REVIEW: “Experiment Ninety-Four” by Sarah Salcedo

Review of Sarah Salcedo, “Experiment Ninety-Four,” Luna Station Quarterly 49 (2022): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Caspian lives “decommissioned space station which orbited a nebula in a remote quadrant of space”, abandoned or forgotten by his parents, he doesn’t know which. During years of trying to stave off boredom and loneliness, Caspian has taken apart almost every instrument on the station, learning how they were made, and how to make his own things, continually experimenting.

Experiment Ninety-Four was the most experiment of all, and neither Caspian nor the reader could ever have imagined the outcome of it. Took me by surprise and resulted in a very satisfying — if slightly horrific and unsettling — story, with the added bonus of the lovely accompanying artwork, courtesy of the author.

(First published in Collective Realms Magazine, January 2021)

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REVIEW: “Alistair Catfish” by Cindy Phan

Review of Cindy Phan, “Alistair Catfish,” Luna Station Quarterly 49 (2022): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

“You grant small wishes and complain” is an absolute stunner of a line, said by Colin Abrams, the narrator, to the titular Alistair Catfish, whom he rescued from a hurricane and rehabilitated in his bathtub, and who now owes Colin wishes. Small wishes only, and only granted with complaint.

This was was an ordinary twist on the traditional “fisherman catches a glamorous fish and is well rewarded” tale until it was slowly overcome by a creeping horror. I was not expecting the story to go where it did, from how it started. Kept me on my toes!

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REVIEW: “Sleeping Giants” by Erin Keating

Review of Erin Keating, “Sleeping Giants,” Luna Station Quarterly 49 (2022): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Annie Warren only speaks in tongues, and so she learned from an early age not to speak at all — until the day comes when tragedy hits her family and she cries out for revenge, waking the sleeping giants below.

This was a well-crafted story — well paced and engaging, and keeping my interest the entire time.

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REVIEW: “Small Offerings for a Small God” by Virginia M. Mohlere

Review of Virginia M. Mohlere, “Small Offerings for a Small God,” Luna Station Quarterly 49 (2022): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Small gods always put me in mind of Pratchett, and I have to wonder if the allusion was intentional here, as Danit befriends a small god who becomes a bigger god as she invests her energy in him, confessing sins that she has never admitted to anyone before.

Quite possibly my favorite part of the story was Danit’s autonomous armor.

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REVIEW: “Dinner With Jupiter” by Clare Diston

Review of Clare Diston, “Dinner with Jupiter,” Luna Station Quarterly 49 (2022): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Another food-themed story from this issue of LSQ! This one was a story of the loneliness that many people felt during the Covid lockdowns, especially those who lived alone and felt their worlds contract around a single collection of rooms. In the midst of such isolation, the narrator reaches out and invites the planets to dinner, and finds a grain of hope.

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REVIEW: “The Best Pierogi in Kocierba” by Agniezska Hałas

Review of Agniezska Hałas, “The Best Piergoi in Kocierba,” Luna Station Quarterly 49 (2022): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

I picked this story as the first to read from the most recent LSQ issue because I was hungry and because getting periogi of any quality where I live is quite an achievement. Hałas’s story had everything I wanted (other than actual pierogi): It’s a wonderful mix of fact and fairy tale, and the sense of groundedness and comfort that comes from a bowlful of pierogi permeates the entire thing. Hałas has a real touch with words evoking brilliant mental images — not easy to do in a reader who is mild aphantasia! So I was all the more impressed.

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REVIEW: “Leaving” by Noeleen Kavanagh

Review of Noeleen Kavanagh, “Leaving,” Luna Station Quarterly 20 (2014): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Harj is a conscript working in the mines, pressed into double shifts and extra duties and without any means of rebelling — until one day deep in the caverns he and the rest of his team find something that could be their key to escape off the planet.

This was a rather run-of-the-mill SF story — neither the setting nor the characters were particularly distinctive — slightly elevated out of the ordinary by the framing structure it used. I just wish this framing had been given more emphasis; the story would probably have been more to my taste if it had.

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REVIEW: “Interlingua” by Yoon Ha Lee

Review of Yoon Ha Lee, “Interlingua,” Unfit Magazine 2 (2018): Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

The primary characters in this story are the Hwacha and the Sarissa, both sentient spaceships. They’ve been assigned to the same Contact mission, and amongst the many duties involved in keeping their crews safe and hale is keeping them occupied, because bored crews get into mischief. Reading the story it becomes apparent that bored ships also get into mischief, and this is what happens when the Hwacha start designing games for its crew to play. Of course, the Hwacha convinces itself that it’s doing this for the good of its crew, rather than itself; in this case, to prepare its crew for this particular Contact situation by giving them a simulation of what it may be like to understand the novel language of the people they are about to meet.

There is a moment about 12 pages when I had a sudden premonition of what was to come, and I spent the rest of the story in delicious anticipation of the end (which was even better than I could’ve imagined). I’ve come to expect good solid SF cross-cut with novel observations about languages (whether verbal or mathematical) from Lee’s stories, and this one certainly didn’t disappoint.

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