gengelcox's reviews
2012 reviews

For Lack of a Bed by John Wiswell

Go to review page

lighthearted

3.0

A cozy fantasy about friendship and hardship, in equal parts, with a bit of drama around a succubus-turned-sofa. Reminded me a bit of something Nina Kiriki Hoffman might have written. Somewhat amusing and definitely heartfelt, but overall I missed something from this: more tension, more stakes, I don’t know.  
Dinosaurs by Walter Jon Williams

Go to review page

5.0

A wonderful depiction of what humans could become in the far, far future. So far in the future the aliens seem more human than the human diplomat arrived at the alien planet to discuss a peace treaty. This story is a perfect example of what science fiction does best: questioning human motivations in the present by imagining a future possibility. Highest recommendation. 
I'm Alive, I Love You, I'll See You in Reno by Vylar Kaftan

Go to review page

hopeful medium-paced

4.0

Aside from the use of second person, which at least isn’t meant to be the reader but the other half of this love pair, I enjoyed this story of time passing by so quickly for these two people who are unable to stay apart from each other for too long, even given travel to other planets relative to dimensions in space and time. Even the ending, which implies that what we’ve read will be discarded, thus just a draft of what might be said, worked for me in how it tied things up neatly. 
Coyote Stories by Charles de Lint

Go to review page

challenging slow-paced

3.5

This story is hard to follow intentionally as befits its theme: the stories we tell ourselves about our tribes, defining our backgrounds, our goals, our lives. de Lint’s stories come close to being too precious for me sometimes, but he does a nice job here of keeping that in check for the most part, and the unreliability of the voice and the narrator isn’t such that you don’t understand the meaning of the story. 
Unknown Number by Blue Neustifter

Go to review page

challenging emotional fast-paced

3.0

The issue with a story like this is any criticism of it can be misinterpreted by a certain set to be critical of them and their choices. So let me say this first: I don’t care if you’re a boy, a girl, a trans, or something else entirely. You do you. But I read SFF and I comment on SFF as stories. This is hardly a story, but a therapy session. It’s possibly a very good therapy session, and if couching therapy as a story helps some people, more power to it. But I disliked the format (really, published on Twitter as a series of screenshots? — experimental AF, but I hope it’s no trend) and it’s basically a couple of talking heads (although their characters come across clearly and distinctly) in what is essentially just a dialogue.  
Tangles by Seanan McGuire

Go to review page

adventurous medium-paced

2.5

 The issue with any story connected to something outside itself—in this case, the card game Magic: the Gathering—is that much of the world is known by the acolytes of the thing, but unknown to the casual readers. McGuire does the best she can in this world, but at best it is only a yeoman story, nothing that truly illuminates or achieves anything beyond its simple beginnings. 
Where Oaken Hearts do Gather by Sarah Pinsker

Go to review page

challenging dark medium-paced

4.0

Another story with a fairly experimental structure, in this case the wiki/reddit-way of commenting on a text where others can add comments and upvote or downvote previous comments. For the most part, this works for the story, reminiscent of the kind of sleuthing in longer works like A.S. Byatt’s Possession or even Richard Powers’ The Gold Bug Variations. I kept expecting that one of the commenters—BarrowBoy—to be revealed as something else, but was disappointing. The ending is heavily implied—if you follow the idea of the story, you are led to a recognition that the documentarian is being led astray by the village historian there at the end. Fun, if made somewhat more difficult than need be by the experimental format. 
The Sin of America by Catherynne M. Valente

Go to review page

challenging dark medium-paced

2.0

Okay, sure, this is supposed to be allegorical, possibly even surrealistic, in much the way that Ballard et al. challenged norms and mores in the New Wave with stories like “The Assassination of John F. Kennedy Seen as a Downhill Motor Race.” I get that. Which means I need to interpret this story, and my interpretation may not be yours or even what the author intended, because once you move away from realism, stories like these become fairly subjective. I see it as a cross between “The Lottery” and the Jesus myth, crossed with a bit of Native Americana: sin-eating cleanses the world, but at what cost for the eater, and who would ever voluntarily take that upon themself? I liked it up until the ending, where the diner crowd turns on the sineater…for what, I’m not sure. Has she not done her duty? It was all too gross and violent, likely to echo the sins that America is founded on and continues to endure, and yet I just don’t buy it. Every culture, every country, has sins. Don’t fool yourself. While some in America wish to deny this, there’s enough people who do recognize it, such that we are no monoculture. At the end, I just didn’t see what Valente’s story was meant to accomplish. 
Mr. Death by Alix E. Harrow

Go to review page

adventurous emotional fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix

5.0

This is my kind of story. I love the voice, I love the premise, I love the tough choices and the characterizations, and I love the resolution and the happy ending. This is a story worthy of an award. New reaper gets assigned to a two-and-a-half-year-old and has a bit of a problem doing his duty, and shennigans happen. Loved it. 
The Secret Life of Bots by Suzanne Palmer

Go to review page

funny lighthearted fast-paced

4.5

An incredibly fun story about obsolescence and improvisation, set in a far future where Earth is threatened by an alien weapon and have a very slim chance of saving the planet. There’s so much fun interplay between the humans, the junked/mothballed spaceship, and the maintenance bots trying to repair and keep the ship intact long enough to perform its mission. The plot may not be the most original, but its these characters, especially the lead bot, that charms the reader and makes this a wonderfully enjoyable experience.