REVIEW: “Joinery” by Jennifer Lyn Parsons

Review of Jennifer Lyn Parsons, “Joinery”, Luna Station Quarterly 36 (2018): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This entire issue of Luna Station Quarterly is filled with strong, confident, older women, which has made the entire collection of stories a joy to read. Regine, in Parsons’ “Joinery”, is no exception. I loved the care and dedication with which she approached not only her woodworking but also the other people who lived on the same technologically-backward planet, Diot. When an unexpected stranger arrived in her isolated village, Regine is wary but not suspicious. Grannie Hella knows more than she lets on, and lets on that she knows too much. She also brings with her more than Regine could ever imagine.

I love when a story sucks me into all its layers, and hints at all number of layers that can’t be reached in the course of a single short story but which are clearly there, touched on here and there. Who are the Bright Ones? What is their curse, and can it ever be broken? Why does Grannie Hella come to Regine? All these questions swirl around — some are answered, others, painfully, are not — and the end result is a story that’s both bittersweet and hopeful.

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REVIEW: “Bog Witch” by Maya Dworsky

Review of Maya Dworsky, “Bog Witch”, Luna Station Quarterly 36 (2018): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

In the opening paragraphs we are introduced to Taterra, who joined the Lioness Project in her sixties and who is careful to remind herself that she chose to be here on “this horrible backwards moon”. With quick, skilful sentences Dworsky fills us in on Taterra’s character and background, and by the time she drops the line “Taterra was not his girl. She was not anyone’s girl; Taterra had tenure”, I am utterly sold. Taterra might not be anyone’s girl, but I’m totally Taterra’s girl. (Later on I find out she likes Argentinian malbecs, and I am further convinced that Taterra is who I want to be when I grow up.)

Taterra’s assignment on Hecate III, an old prison moon, isn’t exactly first-contact, but it is “first-in-a-long-time contact”, and Taterra is there to observe and gather data, as any good anthropologist and social scientist would. But of course she cannot only observe, and the way in which Taterra gets sucked into the court life on Hecate III, how her guise as mystic and seer shapes and changes the future of the royal family and the entire colony, how her prophesies come true, is gripping and fascinating. It’s not just a story of science and magic, it’s a story of how wanting something can make it happen, how belief in magic creates magic itself, and how the birth of a girl-prince can change everything. I loved it.

One warning for those who wish to avoid it: The story features underage marriage, and death in childbirth.

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REVIEW: “Crone, Chronos” by Cathrin Hagey

Review of Cathrin Hagey, “Crone, Chronos”, Luna Station Quarterly 36 (2018): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

“Your kid’s weird!” Lilianna’s mother is told, and Lilianna knows it’s true: She is weird. But her weirdness is nothing compared to the weirdness of finding a cottage near an old ravine where previously there had been no cottage — and finding inside the cottage someone who knows her name. And not only does the old woman who greets her know her name, she knows a lot more about Lilianna than she should, and a lot more than she lets on.

Despite the uncertainty of Lilianna’s fate, as she questions the rationality of accepting an invitation into a stranger’s house simply on the promise of ice cream, this is a simple, straightforward story, wearing its genre (time-travel) on its sleeve in such a way that you know what the resolution is long before it is reached.

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REVIEW: “On the Day You Spend Forever with Your Dog” by Adam R. Shannon

Review of Adam R. Shannon, “On the Day You Spend Forever with Your Dog”, Apex Magazine 115 (2018): Read Online. Reviewed by Joanna Z. Weston.

This is a story about love and loss and time travel. What if a physicist had to put their beloved dog to sleep? What if they already had theories about time travel? What if they wanted to just one more day with their pet?

I appreciate that this story never descends into the saccharine, despite the sentimental subject matter. This could easily devolve into something sickly sweet, and while there is certainly a place for rainbow bridges and pets looking down on us from above, this story is not that. Instead, it evokes feelings of loss and hopelessness and desperation, finally focusing in on what it really means to love someone who you are destined to lose.

But don’t think this is all emotion – the specifics of time travel within this story are both unique and detailed. While time travel is definitely used as a metaphor, the story also works as science fiction, with a well thought out explanation of how it works and why.

I think this story will speak to anyone who has ever loved an animal, but be warned, it may make you cry.

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REVIEW: “Riding the Signal” by Gary Kloster

Review of Gary Kloster, “Riding the Signal”, Apex Magazine 114 (2018): Read Online. Originally published in InterGalactic Medicine Show, 29 (2012). Reviewed by Joanna Z. Weston.

Alec Chu is a member of an elite squad of remote control mercenaries, who pilot bots to carry out private battles in relative safety. He’s good at the work, and it’s a solid paycheck, until one day his base comes under attack.

This is a solid story about the difference between a soldier and someone who simply fights for a living. Alec (as well as his team leader, a true veteran) struggles with the fact that his team, while highly competent, lacks the unity, trust, and focus that true soldiers possess. As the story goes on, he has to see if he can find that kind of dedication within himself.

