan, “The Dragon’s Dinner”, Luna Station Quarterly 27 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
There was a lot of cliches in this story — the dragon-fighting knights trying to win the hand of a princess; the princess who didn’t want to be an object of conquest; the maiden aunt who provided the princess with the training needed — but ultimately, this was a fairy tale, and fairy tales are cliches, so it worked.
SFF Reviews