REVIEW: “Penelope Waits” by Dennis Danvers

Review of Dennis Danvers, “Penelope Waits”, Apex Magazine 101: Read Online. Reviewed by Joanna Z. Weston.

I love a light piece of science fiction, and “Penelope Waits” delivers in spades, from the opening monologue about Penelope and her suitors, through to the most optimistic take on alien abduction I’ve seen in prose.

The main character, Cindy, has a sharp mind, a mediocre job, and a cheating boyfriend. Her cynical narration has just enough bite, without succumbing to jaded apathy. In fact, this is a remarkably hopeful, sweet story. When Ralph reports that he’s been abducted by aliens, she assumes he’s spent the week with another girl. When she discovers the truth, her love of literature (and the textbook from the course she’s taking, having gone back to school to better herself) help her recognize the opportunity to strike off on her own adventure.

Though this is a humorous story, the references to classical literature – The Odyssey is obviously featured, but Dante’s Inferno comes up as well – are well-integrated and really contribute to the story. A sincere belief in the importance of literature flows through the story and gives weight to both the narrator and the narrative. I love that Cindy is defined by her insight into literature, curiosity, and compassion, and not by acts of ninja-level acrobatics, sex-appeal, or daring. She’s a remarkably realistic and sympathetic heroine.

The ending brings a sense of freedom, of possibility and expansiveness that surprised me. I think this is a story I’ll be revisiting in the future, when I’m feeling hopeless and need to rest in a better, brighter version of the world. This is a story that not only made me smile, it left me feeling genuinely hopeful, which is no small feat.

J.Z. Weston1 Comment

REVIEW: “Blessings Erupt” by Aliya Whiteley

 

Review of Aliya Whiteley’s, “Blessings Erupt”, Interzone #272: Purchase here. Reviewed by Mark Hepworth

A little way into the future, an ecological catastrophe has left us with a society plagued with the after effects of radioactive plastics. Hope seems to be one of a small number of people able to treat the many people who are dying of tumours caused by the ubiquity of these plastics left over from our former world. The style of setting puts me in mind of her “Brushwork” (Giganotosaurus, May 2016), as it focuses on a small, personal element in the middle of a much larger story. Intriguing elements pop up – some sort of eco-religion, a new economic basis – but the focus tightens on Hope.

Hope is not a well person – quite literally, as she takes the sickness into herself while curing others – and this life with a rare gift has left her bitter yet determined. The real meat of the story is in how others treat her – with thanks, and awe, and gratitude, but maybe not as a real person. The people around her want her to feel her sacrifice makes her a good person, but only because they will feel better if a saint is sacrificing herself for them, rather than them taking advantage of a scapegoat to save themselves.

With prose both beautiful and effective, this story leaves you pondering.

Mark HepworthLeave a comment

REVIEW: “Najufa” by Ibrahim al-Marashi

Review of Ibrahim al-Marashi, “Najufa”, Iraq+100, edited by Hassan Blasim (Comma Press, 2016): 155-173 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

The dominant theme of this story is memory — memory and history — making it a fitting capstone for the entire anthology. Muhammad, the narrator, and his grandfather, Isa, have gone on pilgrimage to Najufa, the city that was once the two separate cities of Najaf and Kufa. It is a pilgrimage that Isa has never made before, but it is the last in a long line of pilgrimages that his ancestors have made. We are told the stories of Hassan in the 1920s; of his son, Mortaza, who was Isa’s grandfather; and of Isa’s father, Ibrahim, who accompanied Mortaza on his final pilgrimage to the shrine of Iman Ali in 2010. Now, while Muhammad is on pilgrimage with his grandfather, Isa, Isa recounts the final pilgrimage of his own grandfather, the stories of all of these men twining and intertwining. “That trip was their story, not yours!” Muhammad tells his grandfather at one point, but what is left unspoken is Muhammad’s story himself. There is a point in the story point where suddenly one is hit the with the realisation that of six generations of men, we are missing one — Muhammad’s father is never named, though once they arrive in Najufa, Isa is continually advising his grandson, “Call your father”.