This is a more action-heavy story than I usually find in Apex, which I’m sure will please some people, and disappoint others. It’s well-written, so if lengthy action sequences appeal to you, then you will likely enjoy this departure from their usual fare.

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REVIEW: “Master Brahms” by Storm Humbert

Review of Storm Humbert, “Master Brahms”, Apex Magazine 114 (2018): Read Online. Reviewed by Joanna Z. Weston.

Seven versions of Master Brahms live together – six synths, or clones, and the original. Synths don’t like to think about being synths, so the original allows them each the illusion of such as much as possible. Things come to a head when six Brahms find that the seventh has been murdered by one of the remaining six, and the house computer has been compromised by whichever is the killer.

This is a satisfying closed room murder mystery. The murder is intriguing, but is also not the main point. No, the real question of this story is: which Brahms is the original? Deep down, that is the only question that matters to any of them, and the murder is just a way to bring that question into the foreground for them. I’ve read plenty of stories about clones, but I don’t recall ever seeing one about how a clone would psychologically cope with being a clone before. This is fresh, fascinating territory.

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REVIEW: “Neon” by M. Raoulee

Review of M. Raoulee, “Neon”, in Broken Metropolis: Queer Tales of the City That Never Was, edited by Dave Ring, (Mason Jar Press, 2018): 7–27 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology).

This, as they say, is a story with all the feels. Wonder, uncertainty, tugging at heart-strings, strangeness, confusion, delight, tenderness.

“Neon” is the story of motorcycle-builder, combustion-lover, financial-advisor, heretic Quinn, who lives in a realm where electricity has taken over everything, including and most especially motors; few people, any more, care about the old combustion engines, and those that do — the riders — are tarred as misfits and outcasts. His city is filled with Sylphs and Fulminations and Undines and Shades who travel through the aether, and who can be called from the aether to perform services. Quinn’s world is one where enchantment and sorcery is entwined with electricity and salt and heresy. So much of this we can see on the surface of the story; and so much more is hinted beneath. I loved the way that Raoulee built such a detailed picture of the unknown city, and yet so much of the details to the reader to fill in. I loved seeing the way in which Quinn interacted with his friends, associates, and employers, and from the moment he stumbled into Archae and Archae got onto Quinn’s motorcycle behind him, I loved Archae. A stellar start to the anthology!

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REVIEW: Broken Metropolis: Queer Tales of a City That Never Was edited by Dave Ring

Review of Dave Ring, ed., Broken Metropolis: Queer Tales of the City That Never Was (Mason Jar Press, 2018) — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

I first learned of this anthology late fall 2017, when the call for submissions went out. The concept immediately caught my interest:

We are looking for stories that explore the edges of urban fantasy through queer stories. While the city these stories are set in should be vast and unnamed, highly specific neighborhoods and landmarks are encouraged and sought after. We welcome a broad interpretation of the genre that is inclusive of postmodern folk tales, future/ancient noir, and stories that happen both behind closed doors and in plain sight. Throughout, we’re looking for rich, varied and nuanced understandings of gender, family and ethnicity.

I loved the idea of a series of stories that are all connected, but the ways in which they are connected are left to the reader, and not the writer, to specify. So I was extremely delighted to be offered a review copy of the anthology, because now I get to see how that original conception came to fruition.

The 10 stories in this collection spam the gamut of gritty to sweet to sensual to sad. As a whole, they give a sense of a complex and rewarding city, some place I’d like to visit, some place I’d like to set a story of my own in. In his editor’s note, Ring points out the important power of fiction “to bear witness”, and the importance of witnessing queer characters in the forefront of stories, not on the sidelines. These stories come together in a powerful way to bear this witness, and I highly recommend this collection.

As usual, we’ll review each story individually, and link the reviews back here when they are posted:

Sara L. Uckelman10 Comments

REVIEW: “Godzilla vs Buster Keaton, Or: I Didn’t Even Need a Map” by Gary A. Braunbeck

Review of Gary A. Braunbeck, “Godzilla vs Buster Keaton, Or: I Didn’t Even Need a Map”, Apex Magazine 114 (2018): Read Online. Reviewed by Joanna Z. Weston.

Glenn’s sister, Janice is dying of AIDS. She is raunchy and funny and loud, and refuses to sanitize her experience for anyone’s else’s comfort. Glenn is withdrawn and hurting and really, truly trying his best, but he doesn’t think it’s good enough. Before she goes, she arranges for him to receive a gift that she hopes will help him.

This story is a poignant, realistic depiction of people dealing with death in all of the messy, ugly, ways that real people do. And yet, in the end, the story circles around to a kind of peace that defies expectation. If I give you too many hints into how we get there, it might deprive you of fully experiencing the journey, and that would be a shame.

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