REVIEW: “Convergence in Chorus Architecture” by Dare Segun Falowo

Review of Dare Segun Falowo, “Convergence in Chorus Architecture”, in Zelda Knight and Ekpeki Oghenechovwe Donald, ed., Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction From Africa and the African Diaspora, (Aurelia Leo, 2020) — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology).

This was by far the longest story in the collection — more a novellette or almost a novella in length.

One hesitation I had when accepting the invitation to review this anthology was the fact that I am a pretty pasty white westerner who is not really the right voice to be making value judgements on this type of literature: Who am I to say what “works” and what doesn’t?

These worries nipped at my heels as I read this story, so deeply infused with Nigerian religion and history that I am so entirely ignorant of. It would be easy to read this as a straight-up fantasy story, with a panoply of made-up deities and powers, strong world-building, a detailed religion — things I would praise in a story where all of these were in fact made-up by the author! But it doesn’t seem right to call “fantasy” a story that incorporates actual historic beliefs and real-world cultures — not unless we’re also perfectly well prepared to call a story whose only claim to the label “speculative fiction” is a thorough-going foundation in Christianity (though tbh, I’ve often thought that Christianity makes a lot more sense if you think of it was a massively awesomely built fantasy-world religion).

So, is this a fantasy story? I’m not sure. Did it push me to read more and learn more about Ilé-Ifẹ̀ and the founding myths of the Yoruba? Yes. Did it take a long time before I had any idea what the title was in reference to? Yes. Was it a good story? Absolutely!

Sara L. Uckelman3 Comments

REVIEW: “The Unclean” by Nuzo Onoh

Review of Nuzo Onoh, “The Unclean”, in Zelda Knight and Ekpeki Oghenechovwe Donald, ed., Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction From Africa and the African Diaspora, (Aurelia Leo, 2020) — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology).

Content warning: Death, torture, physical and verbal abuse, rape, death of a child.

Onoh’s story begins at the end: Desdemona, the narrator, is keeping watch over her dead husband’s body for three days beneath the great Iroko tree, the Tree of Truth that is “the righteous judge and jury that condemns and sentences with ruthless efficiency”. In the morning, Desee will find out what judgement the tree has in store for her; but before that, we first learn of her history and how she came to be tried and condemned in this way.

Desee’s story starts out remarkably prosaically (despite her literary name!) — growing up in the 1950s, eldest daughter in a family that prizes sons of above, educated beyond necessity, and sold in marriage to a man twice her age.

The remainder of the story then alternates between her story now and her story up to now, as Onoh gradually feeds us bits so that we can piece together what her crime was and how she came to commit it.

Dark, intense, gruesome, not at all pleasant, and masterfully put together.

(First published in Unhallowed Graves, 2015.)

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora edited by Zelda Knight and Ekpeki Oghenechovwe Donald

Review of Zelda Knight and Ekpeki Oghenechovwe Donald, ed., Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction From Africa and the African Diaspora, (Aurelia Leo, 2020) — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

When I received an invitation to review this anthology, my response was the email equivalent of grabby hands: Oh my, yes, please!!! This is exactly the sort of fiction I want to be reading, and exactly the sort of fiction I want to see more of being published and promoted — stories that introduce me to new worlds, stories that fill gaps in my knowledge of history, stories that bring me into the unknown. So buckle in, and join me on a tour of these thirteen wonderful, wonderful stories, ranging from poetry/flash fic all the way to nearly novella-length. They cover the entire spectrum of speculative fiction, some fantastic, some scientific, some lingering on the borders of horro. As usual, we will review them individually, and link the reviews back here when they are published.

The ARC I read unfortunately had a number of typos in it (as well as no pagination, so we have left page references out of the individual reviews); I hope they are all fixed before the final publication, as they would otherwise mar what is an excellent collection.

Sara L. Uckelman16 Comments

REVIEW: “Wedding Feast” by Jessica Lévai

Review of Jessica Lévai, “Wedding Feast”, Luna Station Quarterly 28 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

The story opens on an ordinary enough scene — Violet is at the bridal shop with her mother, her sister, and her maid of honor, waiting for the final fitting of her wedding dress. All four women gossip about wedding plans and who the wedding planner is and who else’s weddings they’ve done, and it all seems rather ordinary except there is this huge undercurrent of something that is making all of them uncomfortable. It’s not that Violet’s dress has had to be altered to accommodate her cane, or the implication that she might be missing more than just a leg (possibly also an arm?); it’s something bigger than that, something tied up in a costs she has to pay either for or by her wedding. Lévai builds the tension and uncertainty until I am fairly chomping at the bit: What is going on that I, the reader, don’t (yet) know about?!