It is a small point, but it is one that becomes very big at the end. For the majority of it, the story wears its SF genre like veneer. There are droids, synthetic foods, Tau beams, but nothing that is integral to the story itself — to the point where in the notes I took while reading, I was all prepared to say in this review that the story was “just speculative/futuristic, no SF”. But then the very last paragraphs come with a twist that could only occur in an SF story, to kick you in the gut and make you cry.

At the very end, “I stepped outside, and tapped my forehead: ‘Call Dad’,” Muhammad tells the reader, and this final act seems to encapsulate the entire anthology. No one knows where we are going, what the future might hold (whether China will be the rulers of the Middle East; whether there will ever be a “CAKA”, the Christian Assembly of Kansas and Arkansas; whether glucose will become a substance as highly regulated as hard drugs are today); but equally so we can never truly know where we have come from. Yet both our history and our future are integral to who we are, and what we can do. We cannot disregard either if we hope to understand the other.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: Stories from Daily Science Fiction, September 25-29, 2017

Reviews of stories published in Daily Science Fiction from September 25 through 29, 2017. Reviewed by Caitlin Levine.

“Your Life Unfolds, and Then–” by Barbara A. Barnett, Sept 25, 2017: Read Online.

My favorite story from this week! Check out the full review here.

“A Cost-Effective Analysis for the De-Extinction of the Woolly Mammoth” by Ronald D Ferguson, Sept 26, 2017: Read Online.

Ferguson gives us the dialogue from a short lecture on the costs of bringing back an extinct species, with a humorous ending. This is one of those stories that seems mostly a set-up for the twist at the end, but it is short enough to work well.

“Progress” by John Nadas, Sept 27, 2017: Read Online.

Nadas looks at a world where “units” – which sound a lot like humans – are being created as manual labor in a society of “superior” creatures – which could possibly be robots. The dialogue reads clearly as one side of an interview with a biologist who champions the use of these units, using arguments reminiscent of those favoring robots and AIs. I’m ambivalent about this story: it made me think without providing easy answers or resolutions, but I found it somewhat bland.

“When He Saw Her” by Cory Josiah Easley, Sept 28, 2017: Read Online.

Easley describes a typical romance between a boy and a girl, with a twist: They both live in a society where heterosexual relationships are treated with the disdain and discrimination society often deals to homosexual couples.

I thought this story had a lot of potential for complicated critical thinking that didn’t get fully explored. But it seems to me a great tool for those struggling to overcome their own prejudices: an inside look at these experiences using characters that resonate with a straight reader.

“Astronauts Can’t Touch You” by Carlie St. George, Sept 29, 2017: Read Online.

A well-written, engaging look at the personal nature of grief and its relation to emotional distance. St. George evokes strong emotions that will be recognizable to anyone who has lost a loved one. In a word: tragic. The metaphor of astronauts is played against the story’s plot of an alien attack. I liked how this story explored the complex ravages of grief through metaphor, but I found it unrelentingly, devastatingly sad.

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REVIEW: “In Search of Stars” by Matthew Bright

Review of Matthew Bright, “In Search of Stars”, Glittership Episode 43 (2017): Read/listen online. Reviewed by Julia K. Patt.

What an unusual, mysterious story.

Our unnamed narrator is a scientist living in Los Angeles; he develops a blue paint that makes people float away into the sky. This is what he does with his one-night stands, the men he takes back to his apartment. He wants these men, sometimes desperately, but doesn’t want to linger with them or see them again. There’s a sense that by releasing them into the atmosphere, our narrator is protecting himself, distancing himself from what he really wants.

Of course, not all of them go quietly or disappear unforgotten. We can understand, perhaps, why the narrator is so uneasy.

Anonymity dominates not only in his life but also in the city itself, a peculiar hybrid of shiny Hollywood glamour and “Good old American filth.” Where all the women are named Marilyn and even laundromats turn into something very different at night. No one is exactly as they seem or as they claim to be, including—especially—the man telling this story.

