Beneath Ceaseless Skies #426, February 20, 2025

“For Those Who Sink and Those Who Float” by Jonathan Louis Duckworth

“The Village of the Sleeping Dead” by Blue Guldal

Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf

“For Those Who Sink and Those Who Float” by Jonathan Louis Duckworth takes place in a fantasy world where female ocean dwellers mate with male land dwellers. Some of their offspring live as water breathers, others as air breathers. The main character is an ocean dweller who is sent to find out why the land dwellers have not shown up for the scheduled mating. Her discovery involves a land-dwelling offspring who needs her help.

The author very effectively describes the protagonist’s sensations as she enters a world that is entirely unknown to her. The outcome of the plot is simple and unsurprising, but is likely to satisfy readers who enjoy sentimental, heartwarming stories.

“The Village of the Sleeping Dead” by Blue Guldal is a very difficult story to describe, both for its strange content and some peculiarities of language. In a desert world that seems to contain certain high-tech items, possibly of alien origin, the narrator relates how she ran away from home, then returned to find out her mother was taken away. She becomes an apprentice storyteller and encounters a strange person. The text ends with what appears to be this person’s story.

I hope this vague synopsis conveys some of the confusion I felt while reading this obscure work. Even the narrator is baffled by much of what occurs, and seems to find her world as mysterious as the reader does. Readers more interested in a sense of weirdness than clarity will best appreciate this difficult offering.

Victoria Silverwolf found a ten-dollar bill in a parking lot recently.