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A to Z Review: “Iron Monk,” by Melissa Yuan-Innes

A to Z Review: “Iron Monk,” by Melissa Yuan-Innes

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A to Z Reviews

Melissa Yuan-Innes sets her story “Iron Monk” on a spaceship traveling to the asteroid belt. Appearing in the May-June 2010 issue of Interzone. The crew of the spaceship seems an odd lot and it is eventually explained that they were selected by the Chinese government to go on what may very well be a suicide mission to make contact with aliens who have been discovered in Earth’s asteroid belt.

Told from the point of view of a monk who is on the trip, it is clear that unity among the crew of six was not an important concern for the people who put the mission together. The monk quietly lusts for the ship’s physician, thinks the etymologist is crazy, has little to do with one of the other crew members and actively avoids Hunan, who he believes is an agent of the government. The only crew member who he interacts with is a young boy named Little Tiger, who he trains in martial arts.

 

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A to Z Review: “Death Goddess of the Lower East Side,” Link Yaco

A to Z Review: “Death Goddess of the Lower East Side,” Link Yaco

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A to Z Reviews

Published in 2000, Link Yaco’s “Death Goddess of the Lower East Side “ was written for Steven-Elliot Altman’s shared world anthology The Touch: Epidemic of the Millennium,  which invited authors to write stories in a world in which Deprivers are stricken with a disease which causes them to lose their slowly senses. Highly contagious and passed on by physical contact, Deprivers are forced to declare their medical status and cover themselves in clothing to avoid accidentally brushing up against someone and causing them to  become infected.

Maria Terez Lopez is one of the afflicted, living in New York, seeing posers who have adopted the styles used by the Deprivers as a fashion statement, and working as a waitress in a small restaurant that only employs Deprivers and focuses their service on those who are Deprivers or feel a kinship with the Deprivers. Even though she is surrounded by people, her customers, her co-workers, and especially her boss, Jake Nada, who keeps making passes at her, despite the danger to both of them, should she ever accept, there is no sign that she has any deep connections to anyone, keeping everyone at a distance due to her malady.

 

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A to Z Review: “Tongtong’s Summer,” by Xia Jia

A to Z Review: “Tongtong’s Summer,” by Xia Jia

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A to Z Reviews

The letter X provides us with our only duplicate author of the year, with a second story by Xia Jia, which, it should be noted, is the pen name used by Wang Yao. As with last week’s story, “A Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight,” Xia’s story “Tongtong’s Summer” also appears in Ken Liu’s anthology Invisible Planets.  It was originally published in Chinese in 2014 in ZUI Novel and later that year was translated by Ken Liu for the Neil Clarke edited anthology Upgraded.

“Tongtong’s Summer” is a very different story than “A Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight.” While the other was a ghost tale that draws upon Chinese mythology, “Tongtong’s Summer” is a science fiction story about the impact of technology on individuals, particularly the aging.

 

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A to Z: “A Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight,” by Xia Jia

A to Z: “A Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight,” by Xia Jia

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A to Z ReviewsKen Liu. Liu also translated Xia Jia’s story “A Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight” for Clarkesworld, and then reprinted it in the anthology of Chinese science fiction Invisible Planets.

Xia describes Ghost Street as a long, narrow ribbon of a street and the home to numerous ghosts as well as one living person. The ghosts, which are departed souls residing in mechanical bodies, represent all ages of China’s history and living in an almost carnival like atmosphere. They also have a need to interact with living humans, which is where Ning, the living narrator comes in.

Ning has a relationship with most of the ghosts, but most especially Xiao Qian, who was mother to several children in her previous life and who have provided him with everything he has needed since he was orphaned. At the same time, Ning allows the daily pageantry of Ghost Street to take place.

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A to Z Review: “The Sin-Eater’s Tale,” by Brennan Wysong

A to Z Review: “The Sin-Eater’s Tale,” by Brennan Wysong

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A to Z Reviews
A to Z Review

Brennan Wysong’s “The Sin-Eater’s Tale”  opens with the introduction of the sin-eater in the post-Civil War  south.  The  sin-eater’s task is to go around to the funerals of the boys whose bodies have been returned home after their deaths and force people to confront the evils that their sons and brothers and friends had done. Once all the sins were enumerated and the sin-eater wrote them down, he would charge the family and eat the paper, thereby giving the family closure and providing absolution to the dead for the evils they committed during their lives.

Reading the story, the sin-eater is, in some ways reminiscent of the role Orson Scott Card provided Ender Wiggin in Speaker for the Dead, a way of summing up a person’s life, warts and all, although Wysong’s sin-eater also offers a means of expiation for the dead. Once the sin-eater is paid and the sins are swallowed  , the family and friends can pretend the cruelties and crimes of the dead no longer exist.

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A to Z Reviews: “Black Box,” by Peter J. Wacks

A to Z Reviews: “Black Box,” by Peter J. Wacks

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A to Z Reviews

Peter J. Wacks’ short story “Black Box” appeared in the 2023 anthology High Noon on Proxima B, edited by David Boop, a collection of stories that mix tropes of the Western with science fiction to varying results. Unfortunately, spaceships are horses, planets aren’t ranches, and treating them as interchangeable results in stories that feel as if they were written for the early to mid twentieth century pulps. “Black Box” falls into that category.