It’s a story rich in the unspoken, the undeclared, which becomes more than a little unsettling (in the best way). There’s very little dialogue, aside from the narrator’s conversations with Eugene, an old friend from school who works on movies. And even his time with Eugene eventually lapses into silence at the story’s conclusion.

Then the narrator must make a decision: to stay or float away himself and join the men he’s sent into the sky.

JuliaLeave a comment

REVIEW: “Baghdad Syndrome” by Zhraa Alhaboby

Review of Zhraa Alhaboby, Emre Bennett (trans.), “Baghdad Syndrome”, Iraq+100, edited by Hassan Blasim (Comma Press, 2016): 87-106 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

This story has so many layers to it, it’s hard to know where to begin. There’s the “future-day” story of a man suffering from Baghdad Syndrome who dreams of a weeping woman. There’s the “present-day” story, set in our present or near past, of two star-crossed lovers whose story was commemorated in a statue in a central square. There’s the “past-day” story, of Scheherazade at the 1001 nights. These stories weave in and out of each other and the thread that ties them all together is names and naming. Some of the characters are not named at all; they are simply placeholders that could be anyone. The narrator’s name depends on who it is that is addressing him, whether he is “Patient Sudra Sen Sumer” or “Architect Sudra Sen Sumer”. Some characters are named, but their names are “new” names, names that have been consciously divorced from history, because:

Old names and surnames became dangerous things to hold onto, and people were allocated new, neutral names, free from any affiliations to religions or sects of the past. The slogan we read about in history was: ‘Leave behind your names and live!’ (p. 102).

In one poignant moment, Sudra Sen Sumer visits the family of his coworker Utu, and the older members of the family go around one by one saying the names of their grandparents and great-grandparents, their names connecting them to their histories. Names encode our history, and when those names are taken away, so too is our access to our history; the playing out of this theme is central to the story, and it is also in the periphery at every step.

And then there’s the name, “Baghdad Syndrome”. It’s a destructive illness, one of the long-term consequences of chemical warfare. The course of symptoms is well-known, and there is no cure; when there is no cure and you know what your fate will be, what point is there in visiting the doctors who will do nothing more than give a name to what it is that ails you?

But the illness is only superficial. It is not the real Baghdad Syndrome. For:

You see, if you’re a sufferer of Baghdad Syndrome, you know that nothing has ever driven us, or our ancestors, quite as much as the syndrome of loving Bahgdad (p. 106).

There is so much love in this story. So much love and so much heart. I think it’s probably my favorite in the entire anthology.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “The Secret Life of Bots” by Suzanne Palmer

Review of Suzanne Palmer, “The Secret Life of Bots”, Clarkesworld 132: Read online. Reviewed by Kerstin Hall.

Bot 9 has been in storage for a while. It’s a dated model with a reputation for instability, but when the ship runs into a crisis, even temperamental old multibots are called to assist. 9 is to deal with a pest problem –something is chewing through the walls– and while it would prefer a more important job, it dutifully sets about hunting down vermin.

This story is warm and funny and endearing. The narrative is well-constructed, and balances humour and tension throughout. The narrative voice is especially appealing when 9 is the focaliser. The newer bots and the ship are dismissive of 9’s limited functionality, so there’s something thoroughly charming about our hero’s gung-ho attitude. It might not have access to the newfangled ‘botnet’, but it never doubts its ability to get the job done.

The situation onboard the ship escalates. In between fighting off the pest (which is a bit like a bug, and a bit like a rat, or perhaps more like a “Snake-Earwig-Weasel”), 9 decides to fix the humans’ rather more life-threatening problems too.

If you are looking for something amusing, satisfying and easily digestible, “The Secret Life of Bots” won’t disappoint.

Kerstin HallLeave a comment

REVIEW: “The Spice Portrait” by J. M. Evenson

Review of J.M. Evenson, “The Spice Portrait”, Escape Pod 594: Listen and read online. Reviewed by Duke Kimball.

