REVIEW: Skull & Pestle: New Tales of Baba Yaga, edited by Kate Wolford

Review of Kate Wolford, ed., Skull & Pestle: New Tales of Baba Yaga (World Weaver Press, 2019) — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

In this anthology, folklorist Kate Wolford collects seven tales of Baba Yaga, the dangerous and deceptive crone-witch figure of Slavic mythology. The collection is introduced by Amanda Bergloff, who delves into the history of the Baba Yaga character, and the subversive ways in which she acts, both in historical myth and in the present set of stories. The stories themselves range from retellings of the classic Baba Yaga tales, including the most well-known of them, “Vasilisa the Beautiful”, found in Alexander Afanasyev’s 19th century Russian Fairy Tales, to ones that depart from the classic tradition much more, focusing on Baba Yaga’s origins, or transferring her from the Slavic myth to World War II history.

Three of the stories (Forsyth, Sloan, Shanel) are straight up re-tellings of the original story, although sometimes extended or transplanted. Two (Honigman, Coates) are stories of Baba Yaga in modern times. Two (Ross, Cook) explore Baba Yaga’s history. As isolated stories, each can more than stand on its own merits. However, rather perversely for a themed anthology, having three tellings of the same story in the same book got a bit repetitious. The ones I loved the best were the ones that reinvented the story, rather than merely retold it, and made something wholly new. On this count, Honigman’s story is the bright shining jewel of the anthology.

The seven stories are listed below, and we will review each in turn, linking them back to this post when the reviews are published.

Sara L. Uckelman7 Comments

REVIEW: “The Story of a Star” by Æ (George William Russell)

Review of Æ (George William Russell), “The Story of a Star” in A Brilliant Void: A Selection of Classic Irish Science Fiction, edited by Jack Fennell (Tramp Press, 2018): 71-75 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology).

Unlike some of the other stories in this anthology, with their quite detailed science, this one seems almost more fantasy (or perhaps magical realism?) than science fiction — though Robert, the narrator (what is it with all the men writing stories with egotistical, megalomaniac first person POVs? I mean, the narrator of this story imagines himself to be the reincarnation of one of the magi!), is dealing with subject matter that could be called science, such as the birth of stars and planets, the way he deals with them is not through observation, investigation, or scientific method, but through contemplation, dreaming, and fugue states.

(Originally published in 1894).

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REVIEW: “Girls Who Do Not Drown” by A.C. Buchanan

Review of A.C. Buchanan, “Girls Who Do Not Drown”, Apex Magazine 115 (2018): Read Online. Reviewed by Joanna Z. Weston.

On an unnamed island in the cold ocean, girls grow up knowing that the sea may kill them as they grow up, when glashtyns will come to lure them beneath the waves. That is the way it has always been and the way it will always be. For Alice, this destiny is complicated by the fact that everyone else thinks she is a boy. But when a glashtyn comes for her anyway, she realizes that if the water horse can see what she really is, then someone else may figure it out too. She walks into the ocean.

The writing and the storytelling here floored me. It’s a simple story on the surface, but Buchanan brings forward every ounce of pathos, delivering it to the reader like an offering. There is violence here, and a deep isolation, but it never feels overwrought. If anything, the descriptions are surprisingly restrained, and the mirroring of supernatural and real-world themes is allowed to speak for itself.

I am not ashamed to admit that the ending of the story made me cry. It is a good ending, and more hopeful than I would have believed. I won’t spoil it beyond what you can infer from the title, but this is a beautiful, resonant story.

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REVIEW: “The Curse of Apollo” by Diana Hurlburt

Review of Diana Hurlburt, “The Curse of Apollo”, Luna Station Quarterly 36 (2018): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This is a story of a story, set in ancient Greece where a story teller recites the tales for each season — counting tales “a more pleasant way of counting the seasons than taxes”. This particular story that the story teller tells us of is of two horses born to the same mare six weeks apart. Is this a miracle of nature? Is it divine intervention? Are the horses gods? Or silly young foals to be sacrificed to the gods? No one knew what to do, except one person, and he was not consulted: And so that is how the titular curse came about. No one thought to ask one of the most important twin gods what he thought, and Apollo felt slighted…

The best myths are ones where you aren’t entirely sure what is real and what is not. This story feels like it could’ve come straight out of the Homeric tradition of classical Greek mythology, though it’s not a myth that I recognise — whether this is because of a fault in myself or because the story is truly new, I do not know. Either way, I enjoyed it.

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REVIEW: “Wise Woman” by Regina Higgins

Review of Regina Higgins, “Wise Woman”, Luna Station Quarterly 36 (2018): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This wasn’t meant to be a horror story (I don’t think), but there are few things that I can imagine that are scarier than false accusations. When Charlotte finds out from her aunt Sylvia that Mildred, whom Charlotte has been going to all her life, has been accused, Charlotte’s first response is to ask what proof there is being the accusations. Sylvia’s response is chilling:

“Oh, there’s no proof. Not yet. She’s just been accused.”

Behind those words is the chilling truth, that proof doesn’t matter. When a woman is accused, proof isn’t needed. When a woman accuses, proof is required.

It is fear that drives Charlotte to ask Mildred to read the cards: The Empress, the Emperor, the broken tower, symbol of destruction. But while Charlotte fears destruction as a dangerous, harmful thing, Mildred embraces hope: Hope that what is to come is the shattering of oppressive power structures. Mildred’s hope is so calm and steadfast, it is difficult not to believe in it. Hope in the face of oppression is always something worth reading about.

