REVIEW: “Ramps and Rockets” by Alicia K. Anderson

Review of Alicia K. Anderson, “Ramps and Rockets” in Rhonda Parrish, ed., Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline: Dieselpunk and Decopunk Fairy Tales, (World Weaver Press, 2019): 220-233 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

This was a lovely queer retelling of Rapunzel (with disabled Prince(ss) Charming!), sticking close to many of the details of the original story, but picking carefully which details to change. In the end, it was Rapunzel who saved herself, who let her hair down and walked through the door out of the cage that trapped her.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Steel Dragons of a Luminous Sky” by Brian Trent

Review of Brian Trent, “Steel Dragons of a Luminous Sky” in Rhonda Parrish, ed., Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline: Dieselpunk and Decopunk Fairy Tales, (World Weaver Press, 2019): 201-219 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Trent sets his story of military intrigue and treachery, filled with floating cities and qilin (I was never sure whether the qilin were fantastic beasts or mechanical contraptions, but the ambiguity contributed to the story rather than frustrating me.), in the Sino-Japanese war. The story focuses on Li Yan, a steel dragon the Luminous Sky, fighting for Chinese nationalism, and his American mercenary compatriot, Eva Eagels.

There were a few aspects about the story that tripped me up — Li Yan was called ‘Li’ throughout, but his brother was Qimei, and I couldn’t figure out how to square this with the Chinese naming practice of putting surname, not given name, first. (Shouldn’t he be Yan? Or both he and his brother be Li?); the fact that this detail was got wrong made me worried about what other details might also be wrong. And while I love reading more SFF set in non-western settings, it sometimes felt like the story hadn’t gotten past its western-centric gaze — when a qilin delivers a young woman to Li, he describes her as “a young Chinese woman”; but while it made sense for him to describe Eva Eagels as American, because that is not the default, shouldn’t the default in China be Chinese? But despite these quibbles, I found Li a sympathetic character told in a distinctive voice, both strong and gentle, dedicated but caring, someone who has managed to keep the promise he ‘d made to his brother before the war — to not let it kill his spirit.

The actual ending seemed a bit out of left-field; but there was a page break a few paragraphs before the end that I almost expect to have been the end. If it had ended “All Under Heaven” (bottom of p. 217), I think it might have been a stronger story, with a strange sense of loss and failure threading through a success greater than what Li and Xin had spoken of achieving.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Easy As Eating Pie” by Amanda C. Davis

Review of Amanda C. Davis, “Easy As Eating Pie” in Rhonda Parrish, ed., Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline: Dieselpunk and Decopunk Fairy Tales, (World Weaver Press, 2019): 150-159 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

I absolutely adored this retelling of Hansel and Gretel — it had all the elements of the classic tale but all jumbled and mixed up so that the story came out fresh and new. It was told quickly, with no excess of prose, and it made me laugh along the way. What fun.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Daughters of Earth and Air” by Robert E. Vardeman

Review of Robert E. Vardeman, “Daughters of Earth and Air” in Rhonda Parrish, ed., Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline: Dieselpunk and Decopunk Fairy Tales, (World Weaver Press, 2019): 132-149 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

This story fell rather flat for me. It was premised upon interesting characters — the titular daughters, and in particular one of them, Dorianya — but it frustrated me how Dorianya’s motivation seemed to be purely “love [or lust?] at first sight”. I didn’t know her well enough to know whether her actions were typical or unusual — either for her or for the daughters of earth and air in general — so I found that when she predicated all her actions on the hopes of winning a handsome man, I simply didn’t care about whether she succeeded or failed. On the other hand, after about half-way through the story, I realised which fairy tale was being retold, and I enjoyed the different twist that Vardeman put on it.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “늑대 – The Neugdae” by Juliet Harper

Review of Juliet Harper, “늑대 – The Neugdae” in Rhonda Parrish, ed., Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline: Dieselpunk and Decopunk Fairy Tales, (World Weaver Press, 2019): 101-108 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Content note: Strong violence, rape, death, war, weapons.

