REVIEW: “Thistledown Sky” by Stephen Case

Review of Stephen Case, “Thistledown Sky”, Shimmer 46 (2018): 107-111 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This story is told in five parts, moving from factual to elaborate to finally each more spare and pared down than the last. Ostensibly it’s a story of faster-than-light space travel, but really it’s that story from the point of view of those left behind. How does one cognize what has happened when one’s child or friend or parent or lover has slipped beyond the bounds of lightspeed? “I just called it death,” the narrator tells us, but this is not because FTL travel is an irrevocable severing, but because maybe perhaps death is not.

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REVIEW: “Evangelina’s Dream” by Jasmine Shea Townsend

Review of Jasmine Shea Townsend, “Evangelina’s Dream”, in Fairy Tales and Space Dreams (Jasmine Shea Townsend, 2019): 96-105 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

This final story in the anthology, and the last of the space dreams, picks up the story of the titular character of the previous one, “The Cosmic Adventures of Sophie Zetyld”, which, despite the title, was more about River Seung than it was about Sophie Zetyld.

The story is divided into six parts, Negatio (“denial”), Iracundia (“irascibility”), Pacisci (“to bargain or negotiate”), Exanimationes Incidamus (“deaths might happen”), Acceptatio (“acceptance”), Excitatus (“I woke up”). Each is a snapshot of a dream, a dream dreamt by a body that is not used to dreaming, not used to eating, not used to being human. How much is real and how much is merely a dream is not clear, as it is in the truest and most vivid of dreams, but in it we learn much about Sophie’s previous life and her current desires. This one didn’t make me laugh quite as much as the “Cosmic Adventures” did, but I think I appreciated it more.

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REVIEW: “Quality Time” by Ken Liu

Review of Ken Liu, “Quality Time”, Robots vs Fairies, edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe (Gallery / Saga Press, 2018): 29-57 — Purchase Here. Reviewed by Susan T. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Quality Time follows a young folklore graduate as they get their first job in a Silicon Valley robot manufacturer and try to come up with the next greatest idea in consumer robotics. … It didn’t work for me at all. To the point that I ended up skimming through the last third of the story to make it go faster. The protagonist was unbearable, mainly for how self-important they were and the way that they treated Amy and ignored their family until they had the chance to use them. I understand that it’s a narrative about thinking through the consequences of your actions and needing to put in the time, but it wasn’t my sort of thing, and while I appreciated the protagonist getting their come-uppance, getting to it was a slog.

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REVIEW: Robots vs Fairies edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe

Review of Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe, eds., Robots Vs. Fairies, (Gallery / Saga Press, 2018) – Purchase Here. Reviewed by Susan T.

Robots vs. Fairies is exactly what it says on the tin: an anthology of stories that alternate between stories from Team Robot and Team Fairy – sometimes both fairies and robots appear in the same story, but the stories always centre whichever option the author thinks is most awesome. There’s quite a variety of approaches – the stories draw on Shakespeare, the history of the Old West, Norwegian folklore, shady tech practises, and American health insurance, amongst other things – but for the most part, the stories tend towards the bleaker end of the spectrum, as you might expect from authors exploring humanity through two of the most popular examples of inhumanity. The endings are consistently bittersweet at best, which means that the stories that are mostly positive can feel a little out of place, although there is enough fridge horror in them to satisfy anyone.

The anthology contains:

(Reviews will be linked to as they go live, and caution warnings will be on each individual story!)

On the whole, it’s a very good collection! If you’re in the mood to see how authors explore the intersection of magic and science, it’s not a bad place to start.

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REVIEW: “An Astronaut Lights a Candle” by Megan Neumann

Review of Megan Neumann, “An Astronaut Lights a Candle”, Luna Station Quarterly 38 (2019): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

The most curious and intriguing aspect of this story, for two dozen or so of paragraphs, is the title — without the information that the character lighting the candle is an astronaut, we would never know from the narration itself. What we know from the start is that Siobhan, the narrator, is the one who must put out the candle — but is she the one who lights it?

Who lights it, who the astronaut is, why Siobhan must douse the candle, all these questions are wrapped up in a story of cancer, time travel, and love, a solid, engaging story.

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REVIEW: “Wired” by Tianna Ebnet

Review of Tianna Ebnet, “Wired”, Luna Station Quarterly 38 (2019): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

In this story, people are hired to become “the Wired”, a short-term lucrative job in which they give up their body and autonomy to become cogs in a giant human-AI machine, keeping systems running efficiently, purifying and filtering air, running security interference.

