There is an impressive neutrality to Urbanski’s portrayal of characters in opposition, despite how close these subjects clearly are to her heart. No character’s beliefs are held up as being more obviously correct than another’s ... Offers no easy answers, but it does present myriad possibilities ... Powerfully unique and thoughtfully written.
Every story in Portalmania is distinctive, vital, and sophisticated; the whole is an almost perfectly constructed debut collection that brings into sharp focus an impressively cohesive project ... The precision with which Urbanski balances the speculative...and realist levels...is astonishing ... After the exhilaration of this book, I’ll follow wherever her writing takes her.
The thematic and narrative layering in Portalmania is brilliant but sometimes out of control. Ms. Urbanski is fearless, unconventional and perhaps a touch obsessive, and she will want to find an editor she trusts to help her shape her finished works. Possessing a talent that needs reining in is a good problem to have.
Eschew[s] the traditions of the portal fantasy subgenre ... Innovative ... Urbanski rarely allows her stories to consider what it would mean for a marginalized person to be accepted on their own terms, and the collection suffers as a result ... I picked up Portalmania expecting to love it. Instead, I encountered stories only tangentially about portals or fantasy, many of which recreated the violent and hateful points of view leveled against me and my communities daily.
So enjoyable ... There’s always something on the other side of the portal, on the other side of the
page, on the other side of the darkness. And, as Urbanski reminds us, when we emerge on the
other side, we will still be there to create.
Densely metafictional ... These stories dwell in the knotty, ambiguous spaces surrounding their portals ... The narrator’s fear is vividly rendered ... Here we see the other side of such fantasies, realised with shocking brutality. The detail of the orange elephant backpack hits particularly hard ... This eye for heartbreaking details is a common feature of Urbanski’s stories ... These details give a sense of texture to Urbanksi’s stories, which reliably feel if not lifelike then certainly lived in. Even as the stories repeat similar themes and character archetypes, each entry offers a distinct approach and set of images ... Not every story is a triumph, however ... Long May My Land Be Bright is an unsubtle satire ... While the collection’s political thinking is disappointingly basic, Urbanski is very thoughtful about the tropes of the fantasy genre, and about Portalmania’s construction as a book
