REVIEW: “Daemonium Ex” by Hannah Hulbert

Review of Hannah Hulbert, “Daemonium Ex,” Luna Station Quarterly 50 (2022): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Everelda, demon hunter, is on a mission from Lord Fortescue. Lord Fortescue hasn’t told her, however, which demon to expect to find in the lair at the end of the sewer tunnel; and she probably would have refused the commission had she known.

Full of florid writing and purple prose (so full it’s even rubbed off on me!), this story felt in the beginning like it was trying to be Gothic without quite succeeding. But when it finally left off its self-conscious officiousness and started poking fun at itself, I began to enjoy it a lot.

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REVIEW: “Cosmic Resolution” by Hannah Hulbert

Review of Hannah Hulbert, “Cosmic Resolution”, Luna Station Quarterly 45 (2021): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Alcoholic parent.

Thirteen year old Marina doesn’t know what’s harder to deal with — the tentacles that slurp against her bedroom window at night, or about the fact that her mother doesn’t seem to think this is anything out of the ordinary. The opening of this story is weird and creepy, but when even Marina’s mom can’t ignore the tentacles and her whole history spills out, it takes a hard, sharp shift into the deliciously amusing and touchingly poignant. I really enjoyed this!

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REVIEW: “Petrichor” by Hannah Hulbert

Review of Hannah Hulbert, “Petrichor”, in David G. Clark, Callum Colback, Joe Butler, and Alex Hareland, eds., Beneath Strange Stars, (TL;DR Press, 2020): 15-31 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

I always expect the opening story of an anthology to typify the entire collection, to set the scene, so to speak. This story does not, however, make good on the expectation set by the foreword and introduction. If what makes a story science fiction is the presence of some sort of science in it, then this story is definitely not science fiction, but instead pure fantasy. The story alternates between two points of view, that of Nolauronomailik, an Earth elemental, and Nol his priestess, who worships him as a god.

But while I found it a perplexing choice to open this collection, I did not dislike the story itself. It had some lovely imagery in it, and some poignant moments as Nolauronomailik must balance his fallibility with Nol’s belief in him.

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