Tor.com, March 2020
“The Night Sun” by Zin E. Rocklyn
“The Visitor: Kill or Cure” by Mark Lawrence
Reviewed by Tara Grímravn
Blowing in on the blustery billows of March winds, Tor.com brings readers two original works of fiction, both linked by themes of trauma and abuse. The first follows in the well-worn footpath of the werewolf and the second is a new installment in the long-running Wild Cards universe.
“The Night Sun” by Zin E. Rocklyn
After recently losing her job, Avery is on her way to a rented cabin for a weekend getaway intended in a last-ditch attempt to save her relationship with her abusive husband, Jonas. On the drive up, they nearly hit a deer, but not before Jonas smacks Avery around pretty good. Sheriff Bruce Hayword and EMT Casimiro come to their aid, and the two locals patch the couple up and get them back on their way, but not before making sure Avery knows who to call if she should find herself in danger of another “accident” at the hands of her husband. After a nightmare-ridden sleep, Avery wakes up and goes outside to call her sister, Kaya, who tells her the cabin wasn’t actually a rental but instead once belonged to their grandfather. As they speak, Avery is attacked by a wolf which starts her on a journey to learn her family’s secret.
Unfortunately, this story is an utter miss for me. I was really looking forward to a satisfying ending, if only because I hated Jonas from the start and really wanted to see Avery turn the tables on him. And while that does happen, there are just far too many things that ruined it for me.
To start with, the narrative feels really rushed and the concept isn’t anywhere near as developed as it needs to be. For example, the connection between Hispanics, Native Americans, and African slaves is too tenuous as written. In fact, it’s not remotely believable because it’s not explained at all. As written, it feels as though the story is trying to insinuate that these groups are connected based solely on similarities of skin color alone, which to me doesn’t make sense unless the underlying message is one of race relations—which would be fine if this tenuous connection between very dissimilar groups had been better defined for the purpose of this story, but they simply aren’t. It should be noted, too, that Native American nations are vastly different from each other, with each one having their own distinct beliefs, languages, and cultures, and using a blanket term like “Native” in this story is somewhat disrespectful.
The story is also riddled with poorly constructed sentences, plot holes, and frequently confusing narrative and imagery. For example, I had to reread several passages in order to understand who was saying and doing what because the actions of one character were often visually associated on the page with the spoken words of another party. It’s confusing to read the spoken dialogue of one character, for example, set in its own paragraph but with each sentence closed off by quotes and separated by the physical action of another character without any other contextual clues or dialogue tags to indicate who is speaking or performing an action. Long story short, this just didn’t cut it for me.
“The Visitor: Kill or Cure” by Mark Lawrence
Several decades ago, an alien doctor set up a clinic to study an extraterrestrial virus known as XTA. The virus often kills its victims, but those who survive mutate into what’s known as “Aces”—people with superhuman powers. The Visitor is one such ace, flitting from person to person and possessing their body for a short time. Ruby is also an Ace, cursed or blessed, depending on who you ask, with the ability to raise her own temperature so high, she can breathe fire. When Ruby, now a mercenary, is hired to kidnap a wealthy man’s daughter, the two Aces cross paths with an explosive and unexpected outcome.
I’m a bit ashamed to say that I’ve never read anything from the Wild Cards universe before, despite its long-running publishing history (as early as 1987). After reading Lawrence’s story, that’s something I’m going to have to rectify. His superhero tale provides an engaging and entertaining read. It opens with a series of vignettes as the Visitor jumps from person to person, which admittedly took a few minutes to get used to, before getting into the gist of the story, which is quite engrossing. This opening style may be off-putting for some readers but, once past it, it’s is very much worth the effort. Not to mention, it goes a long way towards establishing the Visitor as a character for new readers, as I understand from my research that she’s appeared in other tales, as well. Above all, I found the character of the Witch to be incredibly intriguing and hope to see more of her in future works, especially since, given the ending, her reaction to events would be incredibly entertaining. Highly recommended, this story!