REVIEW: “The Greatest Day” by Eric Choi

Review of Eric Choi, “The Greatest Day”, Analog Science Fiction and Fact January/February (2020): 92–103 – Purchase Here. Reviewed by John Atom.

Contains spoilers.

In this story, Eric Choi imagines an alternate past where the damage that brought down the space shuttle Columbia does not go undetected, but is instead caught on time by an eager and highly motivated ground crew. Once they confirm the damage on Columbia’s left wing, ground control works diligently to plan a suitable rescue mission to bring the ship’s crew safely back home.

“The Greatest Day” offers little in the way of originality, but it is nevertheless a well-written tale full of suspense, excitement, and bureaucratic tension — as well as tons of delicious detail regarding NASA’s internal operations. The author does a great job at keeping a crisp pace so that the plot does not get bogged down in technical minutiae (of which there are plenty). The simple and straightforward prose, organized by dates and locations, adds greatly to the realism of the piece, which at times reads like a governmental report. All in all, an entertaining read.

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REVIEW: “Wheel of Echoes” by Sean McMullen

Review of Sean McMullen, “Wheel of Echoes”, Analog Science Fiction and Fact January/February (2020): 72–81 – Purchase Here. Reviewed by John Atom.

Contains spoilers.

A producer in a recording studio comes across an old, 17th century recording device that contains the voice of Shakespeare performing Hamlet. A young voice actress, Kirsty, and an esteemed scholar of Shakespearean literature, Prof. Wilson, are invited to examine it. While Kirsty can appreciate the recording for what it is, the professor goes bonkers on account that the discovery will invalidate his work, as well as the work of countless other Shakespearean scholars. According to Professor Wilson, that is simply unacceptable.

“Wheel of Echoes” is one of those stories that has a great premise but a rather disappointing execution. An archaic recording of Shakespeare – and the fact that he may have been a lousy actor – is a genuinely neat idea. For about a third of the story, McMullen weaves an engaging mystery that culminates in the exciting revelation of the recording device. But as soon as that is done, the plot slips rapidly into implausibility. The characters are largely relegated into stereotypes whose actions are difficult to justify – or even understand. Prof. Wilson, especially, is depicted as an outright caricature of the “stuck-up academic,” unrealistic to the point of malintent. The story feels more like an expression of the author’s personal biases against academics than a serious examination of what would happen had such a device been discovered. The finale was a major letdown.

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REVIEW: “Claudette Dulac and the Devil of the North” by Genevieve Sinha

Review of Genevieve Sinha, “Claudette Dulac and the Devil of the North”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue Number 294 (January 2, 2020): Read online. Reviewed by Richard Lohmeyer. 

This is the tale Claudette tells a newspaper reporter about how she—a skinny, sixteen-year old trapper’s daughter—came to tangle with the mysterious Devil of the North. Basically, she did it by following her own good judgment while ignoring the sexist advice of male authority figures. “Young ladies who listen to others ‘bout their place don’t get much done at all,” she reasons.   

The story is set in a steampunkish version of the Canadian north, replete with skinner-bots and a number of cleverly named electric-powered guns. These include the ‘Lectric Oathkeeper, The True Heart, Lightning’s Fury, and The Foreboding of Beasts. But my favorite is The Wife’s Beloved, “a quadruple-barreled invention so noisy it was used only as a last resort but so called because every man who’d used it came home to his wife.”    

Like its companion story in this issue of BCS, the plot is not what’s best about this yarn. In fact, the ending seemed a bit anticlimactic. However, the setting and narrative voice more than make up for it. In short, it’s another fine story from a magazine well worth reading.   

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REVIEW: “The Curse of the Mud Ball Kid” by Mazen Maarouf

Review of Mazen Maarouf, Jonathan Wright (trans.), “The Curse of the Mud Ball Kid”, in Basma Ghalayini, ed., Palestine+100, (Comma Press, 2019): 171-214 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Oh, my. Just…oh my. This was by far the strangest, most bizarre (and longest!) of the entire collection. One part science fiction, two parts surrealism, with a blithe disregard for anything so basic as laws of nature. It was unapologetic in its oddness, and every page was a turner. I can’t even begin to summarise the plot, only say that this story hooked me in a way that none other in the anthology did, and it was an excellent way to close the collection out.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “The Association” by Samir El-Youssef

Review of Samir El-Youssef, Raph Cormack (trans.), “The Association”, in Basma Ghalayini, ed., Palestine+100, (Comma Press, 2019): 143-151 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

The premise of this story is both utterly unexpected and delightfully apt:

Since the 2028 Agreement, the people of the country … had decided that forgetting was the best way to live in peace. The study of the past was forbidden (p. 144),

meaning, among other things, that suddenly, the occupation of “historian” no longer existed.

But, as shouldn’t be surprising, forbidding the study of history doesn’t prevent people from studying history, and plenty of covert historians still exist, including Professor Omar Hijazi, age 68, who is found dead in his apartment one night. The police rule it an accident, a byproduct of a theft gone bad, but petty journalist Zaid at the Daily Diwan disagrees. He sets off to find the truth, and what he discovers is way bigger, and way more oppressive, than he imagined.