This retelling of Little Rid Ridinghood set in the context of the Korean War was an ugly little story. The original fairy tale is Grimm by name and grim by nature, but this sordid version brought that horror into sharp relief. This story was not for me.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Bonne Chance Confidential” by Jack Bates

Review of Jack Bates, “Bonne Chance Confidential” in Rhonda Parrish, ed., Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline: Dieselpunk and Decopunk Fairy Tales, (World Weaver Press, 2019): 77-100 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

This was quite the mishmash of references to fairy tales and folk tales, with a sheriff from Nottingham, a Rumple-without-a-stiltskin, fairies named Fee, and a plot that was unsure whether it was Snow White or Sleeping Beauty. My feelings about the story were also a bit of a mishmash — on the one hand, there were a lot of info dumps, I’m pretty sure women weren’t snidely called “plus-sized” in the 1920s, the use of spells felt a bit clumsy, and I was really put off by the pompous author’s note. But on the other hand, I loved how the main character, a private detective in the 1920s, was female without any sort of narrative apology and another character was non-binary, and both of these things went a long way to mitigating the other issues, in terms of enjoyment.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “To Go West” by Laura VanArendonk Baugh

Review of Laura VanArendonk Baugh, “To Go West” in Rhonda Parrish, ed., Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline: Dieselpunk and Decopunk Fairy Tales, (World Weaver Press, 2019): 52-76 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Content note: Oblique reference to suicide.

This was a story of delicious creepiness. It was filled with deep mythology and entirely unlike any other story in the anthology. I spent much of the story trying to pick out what the underlying tale was — were the four men the horsemen of the apocalypse? who were the two women in the abandoned farm? No, no… — and coming up utterly flummoxed. It turns out, per VanArendonk Baugh’s authorial note, to be based on one I was not only not familiar with, but had never even heard of before. I love a story that teaches me something and gives me reason to go off and read more. Thumbs up!

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “The Loch” by Zannier Alejandra

Review of Zannier Alejandra, “The Loch” in Rhonda Parrish, ed., Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline: Dieselpunk and Decopunk Fairy Tales, (World Weaver Press, 2019): 20-41 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Content note: mention of concentration camps

Parts of this retelling of the story of “Swan Lake” I really loved — the secondary characters were strongly developed and interesting, especially Miss Haddock (who entirely won me over) and Reggie. Unfortunately, it felt they were allowed to develop as fully fledged characters because they were not a part of the original fairy tale, while those characters that followed the original story more closely were flatter and more fairy-tale-archetypical — so, a story in which the fairy tale foundation unfortunately detracted overall than supported.

There were also a few places where the story raised questions that were never answered (why was Odette, a picture of Aryan perfection, in Auschwitz in the first place? Why was Auschwitz chosen as the locus of her transformation, rather than another camp? Why does the spell run from midnight to dawn instead of dusk to dawn or midnight to noon?) as well as questions that were not asked that perhaps could have been — the “white = pure = good” and “dark = defiled = evil” trope was adopted without any skepticism, and that rather bothered me. I came away from this story feeling like it could’ve been so much more (what if Odette was not a perfect flawless Aryan beauty, but, say, a Jew?).

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Circles and Salt” by Sara Cleto

Review of Sara Cleto, “Circles in Salt” in Rhonda Parrish, ed., Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline: Dieselpunk and Decopunk Fairy Tales, (World Weaver Press, 2019): 4-14 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

A strong opener to the anthology, full of vivid characters and a clear setting, and the existential dread that accompanies the very best of Grimms’ tales. I didn’t recognise the specific fairy tale that was the inspiration for Cleto’s story — it’s not one of the commonly told ones — so I appreciated the author’s note at the end.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline: Dieselpunk and Decopunk Fairy Tales edited by Rhonda Parrish

Review of Rhonda Parrish, ed., Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline: Dieselpunk and Decopunk Fairy Tales, (World Weaver Press, 2019) — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This collection of 18 stories was my first introduction to the subgenres of dieselpunk and decopunk. Parrish in her editorial introduction defines diesel- and decopunk in opposition to steampunk (the characteristic difference between them being time-period), but this approach only works for a reader who already has a comfortable grasp on steampunk — something I’m not sure I yet have. What makes a story “-punk”? I wasn’t sure before I started reading, and I’m not sure I had any better an idea by the time I was done.

Does this mean I felt the anthology failed? No. As a collection of interesting stories with a strong fairy-tale influence (stronger in some stories than others, but overall the inspiration was obvious), overall I enjoyed reading it. I think that there is a lot of “scope for the imagination”, as Anne Shirley would say, in setting stories in the 1915-1945 era, and further that the World Wars, with important roles that Germany played in both, provide a unique perspective on retellings of what are ultimately very German fairy tales. (Not that all the fairy-tale inspirations in the book come from Grimm, but the Grimms’ tales lend themselves well to transposition of setting in this way). That being said, I did feel that the quality of the stories was uneven — some more successful than others in both plot and presentation. Were any of them bad? No. Was the entire collection outstanding? Alas, no also.

As usual, we’ll review each story individually, and link each back here when the review is posted:

Sara L. Uckelman18 Comments