REVIEW: “A Feather In Her Cap” by Mary Robinette Kowal

Review of Mary Robinette Kowal, “A Feather In Her Cap,” Fantasy & Science Fiction 134, 1-2 (2018): 216-227 — Purchase Here. Reviewed by Standback.

A quick, delightful caper.

Biantera was once a gentlewoman, now reduced a humble milliner — which she’d mind a whole lot less if not for her mother’s constant complaints. We immediately discover Biantera wears more than one hat:

She made damn good money as an assassin, but if her mother was upset about the supposed millinery business, Biantera could only imagine what she’d have to say about the Other job.

The constant juxtaposition between hatmaking and murder makes for great roguish fun, and Biantera’s methods are clever and refreshing. Recommended.

StandbackLeave a comment

REVIEW: “Jewel of the Heart” by Matthew Hughes

Review of Matthew Hughes, “Jewel of the Heart,” Fantasy & Science Fiction 134, 1-2 (2018): 86-144 — Purchase Here. Reviewed by Standback.

Matthew Hughes’ stories are usually colorful, pulpy, and a lot of fun. Previously, he’s written tales of Henghis Hapthorn, the sardonic discriminator; Raffalon, the overconfident rogue; and others. In his last few stories for F&SF, Hughes has been developing a new character, Baldemar, a wizard’s henchman who’s far more level-headed than the wizard he serves. Baldemar’s watchwords are caution, keen observation, and always paying what he owes.

Baldemar’s previous outing won him the attention of a powerful sentient artifact — who, in this story, plucks Baldemar away from his master, and sets him on a mission in a dream-like plane, operating on fairy-tale logic. His goal is unclear, but he is instructed to mind the difference between story and dream, and to follow his instincts.

The story is full of fun and vivid scenes — from the overbearing Helm whisking Baldemar to and fro as it pleases, to the odd, unsettling doll that becomes his companion for the quest.

That being said, it also has a very aimless feel to it. The quest is, fairly explicitly, an arbitrary one; it’s a “test” Baldemar needs to “pass,” and there isn’t really any potential for outcomes or repercussions more interesting than “pass” vs. “fail.” The dream logic is definitely dream-like, but that leaves the story feeling like a sequence of random events, with no sense of progression or significance. I found it fun and goofy and entertaining, but I just didn’t stay excited for it at full novella length.

Perhaps most disappointing, I don’t feel Hughes has found his feet with Baldemar as a character yet. I love Baldemar’s extreme soberness whenever it makes an appearance:

“I don’t suppose,” Baldemar said, “that the way out is to ask you to bring back the door?”

“No, but it’s good not to limit your thinking.”

But those instances feel few. Far more often, Baldemar is called upon to “trust his instincts,” a fairly vague instruction, which mostly winds up meaning “do some arbitrary thing that advances the plot, when the author chooses.” I’m sure that an entertainingly sober character is more challenging to write than an entertainingly flamboyant one. Hughes has managed it marvelously in previous stories, particularly in Baldemar’s introduction, “Ten Half-Pennies”. I’m sorry this one doesn’t reach the same heights, and I look forward to seeing more of Baldemar.

 

StandbackLeave a comment

REVIEW: “The Fumblers Alley Risk Emporium” by Julian Mortimer Smith

Review of Julian Mortimer Smith, “The Fumblers Alley Risk Emporium”, Podcastle: 511 — Listen Online. Reviewed by Heather Rose Jones

One could identify a sub-genre of fantasy stories about shops that specialize in odd and potentially magical items. Often the shop is mysteriously transient–hard to find except when the time is right. Or perhaps there are hazardous conditions put on the transactions that drive the story’s conflict. “The Fumblers Alley Risk Emporium” is a solid addition to this genre, with the twist that the desired objects can only be “purchased” by an exchange of a possession with the same highly-subjective personal value. Misjudge the relative values and you lose everything. And when value is utterly subjective to the customer, there are unparalleled opportunities for arbitrage. The premise could drive an ordinary real-world story, but the fantasy element enters not only in the nature of the goods and their payment, but also in the mechanism for evaluating relative worth.

