REVIEW: “Sergiane’s Choice” by Melissa Ferguson

Review of Melissa Ferguson, “Sergiane’s Choice”, Luna Station Quarterly 26 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Murder, physical violence, threats to children, miscarriage, animal sacrifice.

There was something about this story that felt clumsy; too many, too strong feelings too quickly, in a way that was cacophonous rather than sympathetic. I also found the language of sex, conception, pregnancy, and miscarriage all a bit coy; I think Ferguson was rather aiming for the typical sort of “fantasy language” one uses when one doesn’t want to presuppose modern norms or modern science, but if so, she didn’t quite hit the mark for me.

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REVIEW: “Feeding is No Crime” by Patricia Russo

Review of Patricia Russo, “Feeding is No Crime”, Luna Station Quarterly 26 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Enslavement.

One thing I love about digging through journal archives is finding stories that feel specifically pertinent and present. Reading Russo’s story in the UK in fall 2020, in the wake of the British government deciding, no, actually, it doesn’t need to bother with feeding children during school breaks and holidays, the opening lines of the story hit with a special punch:

“If, as it is stated in the Code of Padrel the Great, that eating is no crime, then it follows by corollary that neither is feeding a criminal offense.”

When a forgotten punishment vault is discovered, revealing prisoners who have been sealed up for a thousand years, undying and crying out for food, Fonell, Canly, Vamma and the others are all faced with the question: What do you do? When Onjar says “You want to call the bloody government in? What’ll they do?”, it’s hard for both them and me, as the reader, not to agree. Fonell calls in his lawyer from Zerna, and Zerna is the one quoting Padrel. And then everything spills over into a dramatic conflagration of the importance of family, the value of a human being, and the fact that “No life is insignificant.”

This was a hard read, a good story. Really good. Chilling and bitter and hopeful and everything in between.

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REVIEW: “Sycamore Heights” by Josie Turner

Review of Josie Turner, “Sycamore Heights”, Luna Station Quarterly 26 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Sometimes all you need is a good opening line or two to utterly sympathise with a character. In this case,

The Masons would not have booked their beds in advance. They were not that organised.

Oh, Masons, I feel you. I am not that organised either.

The more I read about the Masons, the more I liked them (and identified with them!). When their foibles dropped them in the lap of something more sinister and my laughter turned to grim delight at Turner’s deft working of horror, I found myself enjoying this story a lot more than many horror stories I read.

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REVIEW: “The Garden” by Carlea Holl-Jensen

Review of Carlea Holl-Jensen, “The Garden”, Luna Station Quarterly 26 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Cruelty to animals.

The titular garden is the setting for an intimate glimpse into the life of Albie and Evelyn, two peculiar characters that I never really drew a bead on. Were they teenagers? Were they young children? Were they siblings? Were they lovers? At one time I thought one way, at other times, another, and given how inconsistent their characterization were (if they ARE 6-ish years old, why the heavy sexual tension at times? If they’re grown teenage siblings, why are they playing children’s games together?) it was a weirdly uncomfortable read.

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REVIEW: “The Save” by Nicole Robb

Review of Nicole Robb, “The Save”, Luna Station Quarterly 26 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

The premise of this story is simple: Everyone gets one Save, to use as they will (though of course it’s easier to know how and when to use it if you have proper training, hence you practice Saving in elementary school; and of course many people will judge you if you Save the wrong person, or even for Saving anyone at all.) The execution is likewise simple: Janice has long known whom her Save would be for, until she is confronted with a situation where she must make a choice.

Simple, but by no means ineffective.

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REVIEW: “Where the Hollow Tree Waits” by John Langan

Review of John Langan, “Where the Hollow Tree Waits”, Weird Horror 1 (2020): 70-73 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

For such a short story (one of the shortest in the issue), there was a lot of description — it’s pretty much all description as Martin narrates to his father, Les, a dream he’d had the night before. It wasn’t too far into the dream-recitation that I had an inkling of what was going to happen, which meant that if I was right, almost none of the description was actually necessary to read. I feel like the tension leading up to the ending in this one could have been handled a bit better, but there was a bittersweetness in the sharp, swift ending that I really loved.

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REVIEW: “You Can’t Save Them All” by Ian Rogers

Review of Ian Rogers, “You Can’t Save Them All”, Weird Horror 1 (2020): 51-61 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This story made me uncomfortable, and not in a “I’m scared/this is good horror” sort of way but rather in a “I don’t really like the way purported child abuse is being portrayed” way. I can’t really articulate what precisely bothered me, beyond that I did not think the author handled the subject matter with care or sensitivity. So: This was not the story for me.

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REVIEW: “Her Voice, Unmasked” by Suzan Palumbo

Review of Suzan Palumbo, “Her Voice, Unmasked”, Weird Horror 1 (2020): 42-49 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

What an absolutely stonking story. It carried me along, gulping for more, with its utterly entrancing Justine, an automaton built to sing opera like no human could ever sing, against a panoply of background characters — the Maestro, the Ballet Mistress, the dancers, and, most importantly of all, Lise, who gives Justine the final secret she needs. It’s the sort of story that telegraphs one ending from the start, but leaves the reader desperately hoping that that is not the actual ending. Really, really enjoyed this one.

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REVIEW: “Rest Stop” by MJ Gardner

Review of MJ Gardner, “Rest Stop”, Luna Station Quarterly 27 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

“If you had a problem you couldn’t fix, you moved on and left it behind.” This is a lesson Marcy learned from her parents, and she’s put it to good use more than once. Right now, the problem she can’t fix is Lenny, and the story opens with her moving on from him, leaving him behind without any reason or notice. Everything seems so very ordinary, up until the point at which nothing is ordinary at all and everything is extraordinary and weird.

I enjoyed the abrupt shift in direction that Gardner introduced with great effect, and felt the two halves — the mundane and the fantastic — of the story balanced each other nicely. I also appreciated Gardner’s choice of heroine — Marcy is in her sixties, fat and grey, and dealing with stress incontinence. In other words, she’s a real person, not a fairy tale. I like reading stories about real people, especially when they end up in unreal situations.

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