REVIEW: “The Question of the Blade” by Alex Yuschik

Review of Alex Yuschik, “The Question of the Blade”, Luna Station Quarterly 28 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

What a beautiful and satisfying story to read this was. It’s the story of two childhood friends, Fel and Bas, and the different ways their heritages and histories dictate their future. There was a richly built world in the background of them, and a steadfast love between them no matter what tried to keep them apart. I was only a little bit disappointed by the ending, because I would have liked space to have been left for more character development.

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REVIEW: “Earth is a Crash Landing” by J. G. Formato

Review of J. G. Formato, “Earth is a Crash Landing”, Luna Station Quarterly 28 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Slavery.

This story was not at all what I expected. Celester, the narrator, is a self-described “Trashcan baby”, the sort of foundling who deserves to get stuck in a dead-end job issuing permits. And least, that is the facade that she puts up, not wanting to admit that there might be something else underneath her hard exterior. There are so many ways the story could then go, and none of the ways it did go were ones I could’ve imagined. There were twists and turns and hints and clues right the way through.

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REVIEW: “The Transubstantiation” by Evan Dicken

Review of Evan Dicken, “The Transubstantiation”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue 310 (August 13, 2020); read online. Reviewed by Richard Lohmeyer.

Deff is the narrator of this interesting, but decidedly unusual take on the nature of heroes. He is part of a small group of “glory hounds” who trap and kill heroes in order to sell their bodies on the black market. Often this brings a high price since a hero’s blood can be used as a skin treatment that leaves a person’s face looking “smooth as marble and sheened with a pale glow.” In spite of the monetary rewards, Deff regrets this practice, though he justifies it by reminding himself that heroes always break bad. One case in point is the Weeper, the hunt for whom is what most of the story involves. The Weeper is “the woman who had toppled Empires, burned entire nations in the name of justice, made promise after promise then abandoned us when the payment came due.” Her form of abandonment was novel, at least. She somehow climbed all the way to Heaven searching for truth. However, the truth as she relates it leaves her in despair, but fills Deff with a very different emotion.  

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REVIEW: “Fire and Falling” by Andrew Dykstal

Review of Andrew Dykstal, “Fire and Falling”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue 310 (August 13, 2020): Read online. Reviewed by Richard Lohmeyer.

If this exciting adventure yarn set in a steampunkish universe is part of an ongoing series, I’m not aware of it; but if it’s the beginnings of one, I can’t wait for the next installment.  Mir, the story’s protaganist, is on her first assignment as a courier for the Lady of Situations, a master manipulator we hear a lot about but don’t actually meet. When given the opportunity to kill a large number of enemy agents, Mir does so by blowing up and unwittingly killing one of the most interesting characters in the story: a living airship. Many people die, too, but several survive, including an enemy agent Mir nicknames “Dogwood” and who befriends her. As the story progresses, Mir learns more and more about the fantastical nature of airships and their engineers. She also learns more about herself, including the fact that her destiny lies along a different path than she’d originally thought.  

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REVIEW: “All the Souls Like Candle Flames” by Vanessa Fogg

Review of Vanessa Fogg, “All the Souls Like Candle Flames”, Luna Station Quarterly 28 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

I continue to be not a huge fan of 2nd person narration — I’ve said it before, but I had being told what I am thinking or feeling — so that it takes something quite extraordinary for me to overcome my high bar for stories that open up with an instruction to me, the reader. Unfortunately, Fogg’s story did not manage to hurdle it, despite the 2nd person narration being restricted to the opening, scene setting paragraphs. But after having been told that I know the Sea Witch’s name (I don’t) or that maybe I’m already dead (nope, definitely not), I wasn’t in the right mood to find out the story of Mikki, and why a fish has feathers. I think this story could’ve been much stronger if those initial paragraphs had been simply stripped out.

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REVIEW: “Satin and Velvet” by R.H. Cloake

Review of R.H. Cloake, “Satin and Velvet”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue 309 (July 30, 2020): Read online. Reviewed by Richard Lohmeyer.

