Review of Vanessa Fogg, “All the Souls Like Candle Flames”, Luna Station Quarterly 28 (2016): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
I continue to be not a huge fan of 2nd person narration — I’ve said it before, but I had being told what I am thinking or feeling — so that it takes something quite extraordinary for me to overcome my high bar for stories that open up with an instruction to me, the reader. Unfortunately, Fogg’s story did not manage to hurdle it, despite the 2nd person narration being restricted to the opening, scene setting paragraphs. But after having been told that I know the Sea Witch’s name (I don’t) or that maybe I’m already dead (nope, definitely not), I wasn’t in the right mood to find out the story of Mikki, and why a fish has feathers. I think this story could’ve been much stronger if those initial paragraphs had been simply stripped out.
SFF Reviews 