It’s a clever concept, laid out with rich and evocative description. The story fell short of knocking my socks off for two reasons. To a large extent, the story and characters were overshadowed by the setting and worldbuilding. Once the structures and rules had been laid out, the tale was nearly finished. And the protagonist’s need, conflict, and price were a bit too straightforward. I could see where the story was going and was unsurprised by where it ended up or how it got there. In all, a solid piece, just not among my top favorites.

heatherrosejonesLeave a comment

REVIEW: “The Waters So Dark” by Josh Reynolds

Review of Josh Reynolds, “The Waters So Dark”, Broadswords and Blasters 1 (2017): 67-77 — Purchase Here. Reviewed by Yana Shepard.

Let me first state that this story was written well and I took no issue with it other than the religious themes. It wasn’t offensive, it’s just I’m not a fan of most religious themes. Again, written well, just not my cup of tea. But if you don’t mind, then this may be a story for you.

Without spoiling too much, there was a nifty creature that I really dug its description.

I enjoyed the ending. It was not what I was expecting.

If you like spiritual monks fighting scary monsters, this may be a tale for you.

Yana ShepardLeave a comment

REVIEW: “Long for This World” by Esther Scherpenisse

Review of Esther Scherpenisse, “Long For This World”, Space and Time #130 Winter 2017 pp. 3-10. Purchase here. Review by Ben Serna-Grey.

One thing I like about Space and Time magazine is that they always keep things interesting and this story is no exception. Esther Scherpenisse is a Dutch SFF writer, and in this story she tells of a young man who is about to die, but whose family is lucky enough for Death to answer their call.

The main character gets taken by Death to a realm where his life is extended, though things aren’t necessarily what they seem at first glance. Death in this story is fairly kind, though firm, much like Neil Gaiman’s Death in the Sandman series, though here they are at least presented as male. Some parts of the story may be hard to face, such as the main character getting swept up in his family’s inability to say goodbye to him, despite the fact that chemo has made him more than ready to accept his death when it comes. Or his faimily’s forced ignorance of the fact that their son is wasting away in front of them, their absolute need to act like nothing is wrong.

The story keeps things short and sweet and packs a great punch when it comes to the main character’s choices. Fans of Persona may also enjoy the description of Death’s tower. Highly recommended.

Ben Serna-GreyLeave a comment

REVIEW: “My Heart is a Prayer” by Ryan Row

Review of Ryan Row, “My Heart is a Prayer”, Podcastle: 510 — Listen Online. Reviewed by Heather Rose Jones

There are stories where the poetic language grabs my ears and carries me through to the heart of the tale even when I’m not sure where it’s going. There are stories where the tale itself grabs me and the language becomes the unnoticed medium that conveys it. “My Heart is a Prayer” falls somewhere in the vast middle between those two. The words are full of lyrical imagery but I had to re-start my listening a couple of times because I couldn’t find a story to latch on to and my mind wandered off and lost track of what I was hearing.

To some extent, that listening experience matches the content of the story fairly well. A creature that is not human, that is only just coming into its understanding of itself, describes the experience of that becoming and understanding. Eventually we get the context of its experience: two alchemists, devastated (and possibly driven mad) by the death of their child, pour all their art into undoing that death and in the process capture an entity they hadn’t intended. The disaster their success could generate dangles by a thread–and is still dangling at the story’s end.

In structure, this falls in the type of story that I feel works better in audio than on the page, but in actual execution the elusive, unfocused nature of the first half came very close to losing me entirely.

(Previously published at Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores which, alas, has a completely unreadable display interface and makes it impossible to determine what the original publication date was.)

heatherrosejones4 Comments

REVIEW: “A Non-Hero’s Guide to The Road of Monsters” by A.T. Greenblatt

Review of A.T. Greenblatt, “A Non-Hero’s Guide to The Road of Monsters”, Podcastle: 509 — Listen Online. Reviewed by Heather Rose Jones

This is a meta-fiction blending the world of gamer’s quests made real and the contemporary online culture of bloggers. Devon isn’t a hero; he follows quests and encounters fabulous monsters to write them up for a travel blog. But there was a time when he did try heroing with his friend Nate. It ended badly and that’s why Devon is missing an arm these days. So when Nate’s girlfriend hires Devon to find out why Nate didn’t return from his latest quest…let’s just say there are complicated feelings involved.

