Review of Heather Kamins, “Feasting,” Luna Station Quarterly 23 (2015): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This started off a sweet little story about a ghostly tea party, but it took a rather more sinister turn about halfway through. Just creepy enough to count as horror, but not so creepy as to be too scary to be enjoyable, if you’re not a horror fan.
Review of Rena Rossner, “Exalted Guests (Or, How Malka Raised a Dybbuk Army),” Luna Station Quarterly 23 (2015): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
LSQ over the years has been one of my most reliable sources of Jewish speculative fiction, and Rossner’s story of young Malka leaving her family’s Sukkot celebration to the village cemetary, only to find herself calling out “the kabbalistic incantations she was supposed to only hear, not speak” and speaking in languages she does not know to call up the dead, is another tick in that box. It’s a wild, frenzied story, leaving the reader uncertain whether the dybbuk army is a blessing or a scourge.
Review of Jessamy Dalton, “Ingebjorg Unspelled,” Luna Station Quarterly 23 (2015): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Oh, I absolutely loved this story. Ingebjorg is the daughter of the king of the Northlands, taking after her boisterous, raw-boned father rather than her cultivated, educated mother. Her character comes through in the very first lines of the story and it is engaging and distinctive. Dalton paints her relationship to her parents, and her parents relationship with each other, with great deftness; every word rings true, every one is sympathetic. It’s hard not to feel for Fridesweide, who has to grow old and grey and fretful that she will lose everything her husband has loved in her; it’s not hard to understand how Ingebjorg can love her mother but get along better with her the further they are apart; it’s extremely easy to feel the same revulsion for Klovass the alchemy professor that Ingebjorg feels. And when a Delphic oracle is cast upon Ingebjorg’s life, I could not wait to see how it would resolve itself. I just really enjoyed reading this.
(First published in Lorelei Signal 2011.)
Review of Siobhan Gallagher, “Peaches in the Breeze,” Luna Station Quarterly 23 (2015): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This extremely short story felt a bit more like a sketch for the real thing — too bare bones to quite be fully fledged. If you like tales of women conquering over misogyny, then you might like this one; but I would have liked to see more than just this.
(Originally published in Abyss & Apex, 2013.)
Review of Charlotte Ashley, “Eleusinian Mysteries,” Luna Station Quarterly 23 (2015): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This story is a shining example of the very best of historical science fiction. In 17th-century Amsterdam, engraver Maghfira van Delsen discovers the secret of the mysterious city Eleusia, and her discovery threatens not only the colonising aspirations of the VOC (the Dutch Eastindia Company) but, as a result, her own livelihood and life. The story is a perfect blending of historical verisimilitude and extra-worldly adventure; not only is it good SF, it feels like it is exactly the sort of SF you would expect to get in the 17th century. I really loved this story.
Review of O. J. Cade, “The Tree of Life in Lisbon,” Luna Station Quarterly 23 (2015): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Cade used a story structure that I hadn’t ever encountered before, each different scene/setting being prefaced with a parenthetical description. It was a bit odd in the first instance, but as soon as I hit the second one I was immediately “oooh, I want to see how the same characters and issues will unfold in each different setting,” so it proved to be effective. And so we see Eve, over and over again, in each of her different gardens, in Lisbon, in Jerusalem, in Alexandria, in Athens and elsewhere, as she continually plants “one creation at a time”. The result is an intriguing portrait of one of the most written-about women in history, and one that feels novel and fresh.
Review of Kai Taddei, “Larvae,” Luna Station Quarterly 23 (2015): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This story combines two things I’m not a huge fan of — 2nd person POV and body horror — into something that I actually rather enjoyed. The mesmerising narration felt more like a person talking to themself, rather than instructions to the reader, resulting in a very intimate and emotionally draining glimpse into a sad and rather sordid life.
Review of Sylvia Heike, “Brother, Unseen,” Luna Station Quarterly 23 (2015): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Oh, my goodness, this was a masterclass of a story. Short, effective, beautiful language, an amazing setting and scene. It left me hungering for me, I want to read a full novel set in this world, with these characters. Just about perfection — stories like this are what make reading through the archives so worthwhile.
Review of Cathrin Hagey, “His Soul,” Luna Station Quarterly 23 (2015): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
There are a lot of lovely fairy tale elements in this story, as well as echoes of the myth of Narcissus, but also a lot of patriarchal stereotyping with an underlying misogyny.
I would love to have been able to enjoy this story, but it just failed to push the boundaries in the way it maybe could have.
Review of Karen Bovenmyer, “The Scarlet Cloak,” Luna Station Quarterly 24 (2015): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Bullying, abuse, & harassment; murder ideation; cannibalism; references to rape.
One thing that’s interesting about reading the back archives of a journal is seeing which stories age well (or don’t age at all!) and which don’t. I feel like this one ends up in the latter category: A story where the central heroine is part of the police force is a bit harder to swallow in 2021 than it may have been in 2015.
Then again, I’m not entirely sure I would’ve appreciated this story when it first came out: It is too gruesome, too violent for my tastes.
(First appeared in The Crimson Pact Volume 3, 2012.)
SFF Reviews