This is primarily a story about “imposter syndrome” and why so many good, talented people often believe themselves unworthy of success. Greta, the narrator, is the youngest-ever apprentice to a centuries-old master magician. While still an aspiring apprentice she had met and admired Samara, her predescessor. Greta is “plagued,” like Samara before her, by “gasts.” Greta’s are satin; Samara’s were velvet, but all gasts are magical entities that befriend, for no immediately apparent reason, some people and not others. For example, The Master both apprentices serve(d) has never been befriended by gasts and it enrages him.  He vents his anger on each apprentice by refusing to give them lessons for as long as their gasts assist them and not him. Each apprentice learns a different lesson from this experience. One of them commits suicide in despair, while the other has an entirely different experience. This is a brief story but well worth reading, particularly if, like so many others, you’ve ever talked yourself into believing you don’t deserve success. 

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REVIEW: “Man-Fruit” by Clara Kiat

Review of Clara Kiat, “Man-Fruit”, Luna Station Quarterly 28 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Abortion, physical abuse, non-consensual sex.

The story opens on the midwife Puring visiting Sisinia, who is “six moons away from giving birth”. But with Puring’s assistance, Sisinia might never give birth at all.

No one other than the mothers-who-won’t-be suspect that Puring is the source of the local abortions; but even more so, no one at all knows the secret behind how Puring does it, or the importance of the man-fruit to her life. Puring’s secret almost turns the story from fantasy into horror, Kiat mixing and balancing equal parts in her construction of the tale.

It’s not often I get a story set in post-Conquest central (or maybe southern; it wasn’t made explicit) America, which seems to me to be a real lack, because that is a setting rife with native fantasy and mythology that I would love to see more of.

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REVIEW: “The Many Lives of an Abiku” by Tobi Ogundiran

Review of Tobi Ogundiran, “The Many Lives of an Abiku”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue 309 (July 30, 2020). Read online. Reviewed by Richard Lohmeyer.

In this story of birth and rebirth, the narrator manifests physically as a young girl named Sola. However, she is actually an abiku, a spirit child untethered to the real world except through the assistance of a mystic named Baba Seyi. “You have come to your mother three times before and have died before your seventh year. You relish her pain and suffering,” Baba Seyi tells her. Though Sola denies this initially, much of the story involves Sola’s need to choose between her spirit family and her flesh and blood family. There is also a battle (both physical and in spirit form) with another spirit child named Rewa who wants to kill Sola and insinuate herself within Sola’s family (and who looks enough like Sola to be able to do it). The story ends differently than I expected, and a bit ambiguously, but it’s definitely worth reading. 

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REVIEW: “The Black-Eyed Goddess of Apple Trees and Farmers’ Wives” by Erin Eisenhour

Review of Erin Eisenhour, “The Black-Eyed Goddess of Apple Trees and Farmers’ Wives”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue 308, (July 16, 2020): Read online. Reviewed by Richard Lohmeyer.

In addition to a wonderfully evocative title, this story features and is narrated by a feisty peasant girl named Bi. She has the bad luck to be chosen to receive “the highest honor any young woman can hope to attain in a mortal life”: to cure the province’s plum pox “by praying, fasting, and letting the shamans tear out my heart and eat its ashes.” Naturally, Bi is not thrilled by the prospect and attempts to avoid the “honor” by pretending she is not a virgin and therefore not the kind of candidate the shamans would prefer. This doesn’t work and the rest of the story provides interesting glimpses into Bi’s relationship with various family members, particularly that of her much-loved but deceased sister and her orphaned child. And by story’s end, Bi’s ultimate fate is not quite what anyone–including Bi–expected.

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REVIEW: “To Say Nothing of Lost Figurines” by Rafeeat Aliyu

Review of Rafeeat Aliyu, “To Say Nothing of Lost Figurines”, in Zelda Knight and Ekpeki Oghenechovwe Donald, ed., Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction From Africa and the African Diaspora, (Aurelia Leo, 2020) — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology).

The esteemed mage Odun is creating portals across the universe in search of his missing ngunja, one of the five sources of his magical abilities. His travels bring him to Kur, where an exception is made to the laws barring the entry of humans — but only so long as he remains under the supervision of Aule, a Kurian official.

I thoroughly enjoyed Odun and Aule’s adventure through Kur to find and restore Odun’s lost ngunja. This story was full of humor and amusement and a lightness of tone that contrasted with some of the more portentous stories in the anthology. Lots of fun!

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