Cirsova: Summer Special #2, May 2020
“Just Don’t Open the Door” by Mark Pellegrini
“The Greenery Has Come Again” by Paul Lucas
“Mission 21” by Schuyler Hernstrom
“Sail Safe” by Vonnie Winslow Crist
“Shakespeare Among the Stars” by Jill Hand
“How I Spent My Summer Vacation” by Tony Beaulieu
“Shallow Ripples” by Lauren E Reynolds
“Scent of the Yaka Aka Yo” by J. Manfred Weichsel
“The Fourth Gift” by David Skinner
“The Sarcomancer” by Donald Jacob Uitvlugt
Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf
Seven novelettes and three short stories appear in the extra-large annual special issue of this quarterly publication. As a bonus, the magazine also contains a solo roleplaying game, in the tradition of Choose Your Own Adventure books.
In “Just Don’t Open the Door” by Mark Pellegrini, a young boy witnesses a man abandon his odd house, offering only the warning that appears in the title. Curiosity leads the boy to explore the house, resulting in a frantic attempt to escape from weird monsters.
The author writes in an engaging, informal style, allowing the reader to identify with the protagonist. Although the bizarre creatures threatening the boy are compelling, the plot is similar to many horror stories. Without giving anything away, I think it is fair to say that many readers will find the ending disappointing.
The narrator of “The Greenery Has Come Again” by Paul Lucas is an elderly man, looking back on the strange events he witnessed just after the Second World War. His parents, now deceased, sold the family estate to a wealthy man, who welcomes the narrator as a visitor and as a suitor for his daughter. The narrator sees a mysterious woman near a gigantic tree on the estate. Meanwhile, the rich man uses machines he designed to harvest wood from the estate’s forest. The conflict between technology and nature involves the supernatural.
The author’s calm, quiet, slightly old-fashioned style adds to the verisimilitude of the story, while offering a strong contrast with the dramatic climax. The characters, human or otherwise, are three-dimensional, without stereotyped heroes or villains. The ambiguity of the battle between machines and the natural world, with neither side being entirely good or evil, adds to the depth and maturity of the tale. The romance between the narrator and the daughter is realistic, avoiding the sentimentality often found in such subplots.
The main character in “Mission 21” by Schuyler Hernstrom is a secret agent whose job is to seek out and kill aliens, disguised as people, who eat human flesh. His latest assignment takes him to a medical clinic, where the unexpected arrival of an innocent employee after hours greatly complicates his task.
Despite the science fiction elements, this is mostly a violent action story, which could easily be about terrorists instead of aliens. The theme of an ordinary woman accidentally becoming the assistant, and then the lover, of the hero is a cliché. Many readers may find one aspect of the plot, involving the source of the aliens’ food, distasteful. The story begins with a scene of the hero killing an addict robbing a store at gunpoint, which has nothing to do with what follows.
“Sail Safe” by Vonnie Winslow Crist takes place on the Moon. As in the previous story, the protagonist is a clandestine operative. His task is to transport a woman, who believes she is the daughter of the director of a large lunar corporation, to her uncle on Mars. In fact, her supposed mother stole her embryo from frozen storage. The main character also has his own reasons for wanting to work against the director.
The background of a colonized Moon, dominated by private businesses, is interesting and convincing. The fact that the woman so quickly agrees to accompany the hero is harder to accept.
“Shakespeare Among the Stars” by Jill Hand combines space opera with romantic comedy. A woman falls in love with a stage actor and follows him aboard a luxury starship, full of many different kinds of aliens. She foolishly spends all her money, and has to work for her passage in the most unpleasant way possible. Adding to her woes is the fact that the actor is not what she thought he was. An attack by space pirates leads to the triumph of True Love.
The author shows great imagination in the description of the various aliens aboard the ship. The invaders act exactly like sea pirates of centuries ago, straining credibility, even for a comedy. The battle not only involves a deus ex machina, but features bloody violence, which destroys the otherwise lighthearted mood.
“How I Spent My Summer Vacation” by Tony Beaulieu takes the form of an essay written by an elementary school student. Her account involves an ancient book of secrets, a sinister corporation that kills her parents, and a pair of unexpected allies who help her escape the bad guys and take on a new identity.
The plot features plenty of fast-paced action, leaving the reader breathless. The child seems far too calm after witnessing the death of her parents and running away from killers.
“Shallow Ripples” by Lauren E Reynolds is a brief tale of two high school students who encounter a woman emerging from the waters of a creek. She proves to be both alluring and dangerous.
There is very little plot, other than the meeting of the supernatural being and the boys. The story has many vivid descriptions, but there is nothing surprising about the fate of the young men.
In “Scent of the Yaka Aka Yo” by J. Manfred Weichsel, two men and a woman survive a shipwreck. They wind up on a tropical island ruled by a megalomaniac who uses the powers of a deadly plant to rule over his harem of beautiful young women, and to eliminate his enemies.
The plot is reminiscent of an old pulp adventure story, and the author may have tongue firmly in cheek. Some elements of the story are laughable, such as the name of the dangerous plant, mentioned in the title, to frequent reminders that the villain has a thick New York accent. Adding an unpleasant touch to this campy yarn is the fact that one of the surviving men attempts to rape both the female survivor and an island woman. The story also ends with a sex scene between the heroic narrator and the surviving woman, which seems gratuitous.
“The Fourth Gift” by David Skinner is a very difficult story to describe. As best as I can tell, it deals with multiple copies of people, throughout different universes, who reshape the planets and moons of the solar system after they suffer damage from invading machine intelligences. A solid ring appears around the Moon in these universes, threatening total destruction everywhere.
I have probably badly distorted the author’s intent, because the story is so opaque. Although the relationship between one of these multiple individuals and his robot assistant is appealing, everything else is nearly incomprehensible.
“The Sarcomancer” by Donald Jacob Uitvlugt is one of a series of sword-and-sorcery tales dealing with a magic-wielding priest out to find and kill his brother. The woman who bears his brother’s child accompanies him. None of this is necessary to the story’s plot, which serves as a secondary adventure.
The priest arrives at a village where an evil wizard uses body-altering magic as part of his sinister schemes, stealing children from the villagers, and using monstrous warriors to kill those who oppose him. The priest pretends to help the wizard with his plans in order to defeat him.
For the most part, this is a typical example of its genre. The final scene, showing the priest performing a terrible but necessary act, is both anticlimactic and distasteful.
Victoria Silverwolf died quickly in the roleplaying game.