It feels weird to say it about such a dystopian story, but this was really a fun read.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Commonplace” by Rawan Yaghi

Review of Rawan Yaghi, “Commonplace”, in Basma Ghalayini, ed., Palestine+100, (Comma Press, 2019): 153-160 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Smuggler Adam deals in sedatives, but no amount of sedatives will take away his nightmares of his sister, Rahaf, who was 15 when she went into the Eastern Land, and in retaliation was attacked and left for dead on their doorstep. In the end, there is only one way he can banish those nightmares, and that is to retrace her steps.

This is the sort of story where there is not much plot, not much that happens, but yet the title feels very apt: The story is told as if the events in it are commonplace, ordinary, even though they are so clearly extraordinary.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Application 39” by Ahmed Masoud

Review of Ahmed Masoud, “Application 39”, in Basma Ghalayini, ed., Palestine+100, (Comma Press, 2019): 117-141 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

I said in the review of the anthology that as a whole, the stories are dark and not very hopeful. This is one that bucks the trend — alternating hopeful and hilarious — for the first half of the story, at least. Rayyan and Ismael pull a prank: They submit an application to the International Olympic Committee for the State of Gaza (by now its own independent city-state) to host the summer Olympics in 2048 — only eight years away. What neither of them ever dreamt is that the application would be taken seriously and be successful. For the first four years, planning goes smoothly, even ahead of schedule! But Gaza isn’t without its enemies, and in the final four years before the games, it becomes increasingly clear those enemies won’t let the games go off without a hitch, and both Rayyan and Ismael are caught in the center of it all. By the end of the story, it was no longer very hopeful at all.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “N” by Majd Kayyal

Review of Majd Kayyal, Thoraya El-Rayyes (trans.), “N”, in Basma Ghalayini, ed., Palestine+100, (Comma Press, 2019): 43-63 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

This story was a series of half-conversations, where we as the reader are only party to one side, needing to fill in the gaps in between. It’s another fairly critical view about Palestine’s future — even though the revolution has ended and an Agreement has been reached, it’s an Agreement that divided family and friends, wrought barriers rather than building bridges, and still, many years later, has long-felt consequences. I know the stories in this anthology are speculative in the sense that they speculate about possible future and options, but that doesn’t prevent individual stories, like this one, feeling much more like dim realism. But this story was sweet amidst its sadness, and full of love.

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REVIEW: Palestine+100, edited by Basma Ghalayini

Review of Basma Ghalayini, ed., Palestine+100, (Comma Press, 2019) — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This collection, similar to another of Comma Press’s anthologies that we reviewed back when this site was brand-new, is predicated on answering a single question, asked of twelve Palestinian authors: “What might your country look like in the year 2048 — a century after the tragedies and trauma of what has come to be called the Nakba?”

Science fiction is not a popular Palestinian genre (“The cruel present (and the traumatic past) have too firm a grip on Palestinian writers’ imaginations for fanciful ventures into possible futures”, p. x), which makes this collection of specially-commissioned stories all the more intriguing and important. Basma Ghalayini’s editorial introduction traces the bare bones of the history of Palestine after the introduction of the Israeli state in 1948, in a calm, factual, and deeply uncomfortable way. Given the way that Jews across Europe were treated by the Nazis, it is hard to stomach reading how Israelis have treated Palestinians over the last 70 years. “Palestinian refugees,” Ghalayini tells us, are “nomads travelling across a landscape of memory” (p. viii). This collection is woven together by the thread of memory, but it is also future facing: What are the memories that may possibly be to come?

Why does exploring the future through science fiction matter? Because, as Isaam tells Rahel in Abu Shawish’s story “Final Warning”, “The history of science fiction tells us: Nobody comes this far without either a fight that they never win or to teach us something about ourselves that we desperately need to learn” (p. 166). At the end of her introduction, Ghalayini expresses a desire that readers in the West never experience the kind of oppression and occupation that Palestine has seen over the last seventy years. On the other hand, such readers cannot isolate themselves from these experiences if there is to be any hope of stopping or preventing these events in the future. Reading gives us a way of doing this: To experience without really experiencing, to learn, to empathise, to feel.

As is usual, we will review each story individually, and link the reviews back here when they are available. As disparate as the stories are, there are also many similarities — the idea of virtual reality as a means of escaping actual reality shows up in more than one story. As a whole, the stories in this volume are rich with pain, memory, hope, and uncertainty. They are, for the most part, dark, not hopeful.

Sara L. Uckelman13 Comments

REVIEW: “Perisher” by Crystal Frasier

Review of Crystal Frasier, “Perisher” in Gwen Benaway, ed., Mother, Maiden, Crone, (Bedside Press, 2019): 134-148 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Content warning: Murder.

Aggie is a Perisher, someone who, through the violent killing of another person, is connected to the ghost of the person they murdered. Fuchs is a German soldier who refuses to learn to speak any English or Spanish — Aggie’s fluent languages as she lives and works in Florida — but he can speak to other ghosts, and in this unlikely pairing the two of them hiring out their services to people who need answers only ghosts can give.

The tenor of this story was quite different from the much-more-fantasy oriented ones of the rest of the anthology. It felt much more like a crime drama than a fairy tale. I enjoyed the contrast that it provided, and the idea of Perishers in the first place — not like anything I’d read before.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment