REVIEW: “Who Do We Become?” by Tannara Young

Review of Tannara Young, “Who Do We Become?,” Luna Station Quarterly 55 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

The story opens with the scene unfolding on the protracted hanging of thief Bey Lestorn. We never get to see the end of it, because with deft and vivid imagery, Young suddenly yanks the story sideways, leaving both the characters and the reader going “what on earth just happened??” That doesn’t often happen with me when I’m reading, so full kudos to Young for such an effective shift.

The rest of the story traces the fallout from this one singular event, and it was compellingly and thoughtprovokingly told.

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REVIEW: “Built For Her” by Camden Rose

Review of Camden Rose, “Built for Her,” Luna Station Quarterly 55 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Domestic violence.

This story opened uncomfortably for me: An abusive woman stalking the girlfriend who left her, and then sculpting a replacement for her. (Perhaps it’s because my weekly Buffy rewatch group chat recently reached “Dead Things,” an episode that gets worse the older I get and the more experience I have with toxic patriarchy and masculinity.) It put me on edge from the beginning, reading the rest of the story with a sense of trepidation. Unfortunately, it didn’t redeem itself for me.

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REVIEW: “The Very Hand of God” by Ellen Morris Prewitt

Review of Ellen Morriss Prewitt, “The Very Hand of God,” Luna Station Quarterly 55 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Eugene spends his days out on the streets to keep out from underfoot of his wife, and it’s there that he discovers the shards of pink, polished glass What are they from? How did they get there? What relationship do they have to the title of the story? This is the sort of story that leaves you guessing for quite a long time about these answers, and, more fundamentally, about what kind of story it’s going to be.

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REVIEW: “The Dreamweaver’s Name” by Megan Chee

Review of Megan Chee, “The Dreamweaver’s Name,” Luna Station Quarterly 55 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

The premise of this story was something that I think I could have liked a lot; but unfortunately, the story itself read like notes for the finished product, rather than a story itself. Too much info-dump, told too abstractly. That being said, if the ideas in this story are representative of the sorts of things Chee writes, I’d certainly be willing to try something else by her.

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REVIEW: “Skip, Hop, Jump” by Amanda Bintz

Review of Amanda Bintz, “Skip, Hop, Jump,” Luna Station Quarterly 55 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

I do like a good time-travel story, though I’m often disappointed by them. Bintz’s story was not disappointing; I really enjoyed how she took the spatial metaphor for time travel seriously, and used the resulting images as a red thread tying the whole story together. The story itself is full of serious moments, of childhood illness and trauma, but also moments of light.

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REVIEW: “Sleep Well, My Prince” by Lyndsey Croal

Review of Lyndsey Croal, “Sleep Well, My Prince,” Luna Station Quarterly 55 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Ten years ago, the ship Pippa’s sister Rosa was on lost contact in the Kuiper Belt and nothing has been found of the ship since. Now Pippa captains her own ship, and is always on the lookout for an answer to what happened to her sister. When she finds it, it is far more complicated than anyone, including the reader, could have guessed.

The story had a very Star Trek feel to it, and I mean this in a most complimentary way — stable, believable sci fi telling a good story about characters that I liked.

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REVIEW: “Jovis” by Kemi Ashing-Gawa and Tali Arima

Review of Kemi Ashing-Gawa and Tali Arima, “Jovis,” Luna Station Quarterly 55 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

It always makes me happy to read a co-authored story, especially when the end result has such a clear and singular voice, as this one does. Despite the eclectic mix of ancient ruins, fantastical creatures, and space shuttles — a combination that could very easily have felt fragmented — all the pieces came together in a way that felt coherent, chilling and eerie.

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