P. Kirby's Reviews > Wakulla Springs

I'm being an asshat with this rating, because as a work of historical fiction, Wakulla Springs is a lovely story and deserving of at least four stars. Also, I got it free, which means I should cut it some slack.

And yet...there is something sorely vexing about a Hugo nominated, and therefore, by implication, speculative fiction novella, that contains fuck all for SF/F elements. My guess is some might argue that it's a work of magical realism. But if Wakulla Springs is a measure of what is magical realism, then just about any narrative that features a character imagining/hallucinating monsters under the bed or beneath the waters of a lake would qualify as spec fic.

Wakulla Springs, with its pretty prose and storyline that followed several generations of African Americans, was a quick read for me. In part because I kept reading, expecting, at any moment, that something, anything fantasy would arrive in the plot. And being disappointed.*

And this...this is why I avoid "award winning" SF/F like the plague. Especially the short forms. Because the auditors of good speculative fiction are clearly as derisive toward genre fiction as so-called literary folk.

Anyway, it's a nice story. Recommended to readers of historical fiction.

*Edited to note that when I described the plot to my husband, a reader of almost exclusively SF/F, his reaction was, "Sounds boring."