REVIEW: “LuvHome™” by Resa Nelson

Review of Resa Nelson, “LuvHomeTM”, Clarkesworld Issue 218, November (2024): Read Online. Reviewed by Myra Naik.

A beautiful story. Just lovely. One of those stories that really go straight to the heart. Where I just want to sit with it for a while, re-read it, savor it.

This story follows Dyna and her LuvHomeTM – it’s supposed to love her. And it does – but not in the way Dyna wants. She wants to stay in bed all day. Her home, which is programmed to love her (she signed the contract when she bought the house!), doesn’t want her to stay in bed all day. And that’s where it all begins.

This is a sweet, poignant story. I want to read more about Dyna and this world! I will be exploring more of this writer’s work for sure.

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REVIEW: “The Children of Flame” by Fiona Moore

Review of Fiona Moore, “The Children of Flame”, Clarkesworld Issue 217, October (2024): Read Online. Reviewed by Myra Naik.

Set in a post apocalyptic society where modern infrastructure has mostly collapsed, including the concept of billionaires. People are cooperative and have started rebuilding some parts of society, one of them being Morag, our main protagonist. People are part of different groups with different lifestyles, but most are in agreement about being strongly against capitalism.

A lot of elements in this story illustrate so many things that are wrong with the world today – and how much resilience humans have, and always will have. A lovely look at what may happen if capitalism does continue unbridled to the point of implosion.

It’s a great story on its own merit, and works well as a standalone. Happily, it is part of a larger universe, which I hoped it would be when I read the previous story set there. You can read them (four so far) in any order, they’re all at Clarkesworld!

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REVIEW: “A Space O/pera” by Abby Nicole Yee

Review of Abby Nicole Yee, “A Space O/pera”, Clarkesworld Issue 217, October (2024): Read Online. Reviewed by Myra Naik.

This one starts off strong, with an open letter to a young heiress on her lavish wedding, set in the near future amidst severe climate change. There’s a lot packed into this short story, and the stakes are raised pretty quick too. It’s also quite thoughtfully laid out, with the epistolary type blog posts providing a different perspective and broader context to this space tale. Packed with futuristic tech and sci-fi action, there’s not a single dull moment!

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REVIEW: “The Trade” by Erin MacNair

Review of Erin MacNair, “The Trade,” Flash Fiction Online 133 (October 2024): 19-22 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Death of pets, references to infertility, natural disaster.

I found this story more sad than horrific; but there was an eerie quality threading through it that meant I was never quite sure what was going on, just enough for the story to warrant its speculative label.

(First printed in Orca, Winter 2022.)

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REVIEW: “The Weight of Your Own Ashes” by Carlie St. George

Review of Carlie St. George, “The Weight of Your Own Ashes”, Clarkesworld Issue 212, May (2024): Read Online. Reviewed by Myra Naik.

A deeply layered story of identity, and what a sense of self could mean. The protagonist is multi-bodied, with a single soul. What this effectively means in terms of perception, acceptance, and gender identity to themselves, and to other single-bodied organisms, like humans, is the journey of this story.

There are also moments of beauty, like a passage about symphonies, that also show how all those experiences shape Yonder, the protagonist. A great story with many lovely elements.

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REVIEW: “The Hanging of Billy Crabtree” by H. A. Eugene

Review of H. A. Eugene, “The Hanging of Billy Crabtree,” Flash Fiction Online 132 (September 2024): 13-16 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

The story starts off with an execution and immediately turns surreal. I love it when I read a story and think, “I could never have thought of that,” and that’s definitely the case for this story. So weird.

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REVIEW: “Reclaiming a Traditional African Genre: The AfroSurrealism of Ngano” by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu

Review of Yvette Lisa Ndlovu, “Reviving a Traditional African Genre: The AfroSurrealism of Ngano,” Fantasy Magazine 84 (October 2022): 39-41 — Read here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

While in the last five years or so I have made an effort to read more spec fic outside the western/European tradition, including especially African speculative fiction, I still feel like quite a novice when it comes to the details and differences of traditions that I didn’t grow up with. Ndlovu’s article is an excellent piece for me, therefore, because it’s a concise introduction to a particular tradition — Ngano — clearly explained with Ndlovu’s own experiences hearing, reading, and writing it interleaved.

AfroSurrealism, for Ndlovu, is a way “to capture the flavor of the absurdity and horror I experience daily as an African woman” (p. 39). Ngano, a story telling genre (traditionally oral story telling) from Zimbabwe, is made up of five elements (pp. 39-41):

  1. the sarungano, or storyteller
  2. shamismo, or fantastical or surreal elements grounded in reality
  3. hunhu/ubuntu, or humanist morals
  4. nziyo, or song/call and a response
  5. tsuro naGudo, or anthropomorphism

I was particularly interested in Ndlovu’s discussion of how each of these elements shape the structure, as opposed to the content of the stories.

I would love to see more short essays on different non-European genres of this type!

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