REVIEW: “Callia” by Justin M. Siebert

Review of Justin M. Siebert, “Callia”, in David G. Clark, Callum Colback, Joe Butler, and Alex Hareland, eds., Beneath Strange Stars, (TL;DR Press, 2020): 249-262 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Content warning: attempted suicide.

This is a story of two interwining threads, of Melissa who is being abused and tortured by a monster she calls Callia (and who only learned how to tell time in 5th grade!), and of Tom, who see this happening when no one else does (and who is a hypochondriac). It takes me awhile to realise exactly who, or what, Callia is (or who they are…) It’s a dark take on the topic (can’t say more without spoilers), but it ends on a hopeful, if not happy, note.

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REVIEW: “The Ordeal” by M. Bennardo

Review of M. Bennardo, “The Ordeal”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue Number 297, February 13, 2020: Read online. Reviewed by Richard Lohmeyer.

I’ve enjoyed many other stories by this author, but this time Bennardo has outdone himself. In this tale of institutionalized evil, a young man named Waller, at the urging of his lawyer father, visits the mythical Duchy of Alpinia. There, he encounters the world’s strangest court of appeals. To save the life of her wrongfully accused husband, Frau Fenster must undergo a trial by ordeal. In a single day, she—the duchy’s finest spinner—must produce via spinning wheel at least twice as much material as is humanly possible. Since nothing short of divine intervention could help her succeed, the country’s legal system literally requires Frau Fenster to work a miracle or her husband will be shot at dawn the next day. To Waller, this is a barbaric practice, but to the learned men of Alpinia, it seems perfectly reasonable to put their faith in God, “the only true Witness and the only unerring Judge.” 

Saying more would spoil an excellent story, but I strongly urge you to read it. It’s among the best Beneath Ceaseless Skies has published. Given how good a magazine BCS is, that’s saying quite a lot. 

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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.

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REVIEW: “Rust and Bone” by Mary Robinette Kowal

Review of Mary Robinette Kowal, “Rust and Bone”, Shimmer 46 (2018): 86-92 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This is a harsh story of a child caught between two adults — one grandmother, one mother — each of whom thinks (or at least claims) they have the child’s best interests at heart.

For anyone who has been caught in a family feud, or who has watched friends be caught in such a feud, this is not a pleasant story. Even if you have not witnessed first hand this sort of situation, the story leaves you with a deep uncertainty and ambivalence about the outcome: Is this the outcome we should’ve been rooting for? More importantly, is it the one that is best for the child? It just isn’t clear, and for some (I’m one of them) that makes it an unsatisfying story. Others may thrive on the ambivalence, and enjoy it more.

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REVIEW: “Don’t Stop” by Reneé Bibby

Review of Reneé Bibby, “Don’t Stop”, Luna Station Quarterly 39 (2019): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Death of a parent.

LSQ doesn’t do that much straight-up horror, but that’s what this story feels like. I’d classify this story as “solid but not surprising”, relying on the standard trope of don’t-stop-for-hitchikers — but there’s a reason that that trope became a trope! It works — were it not for one surprising, or at least unexpected, choice, namely, one of the secondary characters is deaf. That was a plus for this story in my book, but minusing it out was the way that mental illness as pathologized. So in the end, I came away from this story rather ambivalent.

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REVIEW: “Bread and Milk and Salt” by Sarah Gailey

Review of Sarah Gailey, “Bread and Milk and Salt”, Robots vs Fairies, edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe (Gallery / Saga Press, 2018): 99-118 — Purchase Here. Reviewed by Susan T. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Well this was chilling. It’s beautifully written, but it’s grim. It follows a fae who wants to steal a boy, until the boy grows older and decides that he is going to steal the fae instead. The imagery is beautiful and horrifying – the fae has so many plans for what they could do with the boy – but the horror is in what Peter does back, without a shred of conscience. The use of robotics and the fae’s vengeance are both very creepy and very effective, especially the fact that even the (arguably monstrous) fae understands that Peter’s actions are monstrous.

Bread and Milk and Salt is very good, but definitely a horror story for me. Highly recommended if you’re in the mood for it.

[Caution warning: abuse, animal cruelty]

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REVIEW: “Streuobstwiese” by Steve Toase

Review of Steve Toase, “Streuobstwiese”, Shimmer 46 (2018): 27-33 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

The jerky cadences of this story gave me little snapshots of the world in which it is set, but never quite enough for me to feel like I knew what was going on. While I like writing slice-of-life/vignette fiction, I’m never entirely convinced how well it works as a story-telling technique, and in this case, I don’t think it quite worked for me.

When I finished the story, I went to translate the title — I recognised it as German, and recognised part of the compound, but did not know the sense of the whole thing. Unfortunately, the translation I got — “Orchard” — did not help shed any light on what, exactly, was going on.

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REVIEW: “From the Void” by Sarah Gailey

Review of Sarah Gailey, “From the Void”, Shimmer 46 (2018): 95-104 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

There are so many stories of space ships full of crew in stasis pods, and then inevitable things-going-wrong when they come out. This story is yet another one.

I would’ve sighed and shook my head (and continued reading nonetheless) after seeing that this was the case, were it not for the very interesting way in which religion plays counterpart to the traditional sci-fi model these stories usually fit — there is a lot more praying, creeds, baptisms, and high priestesses in Gailey’s story than in the usual space odyssey story. A lot more religion, and a lot more horror, too. It’s not a pleasant story, though it is finely constructed.

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REVIEW: “Pocketful of Souls” by Jennifer Lee Rossman

Review of Jennifer Lee Rossman, “Pocketful of Souls”, Luna Station Quarterly 38 (2019): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

When you think about it, it’s funny that in administrating something as complex as hell, there aren’t more clerical errors. But whether due to clerical error or the “cursed result of the union between a human and a demon”, Amy was “not like the other demons”. But while on the surface Amy was pure and innocent and childlike, underneath she’s not all that she seems, and she exploited her childlikeness for demonic purposes.

The way the story is set up, I think many people would find it humorous, and laugh at Amy’s antics. For me, it wasn’t to my taste simply because of a personal not liking people who are not children pretending to act like children. I never felt any sympathy with Amy, but neither did I feel any sympathy with her victims. As a result, this story somewhat passed me by rather than brought me in.

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REVIEW: “My Life” by Jessica Walsh

Review of Jessica Walsh, “My Life”, in Little Creepers (Sewn Together Reflections, LLC, 2018): 51-94 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Many of the characters in the other stories in Walsh’s anthology felt very shadowing and fuzzy, but in “My Life” I felt like I had a chance to see multi-faceted people with names and lives and backgrounds. This was due in part to the length — a good solid story rather than a 1-3 page gossamer bite.

Erickson and Taylor were college roommates, and unlikely — but believable — friends. (They’d be more than friends if Erickson had his way, but Taylor always laughed off his overtures.) But now things are changing — Taylor’s moving out into his own place, Erickson’s getting a new roommate. Neither is quite sure how to begin navigating this new chapter in their lives, so when Taylor finds a name scribbled on the wall underneath some pealing wallpaper, and a notebook in his bedroom with the same name inscribed in it, he assumes it’s Erickson playing some sort of joke, a parting gift (if you like). First Taylor ignores the notebook, then he starts writing in it, imagining what the story behind the name — Nicholas — written in it is.

But of course, Erickson hadn’t give him any notebook. What follows is Taylor’s plunge into the uncanny as he continues to write Nicholas’s story, getting more and more involved in the fantasy he’s creating than in the reality he’s supposed to be inhabiting. As the lines between reality and fiction blur, what really comes to the fore and shines is the relationship between Taylor and Erickson, complex, delicate, full of pathos, and beautiful. It made the ending even more horrifying when it came.

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