I found this story to have a very slow start, with its apparently random monster encounters and the detailed descriptions of how Devon works past them. The climax included some very satisfying twists and resolutions as Devon sticks to his principles to bring the quest to a satisfying conclusion for all involved–including (or perhaps especially) the monsters. The colloquial contemporary narrative style worked to leaven the otherwise stock worldbuilding. It doesn’t aspire to the level of gripping prose that will knock my socks off, but it’s appropriate to the nature of the story.

(Originally published in Mothership Zeta 2016/07/31)

heatherrosejonesLeave a comment

REVIEW: “Frost” by ‘Nathan Burgoine

Review of ‘Nathan Burgoine, “Frost”, in Steve Berman, ed., Wilde Stories 2017: The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction (Lethe Press, 2017): 69-79. — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

To have a man like this, a man like his father, and his brothers, who would look at him and respect him and—yes—love him, even though he was small, and narrow, and gentle. What that might be like.

Flipping through the book to pick the next story to read and review, I opened to the page that had this opening quote, and knew immediately that this was the story I wanted to read. So much hope and sadness in those two sentences, and also a hint of something more.

“Frost” is in essence a classic fairy tale, with the clever youngest son hero, magic to mend a broken heart, and what should be a happily ever after. The man Frost is “born of magic and a longing for love,” and though he seems everything that Little Jay, with the gift of magic in his hands, desires and needs, as often happens when magic is involved, not everything is as it seems. Before my eyes I see the happily ever after melts away as the frost melts in the sun, and my heart ached for the unhappiness that threads through the entire story.

But,

Anything broken might never be what it was, but in the right hands, with enough heart, it could always be something else (p. 79).

There is hope at the end of the story, but I’m not quite sure it’s enough to make it a happy story.

(Originally published in 2016 on ‘Nathan Burgoine’s blog.)

Sara L. Uckelman2 Comments

REVIEW: Wilde Stories 2017 edited by Steve Berman

Review of Steve Berman, ed., Wilde Stories 2017: The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction, (Lethe Press, 2017) — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

As a cis woman who is in a happily monogamous het relationship, I am probably the least qualified person to review this collection of stories. But, oh, it has a story about Turing in it, and as a logician who sometimes flirts with computer science and AI, I feel eminently qualified to read about Turing, and for that story alone I bought the book.

As a “best of” collection, it draws upon stories published the previous year, so all of these first came out — in various venues — in 2016. Many are thus things I would not have otherwise come across, which is one of the advantages that collected volumes have — they provide a different type of exposure for the stories and the authors that wrote them. And this particular volume is a physically lovely one — beautiful cover art by Dmitry Vorsin, attractive typesetting, and a suppleness to the pages which reminds me, as if I needed a reminder, of why I love print books so much more than electronic ones.

Each story is prefaced by a short quote from the story, bound to spark the reader’s interest. The tales included are the following:

Each of the stories will be reviewed individually, and linked back to this post when the review is posted.

Overall, the collection is powerful, beautiful, and sad. Every single story is steeped in emotion, and lovingly crafted.

Sara L. Uckelman18 Comments

REVIEW: “Cardinal Skin” by Bo Balder

Review of Bo Balder, “Cardinal Skin”, in Abandoned Places, edited by George R. Galuschak and Chris Cornell (Shohola Press, 2018): 5-17 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

The opening story of Galuschak and Cornell’s anthology dumps us immediately into an empty plain of glass, across which Teio and her brother and father are skating to reach the mountains on the other side, the mountains on top of which

they hoped to find the sanctum where the Cardinal Skins were hidden. Many heroes had tried to acquire a Skin, trying to save the world from its ruined state after the Cataclysms.

Teio’s mother, Haio, had been such a hero, but she had failed. Now her family come, hoping both to succeed where she had not, and to find her body and bury it.

The story has all the elements of a classic quest tale, but it is more than that: It is a ghost story. It is a story of family bonds and family places. It is a story of learning that everything you knew is wrong, and a story of a place that is not quite as abandoned as everyone thought.

Balder’s writing was quick paced and precise. An unfortunate quirk of typesetting marred the story throughout, however. In a number of places, quoted material coming after another sentence lacks the space after the preceding period, meaning the quotation marks end up curled the wrong way.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment