REVIEW: “Mozart on the Kalahari” by Steven Barnes

Review of Steven Barnes, “Mozart on the Kalahari”, in Visions, Ventures, Escape Velocities: A Collection of Space Futures, edited by Ed Finn and Joey Eschrich, (Center for Science and Imagination, Arizona State University, 2017): 33-48 — Download here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology).

This story lends itself well to a bullet point review:

  • I really liked the title, and I liked that we got an explanation of it by the end.
  • The author appears to have missed the memo (most eloquently outlined by Writing With Color on Tumblr that describing skin tones with food terms is maybe not the best route to go.
  • I found it hard to connect with Meek, the MC, in those initial, all-important, opening pages; if I wasn’t reading this for review, I’m not sure I would have persevered. But I did, and he began to grow on me (pun not entirely intended).
  • The lack of women with real agency irritated me; those that were in the story seemed placed there to drive forward Meek’s story, not live out any story of their own.
  • Even though more of the points above are negative than positive, I liked Barnes’s views of how human adaptation in the near future might go.

Sara L. Uckelman2 Comments

REVIEW: “Under the Northern Lights” by Charlotte M. Ray

Review of Charlotte M. Ray, “Under the Northern Lights”, in Glass and Gardens: Solar Punk Summers, edited by Sarena Ulibarri, (World Weaver Press, 2018): 250-270 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology).

This was a cute little love story which I found strangely odd because the narrator seemed so personality-less; his only character trait seemed to be his falling in love with Krista, the woman whose blimp crashed into the lake outside his house. Now, Krista, on the other hand — she was pretty awesome. Confident, ambitious, educated, she I enjoyed reading about enough to feel bad that she had such a bland person falling in love with her, someone whose sole role in the story seemed to be to do that — the fact that the unnamed narrator also happens to cultivate the one thing Krista was searching for especially is a bit too neat of a coincidence. Still, it was a rather sweet way to end the anthology.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Grow, Give, Repeat” by Gregory Scheckler

Review of Gregory Scheckler, “Grow, Give, Repeat”, in Glass and Gardens: Solar Punk Summers, edited by Sarena Ulibarri, (World Weaver Press, 2018): 199-221 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology).

One thing that’s tricky about writing near future SF is getting right the balance between filling the reader in on how the future has gone and letting the reader extrapolate from the present themselves. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that balance was hit with this story; I kept finding myself with questions I couldn’t puzzle together answers to, both global questions like What has happened to Wisconsin that people can afford expensive electronics, but cannot afford food? and Just what are the public health concerns that mean people can’t raise chickens at home? and Who are the protestors and what are they protesting?, but also local questions like Where has Alex’s shipment of chickens come from, if her family cannot afford new chicks?

But against all that, I found Alex to be a very intriguing choice of main character — she is young, she is angry, she is not sympathetic, she’s too smart for her own good. Even if I didn’t really like her or approve of her actions, I found her complex and interesting.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Camping With City Boy” by Jerri Jerreat

Review of Jerri Jerreat, “Camping With City Boy”, in Glass and Gardens: Solar Punk Summers, edited by Sarena Ulibarri, (World Weaver Press, 2018): 82-104 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology).

I loved the breezy, chatty tone Makemba, the narrator, takes in this story — bringing the reader in and making them a part of the story, a part of the wider backdrop. She drops hints and pieces about the way the world is, but always in a way so it seems that we’re being told things we already know:

…there were a lot of nostalgic [films] that year about the failed Mao25 settlement. Tragic, right? Who can watch those without tearing up? (p. 83).

Listening to her narrate her excursion into the wilderness with her city boy boyfriend, Rich, was a real treat — her voice was vital, her principles strong, and her love for her place infused everything. She’s the sort of person I think I’d like to hang out with, and I spent the entire story rooting for her happy ending, and was delighted when she got it. This is, so far, my favorite story of the collection.

Only one thing distracted me, and that was that Makemba’s best friend’s name flip-flopped between Kojo and Koji, and I couldn’t figure out if this was deliberate or a series of typos.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Fifteen Minutes Hate” by Rich Larson

Review of Rich Larson, “Fifteen Minutes Hate”, Apex Magazine 108 (2018): Read Online. Reviewed by Joanna Z. Weston.

It’s a common set-up: somebody wakes up with the mother of all hangovers and no memory of the previous night, and tries to piece together what happened. “Fifteen Minutes Hate” gives us a vicious social media twist on that premise.

