REVIEW: “Earth is a Crash Landing” by J. G. Formato

Review of J. G. Formato, “Earth is a Crash Landing”, Luna Station Quarterly 28 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Slavery.

This story was not at all what I expected. Celester, the narrator, is a self-described “Trashcan baby”, the sort of foundling who deserves to get stuck in a dead-end job issuing permits. And least, that is the facade that she puts up, not wanting to admit that there might be something else underneath her hard exterior. There are so many ways the story could then go, and none of the ways it did go were ones I could’ve imagined. There were twists and turns and hints and clues right the way through.

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REVIEW: “All the Souls Like Candle Flames” by Vanessa Fogg

Review of Vanessa Fogg, “All the Souls Like Candle Flames”, Luna Station Quarterly 28 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

I continue to be not a huge fan of 2nd person narration — I’ve said it before, but I had being told what I am thinking or feeling — so that it takes something quite extraordinary for me to overcome my high bar for stories that open up with an instruction to me, the reader. Unfortunately, Fogg’s story did not manage to hurdle it, despite the 2nd person narration being restricted to the opening, scene setting paragraphs. But after having been told that I know the Sea Witch’s name (I don’t) or that maybe I’m already dead (nope, definitely not), I wasn’t in the right mood to find out the story of Mikki, and why a fish has feathers. I think this story could’ve been much stronger if those initial paragraphs had been simply stripped out.

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REVIEW: “A Few Minutes More” by L. M. Magalas

Review of L. M. Magalas, “A Few Minutes More”, Luna Station Quarterly 28 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Suicide.

The premise of this story is simply: Susanna, by committing suicide, has forfeited her right to the remainder of her allotted days, but she is allowed to designate someone else as recipient.

I wouldn’t have ever thought a suicide story could be heartwarming, but this one was. Magalas handled the delicate subject matter with care and sensitivity, exploring the ways in which our actions affect those around us, positively and negatively, in a story full of warmth and hope.

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REVIEW: “Scrap Metal” by Tara Calaby

Review of Tara Calaby, “Scrap Metal”, Luna Station Quarterly 28 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content warning:Traumatic injury, death.

It’s always risky opening a story with a character waking up — perhaps even more risky to start not only the first scene but the second scene as well that way!

Mae’s been in a bad car accident, but she is “a very lucky girl”; after all, she’s now kitted out with the best cybernetic prosthetics available. With this, Calaby takes what could’ve been a rather pedestrian premise and threads it with through with the uncomfortable side of Mae’s luck: the way in which wealth rather than need or desert determines who gets the best of care after a traumatic accident, the gaslighting of a patient by their doctor, the fact that her new limbs might not be all they seem on the surface.

Quality SF with a hint of horror towards the end. Nicely done.

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REVIEW: “Man-Fruit” by Clara Kiat

Review of Clara Kiat, “Man-Fruit”, Luna Station Quarterly 28 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Abortion, physical abuse, non-consensual sex.

The story opens on the midwife Puring visiting Sisinia, who is “six moons away from giving birth”. But with Puring’s assistance, Sisinia might never give birth at all.

No one other than the mothers-who-won’t-be suspect that Puring is the source of the local abortions; but even more so, no one at all knows the secret behind how Puring does it, or the importance of the man-fruit to her life. Puring’s secret almost turns the story from fantasy into horror, Kiat mixing and balancing equal parts in her construction of the tale.

It’s not often I get a story set in post-Conquest central (or maybe southern; it wasn’t made explicit) America, which seems to me to be a real lack, because that is a setting rife with native fantasy and mythology that I would love to see more of.

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REVIEW: “Fargone” by J. S. Veter

Review of J. S. Veter, “Fargone”, Luna Station Quarterly 28 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

It only takes a couple of lines for me to viscerally dislike Kush Apbuscan — who does not know how to forgive somoene [at first I thought it was a woman, but when it turned out later on that I was mistaken, this didn’t exactly improve things] for rejecting him and who does not understand the concept of consent. It doesn’t take long for betrayal to be added to the list of reasons I dislike Kush, and from that point on, I have to admit, I struggled to finish this story. At every point when Kush is given the opportunity to fix things, he always ends up making it worse. There was a redemption arc for Kush, but I was frustrated by it, because I’m not sure he deserved one.

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REVIEW: “Wedding Feast” by Jessica Lévai

Review of Jessica Lévai, “Wedding Feast”, Luna Station Quarterly 28 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

The story opens on an ordinary enough scene — Violet is at the bridal shop with her mother, her sister, and her maid of honor, waiting for the final fitting of her wedding dress. All four women gossip about wedding plans and who the wedding planner is and who else’s weddings they’ve done, and it all seems rather ordinary except there is this huge undercurrent of something that is making all of them uncomfortable. It’s not that Violet’s dress has had to be altered to accommodate her cane, or the implication that she might be missing more than just a leg (possibly also an arm?); it’s something bigger than that, something tied up in a costs she has to pay either for or by her wedding. Lévai builds the tension and uncertainty until I am fairly chomping at the bit: What is going on that I, the reader, don’t (yet) know about?!

I won’t spoil the resolution, other than to say — it was not at all what I expected, nothing like anything I ever would’ve expected, and though it slightly turned my stomach, it was also — pardon the pun — delicious.

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REVIEW: “The Glitch” by Aimée Jodoin

Review of Aimée Jodoin, “The Glitch”, Luna Station Quarterly 42 (2020): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This was a strange, creepy story bringing together threads of global warming, population decline, badly written software, and systematic incarceration (or, as it is called, “Rehabilitation”). It was a great example of one of my favorite kinds of writing: Take a bunch of things that are individually all plausible given today’s society, and bind them up into something just slightly horrifying. Very well-constructed, with a smashing ending.

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REVIEW: “The Witch and the Fool” by Emily Swaim

Review of Emily Swaim, “The Witch and the Fool”, Luna Station Quarterly 42 (2020): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This story was a rare exception to my usual dislike of 2nd person POV — partly because it started off with a clearly-voiced “I” who speaking to someone who has just been born, so it’s clear that the narrator is not talking to me, the reader. Instead, Ariella the witch, the narrator, tells not only the story of the nameless “you” she’s addressing, the titular fool, but also the story of her sister Zora, another witch and driven out of the city where the fool was born a long time ago.

Part of this piece felt like it was notes for a grander story, some epic sort of novel. Nevertheless, it was still sufficiently detailed and self-contained, and I enjoyed it.

(Originally published in Complex Fairy Tales, Defenestrationism.net, 2016).

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