Review for The Salt Witch
Great review for the December half of Uncanny Magazine #37 (https://uncannymagazine.com/issues/uncanny-magazine-issue-thirty-seven/) on https://quicksipreviews.blogspot.com/2020/12/quick-sips-uncanny-37-december-stuff.html
On The Salt Witch:
“The Salt Witch” by Martha Wells (5787 words)
No Spoilers: Juana is a witch flying a boat south to the Caribbean who finds that she can’t seem to escape the pull of a certain island. One that’s been hit hard by wave after wave of storm. One with ghosts littering the beaches, moving through the streets. All caught in the gravity of a castle that is also a hotel, the Queen, where a corrupting presence has made the island a kind of hell. As a witch, Juana aims to set things right so she can get back on her way. A bunch of ghosts should be no real thing for her. Except that something about the island is familiar, and as she explores it, pushes deeper into it, she walks into a series of traps that test her resolve and her endurance, her memories and her vulnerabilities. It’s a story that looks at place, at mistakes, and at recovering from them, in a charming and pleasantly bouncy fashion.
The review itself is longer, but here's a non-spoilery bit: Using the afterlife not to just stay in one place, a spider in the middle of a toxic web. But to be able to leave, to explore, to do the things that maybe you should have done while alive. To move on, and through that heal and to allow others to heal. It’s a really fun story for all it’s about a bunch of dead people, and I just love the way it comes together, the way that Juana just refuses to be broken about what happens, or rather refuses to stay broken about it.
comments
On The Salt Witch:
“The Salt Witch” by Martha Wells (5787 words)
No Spoilers: Juana is a witch flying a boat south to the Caribbean who finds that she can’t seem to escape the pull of a certain island. One that’s been hit hard by wave after wave of storm. One with ghosts littering the beaches, moving through the streets. All caught in the gravity of a castle that is also a hotel, the Queen, where a corrupting presence has made the island a kind of hell. As a witch, Juana aims to set things right so she can get back on her way. A bunch of ghosts should be no real thing for her. Except that something about the island is familiar, and as she explores it, pushes deeper into it, she walks into a series of traps that test her resolve and her endurance, her memories and her vulnerabilities. It’s a story that looks at place, at mistakes, and at recovering from them, in a charming and pleasantly bouncy fashion.
The review itself is longer, but here's a non-spoilery bit: Using the afterlife not to just stay in one place, a spider in the middle of a toxic web. But to be able to leave, to explore, to do the things that maybe you should have done while alive. To move on, and through that heal and to allow others to heal. It’s a really fun story for all it’s about a bunch of dead people, and I just love the way it comes together, the way that Juana just refuses to be broken about what happens, or rather refuses to stay broken about it.
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