Our protagonist wakes up to find that she has been Blacklisted. Whatever she’s done has been broadcast to the world on some sort of social media feed and reality TV show. On top of that, it seems the the reality TV outlet has access to every message she’s sent, and every video that’s shown her face. The world is dissecting every instance of cruelty or selfishness in her life, a social media pile-on for the ages. The host of Blacklist is walking towards her house, on camera, taking bets on whether she’ll run or not. Her friends and family are texting to ask how she could do such a thing. Strangers are hoping someone will cut her hands off. And until the second to last paragraph, she (and by extension, we the readers) have no idea what she’s done.

The clips that people are dissecting and commenting on online – the events from her past, not the big thing she’s trying to remember – are the kinds of everyday cruelties and follies we all engage in. A video of her failing to help someone after they fell. A message to a friend in which she calls a hated professor by a cruel nickname. A video of a sex act that she regrets. These are normal things, ordinary indiscretions, now being used as evidence of her lack of humanity in light of the act that got her on the Blacklist.

My one complaint about this story is that I found the use of the second person point of view distracted me from the story, and I didn’t think it added anything. I suspect it was intended to promote empathy, helping us put ourselves into the main character’s situation, but the writing was strong enough to do that on its own. Still, this is an engaging, interesting read.

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REVIEW: “Fyrewall” by Stefani Cox

Review of Stefani Cox, “Fyrewall”, in Glass and Gardens: Solar Punk Summers, edited by Sarena Ulibarri, (World Weaver Press, 2018): 38-50 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology).

Cox’s story takes only a few steps into our future — California, three or four generations from now — and takes as inspiration what will happen to that hot state when things get even hotter, and wildfires are more common and persistent. Daesha and her community live within the protection of the Fyrewall that surrounds LA; but Daesha’s story starts off in the 130-degrees-Fahrenheit countryside outside the wall, and what she finds there.

This story is full of little details but sometimes they’re a bit more clunkily conveyed than may be desirable. I think this story would’ve benefited from one more editing pass before finalising, perhaps reading it aloud to see how various parts could be conveyed more elegantly. I’m always a bit uncertain picking up on things like this — because style preferences are personal, not objective — but in this case the style kept interfering with my ability to enjoy the story, and so I do have to note it. For example, on the one hand, I loved the diversity of the characters, with all ages, races, genders, abilities featured. On the other hand, each was introduced to the reader rather abruptly, with their specific characteristic focused on in a way I found a bit problematic in its essentialising. The story was good — but it could have been better, I think.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “The End of the World on the Cutting Room Floor” by Fraser Sherman

Review of Fraser Sherman, “The End of the World on the Cutting Room Floor”, Space and Time #130 Winter 2017 pp. 17-23. Purchase here. Review by Ben Serna-Grey.

Remember Who Framed Roger Rabbit? or that one movie with Brad Pitt and the cartoon cat. This story is a lot like that, though definitely better than the Brad Pitt movie. The world has ended and everyone seems to have “come back” as movie characters of some sort or another. There’s some cheesiness involved, but it comes with the territory when some of these realms are straight out of B-movie schlock.

There are black and white B-movie horror characters, blacksploitation nods, film noire, but not so much by way of “modern” cinema nods other than a few name drops. Still if you grew up watching schlocky films, especially if you watched some of those by way of Mystery Science Theater 3000, then you’ll get a few chuckles out of this.

The story is fairly clever and tongue in cheek, though for me personally it doesn’t stand out as much as other Space and Time Magazine stories I’ve read before. However, like everything else put out by this publication, it’s still an interesting and well-written story and I’d still recommend giving it a read.

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REVIEW: “The Utmost Bound” by Vivian Shaw

Review of Vivian Shaw’s, “The Utmost Bound”, Uncanny Magazine Volume, 20 (2018): Read Online. Reviewed by Jodie Baker.

In “The Utmost Bound” Vivian Shaw uses the routine of everyday life in space to ease the reader into her story. There is much ordinary dialogue, chatter about conditions, and thoughts about the dreary on-board food. It’s clear that the story’s protagonist, Commander McBride, has become accustomed to his life in space. Everything that might stand out as new and strange to the reader is old and familiar to him; even annoying. The view is ‘predictable’ the sky is ‘Yellow sky. Ugly as shit.’