“They said my love for my daughter was excessive, that I made her weak by kissing her and singing in her ear at night.

They also said I killed her.”

With these opening lines, “The Spice Portrait” introduces the fear and self-doubt of every mother who has had her parenting corrected into a world of oppression and brutal scarcity. It is a visceral story of love and loss set in a sparse post-apocalypse, within a rigid society motivated almost entirely by lack. All the while the question looms: in a world in which only the strongest can survive, can there be room for a mother’s love to blossom? 

I like that Evenson shows us a section of this society with no direct masculine influence, (including merely oblique and ominous references,) and instead lets us live through the women of this future world. Naz and her mother endure backbreaking labor, petty squabbles, and ever-present hunger- only to face the greatest loss possible. I found the tale tempered with moments of incredible humanity and compassion throughout. The world is nuanced and effortlessly grounded, from the faith to the food to the daily chores- and while a difficult place, it was easy to find myself immersed in it. 

With resonant notes of Atwood and Le Guin, Evenson’s heart-wrenching story is one that is worth tasting.

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REVIEW: Flash Fiction Online, October 2017, edited by Suzanne W. Vincent

Review of Flash Fiction Online, ed. Suzanne W. Vincent, October 2017 — Read Online . Reviewed by Meryl Stenhouse.

Stories in this issue:

A Siren Song for Two by Steven Fischer

Claire Weinraub’s Top Five Sea Monster Stories (For Allie) by Evan Berkow

Fluency by Matt Mikalatos

Monsters by Edward Ashton

Editorial by Suzanne W. Vincent

Editorial by Suzanne W. Vincent

October’s issue is monster-themed in recognition of Halloween. As someone from a country that doesn’t celebrate this event, I was surprised at the focus on family, not something I would associate with Halloween at all. But as I said, we don’t celebrate it here, so what do I know?

Monsters, however, are something we can all appreciate. What I liked about this collection was turning the concept of ‘monster’ on its head in interesting ways. Rather than four stories of ‘person vs monster’, the stories challenged the reader to reconsider what is monstrous.

A Siren Song for Two by Steven Fischer

I struggled to connect with this story, for a couple of reasons. The science was incorrect; ice does not expand in the heat and contract in the cold. Also, spacesuits made of metal would be heavy and impractical. I never had a clear idea of what the workers were there for, other than to make money so they could go somewhere else. And I did not understand how, if they knew about the song, they didn’t take precautions to prevent the appalling number of deaths. So perhaps, because I was already doubting the authenticity of the story, the finale didn’t resonate with me.

Claire Weinraub’s Top Five Sea Monster Stories (For Allie) by Evan Berkow

A lovely story about loss and how we remember people. Claire’s relationship with Allie is defined by their mutual love of books and particularly Allie’s love of sea monster stories. I enjoyed the way the list carried on past the end of Allie’s life and became part of Claire’s healing. The two characters were well drawn for such a short piece.

Fluency by Matt Mikalatos

Fluency is a challenging story. An alien race start a war with Earth purely for the purpose of uniting the fractured governments. The protagonist, through their life, learns alien words, but it is only at the finale, on the alien planet, that they fully understand them.

While the personal journey drawn in the story is fulfilling and well-developed, it’s impossible to ignore the background of death and destruction which is barely mentioned in the story. What a horrific crime, to force people to go to war to protect their planet, for the sake of unification. And how would a global war unify a planet? The more likely outcome is that the stronger cultural groups will survive, and the weaker would be assimilated or destroyed. You cannot predict a rosy outcome to such an action without first considering history.

Monsters by Edward Ashton

Niko’s love is dying, and the monsters circle. They want to take her away from him, but Niko won’t let them. I’ve read stories like this before, and there was nothing new here, but it fit neatly into the theme of this issue and was a good ending for those who might not have seen this trope before.

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REVIEW: Flash Fiction Online, September 2017, edited by Suzanne W. Vincent

Review of Flash Fiction Online, ed. Suzanne W. Vincent, September 2017 [Read Here / Purchase Here]. Reviewed by Meryl Stenhouse.