“Black Box” is set in a world where spacecraft are used to travel between planets, but once landed, horses are used to cover the terrain rather than motorized vehicles. The Crystal Colony, the solar system’s governing organization, has sent multiple ships to visit a planet (or planetoid, Wack’s terminology changes). After a ship from the planetoid opens fire on them they shoot it down a dn discover that the pilot is the sole survivor of the planetoid, which has apparently suffered an apocalyptic war amongst its inhabitants. The survivor doesn’t view himself as a member of the Crystal Colony and refused to help with their inquiries.

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A to Z Review: “You Go Too Far,” by Ray Vukcevich

A to Z Review: “You Go Too Far,” by Ray Vukcevich

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A to Z Reviews

Ray Vukcevich’s “You Go Too Far “ is the sort of story that makes writing these reviews difficult. The story, which appeared in  issue 17 of the second incarnation of Pulphouse Magazine, is only about 250 words long.

At its most basic, “You Go Too Far” is the story of a man receiving oral sex. The set up is a portrayal of the couple’s relationship, with the woman trying to set a romantic mood for the two of them. Told from the man’s point of view, he praises himself for his witty repartee, even as she tries to let him know that his sense of humor is more a barrier in their relationship than an endearment.

Told to him in an intimate moment, he reflects that it isn’t the first time he’s heard this sort of criticism. In fact, he understands that it can be a problem, not just in this sort of situation, but in other aspects of his life and he has attempted to rectify his short-comings, by reading books and attending seminars, although that action doesn’t necessarily mean that he fully embracing the fact that his sense of humor might actually be a problem.

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A to Z Review: “After the Sky Fell,” by Rob Vagle

A to Z Review: “After the Sky Fell,” by Rob Vagle

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A to Z ReviewsRob Vagle’s “After the Sky Fell” is set in a small bar in Carman, Minnesota run by Marv, who is in love with one of his waitresses, Rose. Rose works in the bar in between trips to explore the variety of places on earth: Alaska, South America, anywhere that isn’t the small town in which she and Marv live. Fortunately for Marv, Rose reciprocates his love, even if she has more of a sense of adventure than he has and can’t be contained in the world he knows.

Reflecting on their relationship, Marv realizes that he needs to move outside his comfort zone and considers selling the bar in order to travel with Rose to wherever she wants to go rather than trying to corral her in the familiar and safe confines of his bar. For Marv, the bar is a comfortable place, his home. He knows his regulars, he enjoys serving the college students who play pool, but he also realizes that he must change and push his own comfort levels if we wants to maintain and expand his relationship with Rose.

Things change when Tiffany, another one of Marv’s employees, informs Marv that there are blue rain drops falling outside.  Going outside, Marv, Rose, and the rest of his customers see a world in which the firmament has fallen to earth, appearing like a large skyblue lake stretching across the bar’s parking lot.  While the falling sky is incredible and eye catching, when they looked up, they could see the mechanism of the universe, clockwork gears, moving in their inexorable motion.

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A to Z Reviews: “Zip,” by Steven Utley

A to Z Reviews: “Zip,” by Steven Utley

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A to Z Reviews

“Zip” was one of the last short stories Steven Utley published during his lifetime, appearing in the July 2012 issue of Asimov’s. It is a story of three time travelers who find themselves in the Pleistocene Era and come upon a situation they had not planned for. As they emerge from their time machine, they see the expected megafauna and humans, but within moments, a blurring occurs on the horizon and the world seem to be torn asunder, those creatures in the distance ceasing to exist.

Surmising that their arrival in the time machine is causing the destruction, the men return to their machine and travel further into the past, arguing about whether they caused the destruction and how to stop it, if they can, or whether they can return to their own time, if it still exists.

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A to Z Reviews: “The Curious Child & the Covetous Dragon,” by Sara L. Uckelman

A to Z Reviews: “The Curious Child & the Covetous Dragon,” by Sara L. Uckelman

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A to Z ReviewsOver the past several years, I’ve embarked on a series of year-long review cycles at Black Gate. In 2018, I reviewed a story-a-day to coincide with an author whose birthday it was. In 2022, I selected stories completely at random from my collection to review. In both of those cases, the projects served to find forgotten and minor works of science fiction that spanned a range of years. They also served to make me read stories and authors who I haven’t read before, even if they were in my collection.

For this year’s project, I’ve compiled a list of all the stories and novels in my collection. I then identified the first and last works for each letter of the alphabet and over the next twelve months, I’ll be looking at those works of fiction, starting with Vance Aandahl’s “Bad Luck” and ending with David Lee Zweifler’s “Wasted Potential.” Looking at the 52 works (two for each letter), I find that I’ve only reviewed one of the works previously. Interestingly, given the random nature of the works, only three novels made the list, while four anthologies have multiple stories on the list. The works range in publication date from 1911’s “The Hump,” by Fernan Caballero to Zweifler’s story from last year.

The first story in my collection by an author whose name begins with an U is Sara L. Uckelman’s “The Curious Child & the Covetous Dragon,” which is the second story in this series to originally appear in Wyrms, edited by Eric Fomley. Wyrms is a collection of drabbles, a literary format of exactly 100 words. In the interest of transparency, I’ll note my story “Best Policy” also appears in Wyrms. Finally, the last word of this sentence (including the introductory paragraphs) is the 300th word of this article.

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