REVIEW: “The World Has Been This Way For a Long Time” by Vincent Endwell

Review of Vincent Endwell, “The World Has Been This Way For a Long Time,” Radon Journal 9 (2025): 44-47 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This title intrigued me, as there was a delightful ambiguity in what it is signalling — would this be a happy story or a sad one? It could be either!

And then it turned out to almost be neither, rather instead it was mostly a quiet story, “speculative” in the sense that the narrator spent a lot of time wondering what if, what if, what if. But at the end, there is definitely some solace that we as the reader can take away.

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REVIEW: “Dad Jokes” by David Lee Zweifler

Review of David Lee Zweifler, “Dad Jokes,” Radon Journal 9 (2025): 35 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

At one page, Zweifler set expectations high before I even started reading it: You’ve really got to nail it, in such a short space. Between the title, and the opening lines that are filled with grief and uncertainty, I wasn’t sure if I was going to end up wholly let down by the end.

And I so wasn’t. That finally line brought a slightly anxious, slightly sad story into something flooded with hope.

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REVIEW: “Thicker Than Water” by Aeryn Rudel

Review of Aeryn Rudel, “Thicker Than Water,” Radon Journal 9 (2025): 26-28 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This was a gruesome little gem of a story, set in a apocalyptic world; or perhaps our own world, in just a few decades’ time — you decide how soon you think global warming will suck us all dry and leave humans competing not only with animals for water, but also with the trees!

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REVIEW: “The Fish in the Garden” by Eleanor Lennox

Review of Eleanor Lennox, “The Fish in the Garden,” Radon Journal 9 (2025): 13-19 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Death, and the aftermath of death.

I love stories that focus on the day-to-day, the mundane, the almost-humdrum; there’s enough high-stakes terror in the real world nowadays that I don’t need that in my fiction, too. This story was a perfect example of the former, a quiet meander through the details of life during the 11-year trip to Titan, full of exquisite little snapshots and so sad. What a beautifully put together story this was.

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REVIEW: “Talisman and Bone” by Karen L. Kobylarz

Review of Karen L. Kobylarz, “Talisman and Bone,” Luna Station Quarterly 60 (2024): 157-183 — Purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Set in ancient Tyre, this story was peppered with all the little historical details that I love to see when an author is recreating the essence of an ancient culture — appropriate names, the use of a few foreign vocabulary words and phrases for important items like precious gems and spells, attention to clothing, the gods. But it’s not a simple historical fiction; the twist towards fantasy is strong and vibrant, yet the blending in of magic isn’t jarring or unrealistic. All the pieces fit together well.

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REVIEW: “We Are Island” by Atalanti Evripidou

Review of Atalanti Evripidou, “We Are Island,” Luna Station Quarterly 60 (2024): 127-145 — Purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

I love it when I read a story where one character’s love for another is so palpable, so shining, that you see it from the very first page and you get swooped up in it. This is one of those stories. Elias’s love for Ren is dazzling, and so is Ren’s for Elias.

And yet, as brightly as is shines, it doesn’t eclipse the background world that Evripidou has deftly constructed through the introduction of one simple change: It’s a world very much like ours except that there are chips available which when implanted allow people access to their familial memories. Evripidou works out the consequences of this one idea in ways that enhance her characters. It’s such a deftly-balanced story; I was super impressed. (And I desperately would love to see it turned into an 8- or 12-episode TV series, if one can do that with such a short story!)

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REVIEW: “Dragon Dance” by Elizabeth Davis

Review of Elizabeth Davis, “Dragon Dance,” Luna Station Quarterly 60 (2024): 203-214 — Purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Lily is the first woman to be a part of the dragon dance, the elaborate traditional celebration that links her (presumably immigrant/diaspora) community with their home culture. There is quite a lot of description going on in the opening pages, which contributed to the slow, drawn-out feel of the story, and also contributes to me not being quite sure what to say about it. I felt like I didn’t have quite the context that I needed to understand the significance of various points: The parts that were significant I only knew were so because as the reader I was told explicitly. All in all, this one didn’t quite work for me, but I’m not entirely sure why.

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REVIEW: “Run Time” by Gemma Church

Review of Gemma Church, “Run Time,” Luna Station Quarterly 60 (2024): 223-269 — Purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Miscarriage; domestic abuse.

The pagination may make this story seem like on the long side for LSQ, but in fact it’s quite a short story, just elaborately formatted, typeset as a back-and-forth text-based conversation — no scene-setting, no description, just dialogue, so that it is in fact quite a quick read. Moreover, the quick pace of it means that there is very little advance warning for when things suddenly turn dark and more than a little bit ugly. There’s a viciousness to one of the characters being discussed that makes the ending so very much more satisfying, when that awful abuser gets his come-uppance.

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REVIEW: “From a Damsel to a Dragon” by Hannah Birss

Review of Hannah Birss, “From a Damsel to a Dragon,” Luna Station Quarterly 60 (2024): 217-220 — Purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This was quite a straightforward story: A princess, betrothed to a prince in an arranged marriage that neither of them wants, undergoes transformation from a damsel to the titular dragon. There’s no explanation or understanding of why/how this happens, it is just presented to the reader as a straightforward thing. There’s little left to the reader to grapple with, nothing really to figure out, no deeper moral or allegory. It’s just a story of a girl who doesn’t want to marry a prince, and becomes a dragon instead. Still, it was a fun little piece, even if it’s not very deep.

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