Reblog: Review of “Blood-Stained Letters Found in a Roadside Shrine on the Outskirts of Kyoto”
Another review from SFF Reviews.
Category Archives: Reviews
REVIEW: “Seven” by Sarah Krenicki
Review of Sarah Krenicki, “Seven”, Syntax and Salt 4, 2017: Read Online. Reviewed by Tiffany Crystal.
I cannot express just how much I love this story. It has magic, and children, and growing up, and fireflies, and magic. Sarah Krenicki takes us for a short trip into a world where children gain magic on their seventh birthday, and lose it the day after they turn eight. It’s a rite of passage all kids go through to become “big kids.”
All kids except for little Katy. She turns seven, gets her magic…and never loses it, even when she turns eight, then ten and twelve. In this, Katy is almost a Peter Pan figure, with her older sister (or so I assume) playing the part of Hook. Or perhaps it would be better to say that Katy is Peter, her magic is Wendy, and her sister is the jealous…
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Review of “One Last Time”
Lorena Torres Loaiza will break your heart with this story from Syntax and Salt, but you’ll love it, anyway.
Centered around a man who just lost his wife, “One Last Time” is…well, okay, it’s an old concept. Wife dies. Husband doesn’t want to let her go, so he uses a time machine to go back and – no, he doesn’t prevent her death, it’s not that old concept. No, he just goes back to when he first met her. He sits right next to his old teenage self, watches her come sauntering up. Sees himself see her for the first time.
And sees himself. Over and over again.
Confused? Go read it. Trust me, you’ll see what I mean, and I really don’t think you’ll regret it. My only complaint is that it ended…and that it set off the nerd side of me that adores The Chaos Theory. Replacing that many people has to have some sort of effect on the world…
Review of “Disprosopus”
Today’s review will be of Christina Dalcher’s “Disprosopus.”
This short story from Syntax and Salt was a bit more to my liking than The Alabaster Man was, but not by much. It was interesting, I will give it that, and the writing wasn’t bad. I kinda expected what I think was supposed to be the “twist” (I imagine it helped that I looked up the meaning of the title first) and I have to give all kinds of credit to the father in the story for coming up with the creative revenge of his daughter’s death, but I have so many questions that need to be answered.
Naflah says her job is to distract the sheikh while Aneesa does her work, and it is implied that Aneesa bites off…um…*cough* something. But how does a man not notice that? Even with a good distraction, they’re gonna feel it. Unless she had poison in her teeth, and all she had to do was get a good nip in, but that isn’t what is implied at all. Also, how does she hold him down so he doesn’t struggle against the bite? I mean, again, there is only so much distraction can do.
If you can suspend your belief past those little problems, however, it’s not a bad little story. I might be willing to give the author another look, at least.
“The Alabaster Man”
Have you ever wanted to like a story so much that it was almost painful when you couldn’t? I recently joined a group of reviewers, and while looking through the magazine I would be reviewing, I kindasortamaybe fell in love with it. Most of the stories are amazing, and are a genuine joy to read, so I decided to go all the way back to the beginning of the issues and start reading there.
Boy, am I glad I didn’t do that at the beginning. The first work, a short story titled “The Alabaster Man” by Jennifer Todhunter is…well, it’s okay. I liked the idea. It was actually similar to something a friend of mine had written before, but I just couldn’t enjoy Jennifer’s take on it. It didn’t strike my fancy, I guess you could say. Maybe it was all the “and he was like”, “and I was like” but I found it almost annoying to read. It definitely was not a story I will be reading again.
Feel free to check it out yourselves here. These things are always a matter of taste. Maybe your literary palate will enjoy it more than mine did.
Tiffany Crystal's Forecast for the day: 