Stories in this issue:

“Listen and You Will Hear Us Speak” by A.T. Greenblatt

“The Last Man on Earth Crawls Back to Life – A Mini-Novel Sequel” by John Guzlowski

“What Lasts” by Jared W. Cooper

“And All Our Bones Were Dust” by Steven Fischer

Editorial by Suzanne W. Vincent

Vincent quotes Ray Bradbury in her editorial, to point out that a science fiction story is any story about an idea that changes the world. It is the art of the possible, not the impossible, says Bradbury. Three of the four stories in this issue touch on the impossible, one of them blatantly, so my acceptance of them as science fiction is incomplete.

That said, if the stories were presented without genre boundaries, I would have enjoyed them unreservedly. A well-curated collection.

Listen and You Will Hear Us Speak by A.T. Greenblatt

Being the science fiction pedant that I am, I will say straight out that this is science fantasy; there’s no scientific method to remove voices the way they are removed in the story. It’s a magical box. Let’s move on.

There are layers to this story, which is an achievement in so few words. The unnamed narrator is one of the voiceless – people stolen from their home, their voices taken away from them, sold into indentured servitude from which they cannot escape – because how can the voiceless have a say in their fate?

I won’t ruin the ending for you, but I do like the way that Greenblatt’s victims win by embracing their difference and finding the power to control their fates, and their oppressors. The parallels to the voiceless in our current society can’t be ignored. Uplifting, tightly written, delicious rebellion story.

The Last Man on Earth Crawls Back to Life – A Mini-Novel Sequel by John Guzlowski

The concept of this piece appealed to me. The last man on Earth chooses suicide, but then finds himself unable to follow through. The rest of the story answers the question of why.

I winced at the recitation of his bird list. I doubt very much that, at any stage in history, this observation: “they were everywhere: In the trees and on the sidewalks, between houses and abandoned cars, on the empty roads…” would include birds such as “emus and antbirds, cassowaries and penguins”, especially not in the middle of the USA. Besides, a cassowary on the footpath is a suggestion that you should find another road to walk down, mate. The comment that the narrator had seen Mousebirds (denizens of sub-Saharan Africa) hints that he had travelled widely before deciding to kill himself, and this raises other questions that, on close examination (food, fuel, ocean crossings), start to unravel the worldbuilding.

Best to stick with your local birds.

The rest of the story is beautiful. It’s about loneliness, and a personal concept of God, and the recognition that humans, social animals, start to unravel when left alone. It’s a sadness reminiscent of the death of the last of any species; the endling (a name coined by Robert Webster in 2004 to denote the last member of a species). The thylacine, the passenger pigeon, soon the white rhino. To consider a human to be one of these lonely beings is humbling. The fact that the author doesn’t give this endling a name says everything. It could be any one of us.

What Lasts by Jared W. Cooper

This is a love story.

It’s also a story about pain that won’t go away, that you wish you could excise from your body and throw away.

It’s a story about loss, and a story about gain. Losing your old self, finding someone knew in the ashes, someone stronger.

It’s beautiful.

Well played, Mr. Cooper.

And All Our Bones Were Dust by Steven Fischer

This story is the opposite in so many ways to What Lasts, and reading them one after the other felt like two halves of the same symphony. It’s a love that crumbles, rather than a love that builds.

I’m going to comment on the visions, because I have opinions on what makes a story science fiction, and this one edges into science fantasy again. Not only for the visions, which have no explanation, but for the use the narrator makes of those visions.

In her editorial Vincent considers this story heartwarming, but I would call it frustrating. It’s a classic case of seeing the disaster coming but being unable to change it. The frustration comes with the narrator not even trying to save both of them; he follows the path set out for him, right to the final moment, with no attempt to reclaim or understand.

The story is beautifully executed, but not for me. I don’t like watching the axe fall. The joy in a story comes from the struggle, not the chop.

Meryl StenhouseLeave a comment