I won’t spoil the resolution, other than to say — it was not at all what I expected, nothing like anything I ever would’ve expected, and though it slightly turned my stomach, it was also — pardon the pun — delicious.

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REVIEW: “Nanoscopic Nemesis” by P. K. Torrens

Review of P. K. Torrens, “Nanoscopic Nemesis”, Analog Science Fiction and Fact July/August (2020): 106–107 (Kindle) – Purchase Here. Reviewed by John Atom.

Contains spoilers.

The story is told from the perspective of a medical nanobot performing a tumor excision surgery on a patient. Realizing that the tumor has metastasized, the nanobot proceeds to find its source and eradicate it.

Generally speaking, I’m not a fan of the “AI with a personality” – or “AI with attitude” – types of stories, especially when the AIs in question are depicted in a fairly realistic manner (as they are here). Certain lines like “I want to crack a beer open because that’s what my programmer does” or “My processor purrs” or “The liquid nitrogen washes over my RAM like a cool wave over a scorching beach” feel out of place in a story like this. Such a style is superfluous to the narrative.

That aside, I really appreciated the detail with which the author treated the hypothetical subject of nanobot surgery in the story. The author clearly knows his stuff and does a great job at delineating (in just enough detail) the innards of a technology that will quite possibly exist in the future. Medical nanobots are perhaps the first truly tangible “miracle drug” that science fiction has conceived, and well-crafted stories about them are always welcome.

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REVIEW: “Suzhou River” by Cai Jun

Review of Cai Jun, Frances Nichol (trans.), “Suzhou River”, in Jin Li and Dai Congrong, ed., The Book of Shanghai, (Comma Press, 2020): 131-146 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology).

C’s trip down the Suzhou River in his white steel bathtub is one of the more speculative stories in the anthology. His journey is layered with surrealism and dreams within dreams, leaving the reader uncertain, at the end, whether he managed to meet up with his beloved Z or not.

(Originally published in The Lover’s Head, 2003.)

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Transparency” by Xiao Bai

Review of Xiao Bai, Katherine Tse (trans.), “Transparency”, in Jin Li and Dai Congrong, ed., The Book of Shanghai, (Comma Press, 2020): 123-129 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology).

Xiaotong is a PI whose been hired by a woman named Malin to track her husband and send her updates on his life. What is the secret he has been hiding from her? Who is Xiaohua, Malin’s best friend or the woman her husband is seeing behind her back? None of the answers Xiaotong finds are what you’d expect, or what they seem in this quick little mystery story.

(Originally published in Shanghai Literature, 2019).

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “The Lost” by Fu Yuehui

Review of Fu Yuehui, Carson Ramsdell (trans.), “The Lost”, in Jin Li and Dai Congrong, ed., The Book of Shanghai, (Comma Press, 2020): 95-122 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology).

This was a strange, wondrous story, that can be read on many levels. On the one hand, it’s a simple interrogation of our modern society’s reliance on our technology, tapping into the fear that pretty much all of us probably have, of what it would be like if we lost our cell phone.

On the other hand, there’s a weird layer of fantasy overlying everything, the parts of the story where it’s not clear if they’re really happening or not. Despite being one of the longer stories in the anthology, this was one of the most gripping; it sucked me in and kept me interested from the opening paragraphs right up to the bizarre and unexpected ending.

(First published in October, 2012).

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REVIEW: “Les Korrigan” by JBMulligan

Review of JBMulligan, “Les Korrigan”, in David G. Clark, Callum Colback, Joe Butler, and Alex Hareland, eds., Beneath Strange Stars, (TL;DR Press, 2020): 365-376 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Good stories play with stereotypes and turn them on their head. Think of a fairy: What do you imagine? Small, fluttery wings, probably female…this is about as far from Les Korrigan as you can get! Les is a tough old manual laborer, powered by alcohol and full of “groaner” jokes, filing reports on the so-called “self-contemplative beings” to headquarters three times a day.

But being a fairy didn’t always use to be like this. In the story we learn about the Old Way and the New Way, and that Les’s father was caught in the transition from one to the next. Beyond that, though, I felt like I didn’t get much context for the story, nor very much character development or action. It was a strange little piece.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Legato” by Brian A. Salmons

Review of Brian A. Salmons, “Legato”, in David G. Clark, Callum Colback, Joe Butler, and Alex Hareland, eds., Beneath Strange Stars, (TL;DR Press, 2020): 363-364 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

This poem, described as “a pantoum after a line from Ursula K. LeGuin’s Planet of Exile“, is a beautiful one full of sweet longing. I wasn’t familiar with pantoums before reading this poem, but I have decided I love the style — full of ripples and repeats like the tide ebbing in and out.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment