REVIEW: “Star Bound” by Devon Widmer

Review of Devon Widmer, “Star Bound”, Luna Station Quarterly 41 (2020): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This was a cozy little lesbian SF story, full of sweet romance. Terra may build and maintain spaceships, her wife Dr. Vivian Huang may be a leading expert in astroherpetology, but in this story, they are just two women living their lives, and looking forward to the birth of their daughter. So often I hear pleas for “more stories of people just living out their lives” — well, this one fills that niche exactly. In addition, I appreciated Terra’s ambivalence towards become a mom. Not every mom needs to be amazing. Sometimes being good enough is good enough.

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REVIEW: “Ganymede Days” by Victoria Feistner

Review of Victoria Feistner, “Ganymede Days”, Luna Station Quarterly 41 (2020): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

The settlements on Ganymede are home to a variety of different people — lifers, born there and ready to live out their lives there; hotsteppers, newly arrived, possibly not staying long; deckherders, (never quite got why they have that name…); motleys, examples “of how the robot-loving government doesn’t do enough to protect real people.” The narrator is one of the former and one of the latter, a motley descendant of immigrants. All she wants is to stand quietly in line and get her painkiller prescription filled. But tempers run high, and drama — and heroism — cannot be avoided.

I’m not sure what I make of this story. It was well-paced and put together, and the ending has some good pathos, but despite this, I’m not sure that it’ll be one that lingers in my memory.

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REVIEW: “Luminous” by Kel Purcill

Review of Kel Purcill, “Luminous”, Luna Station Quarterly 41 (2020): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Shaz’s modern-day fairy-tale ended with an unhappily ever after, so she got divorced. Now in the freedom of being happily single, she can do whatever she wants — and with whomever she wants.

This is a sweet little story. It’s not really to my taste, but if you like romance and magical realism, then this is a story for you!

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REVIEW: “Down in the Kettle Bog, or: Julian and the Frogman” by Josie Nuñez

Review of Josie Nuñez, “Down in the Kettle Bog, or: Julian and the Frogman”, Luna Station Quarterly 41 (2020): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

What do you do when a frogman comes to down, settling into the kettle bog and threatening the local kittens and babies?

Why, bring in the witches of course. A coven of them — twelve now, not thirteen as they once had been — including Julian who has been isolated from the rest for the last six months and still in the grip of an active spell that prevents her from speaking. The problem is, the last time the coven had to deal with a frogman, they were twenty witches strong and still barely managed to defeat it; and the other problem is, Julian is an oratory witch, one whose power is strongest when she speaks.

The rest I’ll leave to the reader to find out for themself, but it involves a panoply of witches with different powers and abilities all picked out with humor hunting down the frogman, and an explanation of why Julian placed the silence-spell on herself in the first place.

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REVIEW: “Salt” by Rosemary Melchior

Review of Rosemary Melchior, “Salt”, Luna Station Quarterly 41 (2020): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

The story opens on Sigga arriving on a deserted island populated by criminals, the ship bearing her and others condemned to exile. Her crimes might not be as bad as some, but they have earned her the label “witch”, and that’s bad enough.

The settlers already there seem remarkably straight-laced and law-abiding given their reason for being there, criminals all — it’s as if whatever drove them to crime in their previous life has been removed or rehabilitated on this island. But a safe place in a peaceful settlement is no lure for Sigga, who opts for a life lived alone and untrusted.

It’s a powerful story of a man’s word against a woman’s, and how easy it is to damage a reputation forever, a story of how women must be punished — “There are many ways to punish a girl.” In the end, we see only a glimpse of Sigga’s vengeance for the wrongs that have been done to her.

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REVIEW: “Radio, Out By Pluto” by Lydia Pauly

Review of Lydia Pauly, “Radio, Out By Pluto”, Luna Station Quarterly 41 (2020): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This was a very sciencey-fiction story, with a mostly-robot protagonist collecting data in a satellite above Pluto. If sciencey stories are your jam, you’ll probably enjoy this. If you’re looking more for character development and personal relationships, then pass on, there are other stories better for you.

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REVIEW: “Gald” by anonymous

Review of Anonymous, “Gald”, Luna Station Quarterly 40 (2019): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

“Gald” is the story of a group of misfits who have banded together to make their own found family. Minnie, Shasta, and Raynald are “all illegal, no profiles, no scan codes, no fish tickets, nothing”, always traveling at night and avoiding the sokes. But one night they meet Venlis, on the run from one of the sokes herself, and with Venlis comes trouble.

Parts of the story I liked — it had a weird, lyric quality to some of it, and there were hints and bits of interesting background world-building — but the structure of the story didn’t quite work for me. It ended up abruptly, cutting off without any resolution or any explanation of what was going on. It left me feeling unsatisfied.

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REVIEW: “All Manner of Wounds” by Emily Strempler

Review of Emily Strempler, “All Manner of Wounds”, Luna Station Quarterly 40 (2019): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content warning: Needles.

Noemi is a med-school student, balancing her studies with caring for her mother and her daughter, managing her diabetes, and maintaining a job. It’s funny what things you’re willing to suspend your disbelief in for the sake of fiction, and what things draw you up short and make you laugh at how unrealistic they are: Noemi shows up late to class, and her professor pauses his lecture to tell her to see him after class to get notes for what she missed so that she has them to write her next paper. Maybe I’m cynical, but I’ve been in academia too long for this to seem anything more than a fantasy…

That aside, I found the story compelling and intriguing, to the point where I was about 2/3 of the way through before I realised that there was hardly anything in the story that counted as speculative (other than self-driving cars). I spent the final third waiting to see if there was going to be, without any satisfaction. The story ended abruptly, and I was left feeling like I’d missed something rather important, but being entirely unclear what.

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