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REVIEW: “The Last Evening at Prosperity” by Stuti Telidevara

Review of Stuti Telidevara, “The Last Evening at Prosperity”, Luna Station Quarterly 36 (2018): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

The opening scene brings us into the scented, steamy confines of a bathhouse, on a special night where the bathhouse workers become the customers instead. The feel is very much old, luxurious, haremlike. But this feel is offset by hints and bits dropped here and there, about the Prosperity process, about a company rich enough to buy an entire jungle, that make the story feel modern, maybe even futuristic, and this tension provides a great sense of unease while reading. Just what is this place? And what is going on?

I really enjoyed reading this story, which immersed me in its setting with rich detail appealing to all the senses, and kept me guessing all the way to the end. I’d love to read more by Telidevara.

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REVIEW: “Down Among the Fireweed” by Sarah McGill

Review of Sarah McGill, “Down Among the Fireweed”, Luna Station Quarterly 36 (2018): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This story of Jack, born to a mother who could not care for him and so made a compact with Tom Scratch, an exchange of her child’s future for his life, and of Marjorie Hart, the only one who could remove the chains that bound Jack, is told in a “forsoothly” sort of voice to enhance its old-fashioned, old-world, old-timey feel. At times this works for me, while at other times it simply ends up either over-written (too many words for too little feeling or action) or under-written (leaving me uncertain what just happened).

The story is quite complex, so having the narrative style interfere with it, as it did for me, meant I got to the end still unsure quite how it hung together, and wishing that I had understood it better. This might be one to reread.

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REVIEW: “Bog Witch” by Maya Dworsky

Review of Maya Dworsky, “Bog Witch”, Luna Station Quarterly 36 (2018): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

In the opening paragraphs we are introduced to Taterra, who joined the Lioness Project in her sixties and who is careful to remind herself that she chose to be here on “this horrible backwards moon”. With quick, skilful sentences Dworsky fills us in on Taterra’s character and background, and by the time she drops the line “Taterra was not his girl. She was not anyone’s girl; Taterra had tenure”, I am utterly sold. Taterra might not be anyone’s girl, but I’m totally Taterra’s girl. (Later on I find out she likes Argentinian malbecs, and I am further convinced that Taterra is who I want to be when I grow up.)

Taterra’s assignment on Hecate III, an old prison moon, isn’t exactly first-contact, but it is “first-in-a-long-time contact”, and Taterra is there to observe and gather data, as any good anthropologist and social scientist would. But of course she cannot only observe, and the way in which Taterra gets sucked into the court life on Hecate III, how her guise as mystic and seer shapes and changes the future of the royal family and the entire colony, how her prophesies come true, is gripping and fascinating. It’s not just a story of science and magic, it’s a story of how wanting something can make it happen, how belief in magic creates magic itself, and how the birth of a girl-prince can change everything. I loved it.

One warning for those who wish to avoid it: The story features underage marriage, and death in childbirth.

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Review: “From This She Makes a Living?” by Esther Friesner

Review of Esther Friesner, “From This She Makes a Living?”, Unidentified Funny Objects 6, 2017.  pp. 43-63. Purchase here. Review by Ben Serna-Grey.

Esther Friesner has a pretty strong pedigree backing her up, with a Nebula Award, a huge stack of novels, plays, poems, and short stories to her name, as well as a popular Baen anthology series Chicks in Chainmail. I have to admit this is the first of her works that I’ve read, though. With that being said, maybe if you’re already a fan of her work you’ll really dig this, but personally it fell flat. The writing is good overall, and I hope it does work for you a lot better than it did me, though.

It’s a quirky and fourth wall-breaking piece of Jewish humor, with frequent interruptions and secondary narrative in the form of footnotes translating Yiddish words and phrases. The thing that most took me out of the piece was the frequent interruptions with the footnotes, as it began to feel like a joke that had been carried well past its expiration.

The story is set in a sort of in-between limbo-esque world where a bunch of Jews seem to get caught in a timeless existence, where people from all different time periods end up. Everything comes to a head when a young modern woman and a dragon are pulled into this world and the citizenry have to figure out how to deal with both the dragon and this independent young woman.

If you like quippy metafiction then this is probably a good piece for you, and it did start out as a good piece for me until it got a little stale, but it did grab my interest enough to check out more of Friesner’s work.

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REVIEW: Broken Metropolis: Queer Tales of a City That Never Was edited by Dave Ring

Review of Dave Ring, ed., Broken Metropolis: Queer Tales of the City That Never Was (Mason Jar Press, 2018) — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

I first learned of this anthology late fall 2017, when the call for submissions went out. The concept immediately caught my interest:

We are looking for stories that explore the edges of urban fantasy through queer stories. While the city these stories are set in should be vast and unnamed, highly specific neighborhoods and landmarks are encouraged and sought after. We welcome a broad interpretation of the genre that is inclusive of postmodern folk tales, future/ancient noir, and stories that happen both behind closed doors and in plain sight. Throughout, we’re looking for rich, varied and nuanced understandings of gender, family and ethnicity.

I loved the idea of a series of stories that are all connected, but the ways in which they are connected are left to the reader, and not the writer, to specify. So I was extremely delighted to be offered a review copy of the anthology, because now I get to see how that original conception came to fruition.

The 10 stories in this collection spam the gamut of gritty to sweet to sensual to sad. As a whole, they give a sense of a complex and rewarding city, some place I’d like to visit, some place I’d like to set a story of my own in. In his editor’s note, Ring points out the important power of fiction “to bear witness”, and the importance of witnessing queer characters in the forefront of stories, not on the sidelines. These stories come together in a powerful way to bear this witness, and I highly recommend this collection.

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

Sara L. Uckelman10 Comments