REVIEW: “Victory and Vanilla” by Hesper Leveret

Review of Hesper Leveret, “Victory and Vanilla,” Luna Station Quarterly 58 (2024): 107-125 — Purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Ever wanted a combination of Great British Bake-Off and speculative fiction? If so, this is the story for you! It was clearly written by someone intimately familiar with British cooking competition shows (there was even a mention of a buttery biscuit base…), i.e., an author after my own heart.

Sometimes, all you want a story that’s just good fun. That’s exactly what this was.

Sara L. UckelmanLeave a comment

REVIEW: “Before the Unicorn Hunt” by Hesper Leveret

Review of Hesper Leveret, “Before the Unicorn Hunt,” Luna Station Quarterly 54 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Every year there is a unicorn hunt, where the prince can flaunt his skills to his courtiers. For the remainder of the year, Lariselle, its caretaker, lives with her family in the royal hunting lodge, keeping everything ready until the next year. And each year she has a special duty: To go to the hidden Boscan village and select the unicorn whose blood will go into the special cider the prince will drink, the one whom the prince will then go on to hunt and kill. It’s an awful duty, but one that Lariselle discharges, albeit unwillingly, and in the end she gets her reward.

Sara L. UckelmanLeave a comment

REVIEW: “We Who Are Left On This Dying Earth” by Hesper Leveret

Review of Hesper Leveret, “We Who are Left On This Dying Earth”, Luna Station Quarterly 46 (2021): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Reading recent climate news, it’s hard to escape the fact that we are already living on a dying earth; Leveret’s story is timely, then, in the sense that it could easily happen in our near future, maybe a generation from now — enough time for people on earth to figured out how to get off it.

Of course, even if that happens, we all know that not everyone is going to get to go, and “We Who Are Left On This Dying Earth” is the story of two who won’t be, one because she is too old, the other because he is too sick. Because of course it is the old and the weak and the poor who will get left behind.

You might think that this story would be an angry, unhappy story; but instead, there was just enough hope to make it happy, but not too much to make it unrealistic.

Sara L. UckelmanLeave a comment