Review of Rachael K. Jones, “Seven Ways to Find Yourself at the Transdimensional Multifandom Convention,” Flash Fiction Online 123 (December 2023): 11-14 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was a fun, funny, and touching story, which I liked quite a bit even if it is in 2nd person (my least favorite way of telling a story).
Review of Rachael K. Jones, “How My Sister Talked Me Into Necromancy During Quarantine,” Small Wonders no. 3 (September 2023): 22-23 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Everyone has at least one pandemic bad decision in their closet, whether it’s sourdough starter gone green or ordering jellybeans by the kilo from amazon. This is the perfect story for anyone who wants to feel a bit better about their own bad decision, which probably pales in comparison’s to Becca’s decision to let her sister Lila live with her during lockdown. Short, sweet, funny — a great antidote to plague blues.
Review of Aidan Doyle, Rachael K. Jones, and E. Catherine Tobler, Sword and Sonnet (Ate Bit Bear, 2018) — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
It is said that the pen is mightier than the sword, but in this collection of twenty-three stories, pen and sword come together in a glorious celebration of female and non-binary battle poets. Some of the poets eulogise — or problematise — battles after they happen; others fight battles through their poetry, with the very fact that they write a weapon in a greater war. Not all of the poets are in fact writers; some only need the spoken or thought word. Some fight for revolution. Some fight for peace. Some fight for a sense of self; some, to protect others. The diversity of topics and plots is both broad and deep.
In the editor’s introduction, they note that one of the editors “once received a rejection for a story featuring a battle poet with the comment that ‘unsympathetic protagonists were a difficult sell'”. Maybe that’s true: But I couldn’t tell you because there were no unsympathetic protagonists in these stories. Even the protagonists who have, whether rightly or wrongly, ended up on the wrong side of history are still poets that one can feel something for.
Each story is accompanied with an author’s note of how the story came to be, or what the author hoped to do via the story. These little “biographies” of the story I really enjoyed, particularly how many of them went along the lines of “I intended to write an entirely different story altogether, but ended up writing this one instead.”
As is usual, we’ll review each story individually and link the posts back here as they are published:
These stories reward both reading and rereading, both to oneself and to others.
Review of multiple authors, 10th Anniversary Special, Podcastle: 516 — Listen Online . Reviewed by Heather Rose Jones
To celebrate their 10th anniversary of publication, Podcastle ran a poll to choose people’s five favorite episodes and then re-broadcast them. I won’t be doing individual reviews of these stories, but you might want to check out why people chose these from the entire set of 500+ options:
516a: “Without Faith, WIthout Law, Without Joy” by Saladin Ahmed – A retelling of an Arthurian tale from the point of view of one of the many Saracen characters from the greater Arthurian mythos.
516b: “In the Stacks” by Scott Lynch – When graduate school involves a self-aware magical library, returning a book to the stacks is no trivial task. (full cast narration)
516c: “Saints, Sinners, Dragons, and Haints in the City beneath the Still Waters” by N.K. Jemisin – Dangerous things lurk in the flood waters left by Hurricane Katrina. This was re-aired fairly recently and I reviewed it here.
516d: “Makeisha in Time” by Rachael K. Jones – A woman who involuntarily slips back and forth through time turns her fate into a struggle and triumph for women throughout the ages. There’s a reason this story has been regularly celebrated and praised since it first came out.
516e: “The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu – Everyday magic and the difficult journey of the son of a “mail-order bride” to properly appreciate his mother’s love and sacrifice.
Review of Rachael K. Jones, “The Fall Shall Further the Flight in Me”, Podcastle: 493 — Listen Online. Reviewed by Heather Rose Jones
Never is the importance of audio fiction sources more stark than with works like this that require the rhythms of oral performance for their impact and meaning. “The Fall Shall Further the Flight in Me” hovers in the space between prose and poetry, not only in the rhythms of the language, but in the demanding impressionist imagery. It’s the story of two peoples at opposite ends of gravity, each of whom mistakenly views the other place as heaven. Ananda comes from a line of holy women who, by long repentance and asceticism gain the tenuous ability to climb up to heaven, where they will petition for needful things like an end to drought. Sano is a winged thing from above, where only by intense self-control can one still the wings sufficiently to descend to the earth, which they call Paradise.
The poetic tale of how these two met and found their fate is only one aspect of this story. The second part is the imagery of how both cultures create an ideal of holiness and purification that demands (or at least to) self-harm. On Ananda’s side it is self-starvation and wounding herself with thorny bracelets (not too subtle Christ imagery). On Sano’s side, her desperation leads her to short-cut the meditative route to descent by mutilating herself. I think it isn’t accidental that both characters are represented as female. To say more would be to spoil the resolution, which is worth achieving on your own. Listen to this jewel some time when you can give it your full and unhurried attention.
(Originally published 2016 in Clockwork Phoenix 5.)
SFF Reviews