The narrator of the story tells his experiences in the second-person — you, you, you — a narrative choice I usually dislike. (I don’t like people telling me what to do and feel, or do feel.) But here the “you” doesn’t feel directed at the reader; it feels more like a way of one person explaining how radically othered this portion of their life feels — there is continuity of something between Before and After becoming one of the Wired, but it’s certainly not bodily continuity, and it’s not entirely mental/personal continuity either. So the choice for the narrator to tell their own story with “you” rather than “I” serves to emphasise this split, as if the narrator is telling the story to himself, in a way which felt both realistic and sympathetic. The story only got stronger and stronger as it went on, and this one definitely wins ‘best in issue’ from me.

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REVIEW: “Violent Silence” by Elizabeth Guilt

Review of Elizabeth Guilt, “Violent Silence”, Luna Station Quarterly 38 (2019): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This was a strange little story, seemingly designed as a wrapper around the question of what life would be like if we could upload our memories into an artificial body after our biological body died. None of the details of how Officer Garth or Officer Sherri Latimer have come to be out in the field testing the military capabilities of a new line of droids, or what battle it is that they are involved in matter — all of these details are backdrop against this one question. Is it worth preserving memories in a body that can no longer experience what the memories remember experiencing? It’s not clear what answer either Garth or Latimer would give to such a question — which is actually what I ended up liking best about this story, the way it poses questions without answering them, making the reader think.

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REVIEW: “The Cosmic Adventures of Sophie Zetyld” by Jasmine Shea Townsend

Review of Jasmine Shea Townsend, “The Cosmic Adventures of Sophie Zetyld”, in Fairy Tales and Space Dreams (Jasmine Shea Townsend, 2019): 64-95 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

There was a depth to this story that the others in this volume did not quite achieve — and not just due to its length, as it’s roughly as long as the Rapunzel retelling — more depth of character, more depth of scene. The humor in it is more subtle, and yet more ever present. (“Don’t lie, River.” Short Mrs. Valentine croaked from the back. “I know your parents!” (p. 70).)

Pros: One MC is Korean and the other is the “glitzy, lavender woman…complete with a bodaciously huge halo-like afro of prismatic hues and an aquamarine alicorn protruding from her forehead” (p. 67) who graces the cover of the book.

Cons: Flippant usage of ableist language (specifically concerning mental diseases), as well as casual invocations of lynching.

Sara L. Uckelman2 Comments

REVIEW: “Ambassador Berry” by Linda McMullen

Review of Linda McMullen, “Ambassador Berry”, Luna Station Quarterly 38 (2019): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

In our prosaic early 21st-century world, we already know that global warming is a thing, and as the world gets hotter, the water gets lesser, and that places like Africa are going to be the worst hit: We know this, and we know it’s going to happen soon. In McMullen’s story, it’s only thirty-odd years from now, and as Ambassador Berry recounts her activities in “what used to be the U.S. Embassy in Ouagadougou, now dubbed the U.S. Mission in the Western Sahel”, it feels more fact than fiction.

I liked that Ambassador Berry was a woman in her sixties; she would’ve been about my age, now. I like that her predecessor as Ambassador was also a woman. I laughed at the idea that they will still be using Fahrenheit in the 2050s, though, then again, Berry and her compatriots are American; maybe this isn’t so unrealistic. I liked all of these things, but I still felt like I never quite got what story was being told. Two questions I often find myself asking myself when reading a short story are, “Why this story?” — why tell this story instead of another one? — and, “Why this story now?” — why now instead of another time? I’m not sure I found an answer to the first one, which made any answer to the second one rather moot.

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REVIEW: “Wireless” by Alex Acks

Review of Alex Acks, “Wireless”, in Wireless and More Steam-Powered Adventures (Queen of Swords Press, 2019): 131-184 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

I feel like I should have written this review much faster than I ended up writing it (from start to finish, over a month!) but that’s because this story turned out to be one that I read in bits and pieces rather than devouring in one go — not because it was difficult, or boring, or any other negative trait, but because it was, strangely, comforting. I kept a copy of it on my phone, and read it a few pages at a time, every few days, when I needed something solid yet positive. I’m not sure I’ve ever consumed a story so slowly and enjoyed it so much.

In true steampunk fashion, “Wireless” had a lot more wild train chases than I ordinarily require for perfect enjoyment of a story — I may have glossed over one or two details of the exploits — but the politics surrounding the trains added a depth to the story and the world-building that I enjoyed. But what did I love best about this? The deep, steadfast, true, and abiding friendship and love between Ramos and Simms. They know each other intimately well, they are the perfect foibles for each other, and it’s just so refreshing to have such a strong relationship between two characters without any sexual tension encroaching upon it. Moar relationships like this, plz kthnx. Wrap them up with a bunch more well-rounded figures with interesting backstories and a twist on modern technologies that was quite clever and inspired, and you get something that is just a very good story.

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