His colleague Artanian also finds that space holds few terrors, and is just a series of regular, fact-finding missions passed down to them by their reliable connection in Hawaii, on Earth. In a way, maintaining the ordinariness of the experience is how they cope with the fact that they are working in extraordinary conditions – ‘The conversation between them was part of the morning ritual: the conversation meant they were still people, out here in the black.’

Of course, this is how many horror movies start – with quite ordinary people, going about their regular lives, until something terrifying subverts all that normality. Often the destruction of all that normal stuff emphasises the horror that comes after. And I think that’s the structure “The Utmost Bound” is playing with, as it builds its own story of space terror. However, this story is more about the cerebral terror of discovering the limits of humanity than about the terror or finding alien monsters in space.

While the story certainly brings some political horror to the surface, it loses some of its impact because the main characters are physically safe (although mentally shocked). It lacks the immediacy of media like David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” (which it references), because its characters are removed and reporting rather than directly involved. And, while the monstrosity of what they have seen brings a vivid depiction of governmental disdain into the story, it is perhaps too easy for the reader to shuck off their feelings at the end of this story. At least, while McBride remains haunted, and concerned about the scale of what may have happened, these feelings didn’t quite stick with me as I exited the story.

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REVIEW: “Cold Blue Sky” by J. E. Bates

Review of J. E. Bates, “Cold Blue Sky”, Apex Magazine 108 (2018): Read Online. Reviewed by Joanna Z. Weston.

A robotic AI was used to commit a felony. Her memory has been wiped, but the police bring her chasis in to see if they can find any scraps that might help. The twist? She remembers everything. The narrative switches back and forth between her present day observations of the police, and her memories of the crime.

The most interesting part of this story is probably the choice of protagonist. The story is told from the point of view of the AI, who has very little idea of what is going on. She has almost no experience beyond her programming, and is not depicted as particularly intelligent. In fact, the AI’s are repeated described as “nascent sentience” and “below legal limits,” implying that they are not quite smart enough to quality as truly sentient. It bring up questions about what makes a being self-aware, a person, without really dwelling on the matter. The fact that she can narrate a story and be a point-of-view character answers the question by itself.

The world could be a near-future of our own, but the themes of AI exploitation and the sabotage of a huge corporation strongly suggest a cyberpunk influence, which I quite enjoyed. The caper itself seemed unique, relying entirely on her use as a computer. It’s more common to see AI robots interacting like humans, whether they are our equals, superiors, or slaves. Here, she is clearly something other, and that makes for an interesting dynamic and point-of-view.

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REVIEW: “Vanguard 2.0” by Carter Scholz

Review of Carter Scholz, “Vanguard 2.0”, in Visions, Ventures, Escape Velocities: A Collection of Space Futures, edited by Ed Finn and Joey Eschrich, (Center for Science and Imagination, Arizona State University, 2017): 5-21 — Download here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology).

The hero of this story, Sergei Sergeiivitch Ivashchenko, taps in to all sorts of “lone troubled male genius” stereotypes — his parents divorced when he was young; his father died of cancer soon after; his mother didn’t love him; he spent his late teen years in a drunken haze and yet still managed to get a scholarship and then “blazed almost contemptuously through math, compsci, and astrodynamics” (p. 5). Of course, all the genius in the world isn’t going to get you a job in a bad economy, so after graduating Sergei was lucky to be doing menial work off-Earth at Uber’s “Near Space Logistics and Asset Management” division, with the job title “Orbital Supervisor”.

Despite my initial ambivalence to Sergei, the story drew me in. Scholz uses his economy with words to great effect, using only a few phrases here and there to paint detailed pictures, of the earth sprawling below, of the colleagues Sergei shares his space and his life with, of the way the future could be just a few decades from now. There is nothing about the story that seems unrealistic — although I’m not a specialist in astro-mechanics or related fields so maybe to an expert things would look different — even though it is fictional.

Two things did let it down. First, Scholz does not mark direct speech with quotation marks, which along with often not tagging speech with the speaker makes it hard to keep track of what is being spoken, and by whom. I do not think the story benefited from the adoption of these techniques. Second, throughout Scholz uses words like “crazy” quite cavalierly — “Pace was crazy, but that didn’t bother him. Everyone in the world was crazy, no exceptions” or “To Sergei that [Pace’s belief in the Singularity] was bonus crazy” (p. 10). The casualness of this use makes it hard to ascertain whether Scholz is cognisant of this terms use as a slur, and that reinforcing this sort of usage is problematic.

On the whole, though, I found Scholz to be a very competent writer; I’d like to read a novel by him.

Sara L. Uckelman3 Comments