A review by nataliya_x
Uncanny Magazine Issue 30: Disabled People Destroy Fantasy! Special Issue by Day Al-Mohamed, Kari Maaren, Dominik Parisien, Sarah Gailey, Julian K. Jarboe, Karlo Yeager Rodríguez, Sandra Odell, Tamara Jerée, Jei D. Marcade, Gwendolyn Paradice, Toby MacNutt, A.T. Greenblatt, Nicolette Borischoff, Tochi Onyebuchi, Shweta Narayan, Katharine Duckett, Lisa M. Bradley, Aysha U. Farah, Michael Damian Thomas, R.B. Lemberg, Roxanna Bennett, Lynne M. Thomas, Cara Liebowitz, Lane Waldman
2.0
This review is for Hugo-nominated novelette Away With the Wolves by Sarah Gailey:
In a nutshell, it’s about a shapeshifter Suss, a young woman suffering from disabling chronic pain from which she can escape by changing into the wolf form. But when she’s a wolf, she’s a bit of a nuisance for her village and must pay back for the havoc wreaked during the wolf adventures.
But everyone is quite understanding, and there’s a best friend with a heart of gold, and the only logical conclusion on how to escape the pain forever, and everyone is happy and content and heartwarming and no real issues or stakes or conflicts or any other engaging plot points need to interfere with the sweetness. It’s really like it’s an intro to a subsequent story where there are actually consequences or difficult choices or anything else that constitutes a story?
Yeah, cool. A happy ending to a bland beginning, skipping any possibly exciting middle bits.
Okay, dear, go take it all; and I’ll take a quick nap over here.
2 stars because of sheer boredom. Why the Hugo nomination?
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My Hugo and Nebula Awards Reading Project 2020: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3295830569
“I try to stay still for as long as I can. I try to swallow down the feeling of numbness. I know better than to hope, but I hope anyway—maybe today will be the day I get to keep that feeling. Maybe today will be the day nothing hurts.“
In a nutshell, it’s about a shapeshifter Suss, a young woman suffering from disabling chronic pain from which she can escape by changing into the wolf form. But when she’s a wolf, she’s a bit of a nuisance for her village and must pay back for the havoc wreaked during the wolf adventures.
“I know the joy of jumping at something big. I know what it’s like, feeling that I want it feeling that I swallow when I’m a girl. When I’m a wolf, I want it is almost always immediately followed by I do it.”
But everyone is quite understanding, and there’s a best friend with a heart of gold, and the only logical conclusion on how to escape the pain forever, and everyone is happy and content and heartwarming and no real issues or stakes or conflicts or any other engaging plot points need to interfere with the sweetness. It’s really like it’s an intro to a subsequent story where there are actually consequences or difficult choices or anything else that constitutes a story?
It’s done fine, sure, but I don’t quite see why or how I’m supposed to care. Everything is hunky-dory and the entire situation is win-win, and I kept thinking that I missed a whole section somewhere in the middle that had anything like an actual story? Everything is easy and obvious and consequences-free and has less stakes in it than a Lifetime channel flick.
“My mother was wrong, I think, because it turns out I’m not ruining anything by remaining a wolf. I haven’t lost anything of myself. Alger doesn’t seem to think it’s selfish of me to bring home rabbits for the stewpot, and Nan Gideon has gone from shaking her fist at me to giving me baskets of eggs from her chickens to bring home. I only go into the village when I want to, now, and so I never feel trapped and distracted and uncomfortable, and there hasn’t been an incident at the apothecary or the church or the blacksmith or the butcher.”
Yeah, cool. A happy ending to a bland beginning, skipping any possibly exciting middle bits.
“Everything is mine to have, if I want it. Finally, for the first time in my entire life, I feel like I can admit: I want it all.
And I will take it all.”
Okay, dear, go take it all; and I’ll take a quick nap over here.
2 stars because of sheer boredom. Why the Hugo nomination?
———————
My Hugo and Nebula Awards Reading Project 2020: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3295830569