REVIEW: “Oathbinder” by L. Fox

Review of L. Fox, “Oathbinder,” Luna Station Quarterly 62 (June 2025): 303-319 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

There was something about Fox’s use of language in the opening pages — how the words sort of slipped and rolled sideways — that was purely magical. The feeling of the prose translated, for me, into a feeling of the world itself, slightly strange, slightly confusing, full of depths that I definitely couldn’t quite understand. This is probably my favorite story of the entire issue.

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REVIEW: “Mother Maggie” by Rebecca Harrison

Review of Rebecca Harrison, “Mother Maggie,” Luna Station Quarterly 62 (June 2025): 127-144 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Harrison tells this story through the medium of podcast transcript [1], effectively just a dialogue between the two hosts, Tasha and Claudia. Their show appears to be a mixture of folklore, sensational stories, baking, and digressions [2]. I enjoy this sort of medium because it means there things don’t get bogged down in unnecessary description; but at times I also couldn’t really get into it for the same reasons I can’t get into actual podcasts — they’re just a bit too tedious for me. Despite the tedium, though, there was an eerie, creepy pull as this horror story developed.

[1] At least, I think it’s supposed to be a podcast, or maybe a radio show (esp. as the hosts mention their “international listeners”). However, at one point Tasha says something that indicates she’s sharing a photograph, so maybe it’s actually video transcript.

[2] If you are not already familiar with the reference half-way down p. 129, go watch this, you won’t regret it.

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REVIEW: “The Family Ghosts” by M. E. Garber

Review of M. E. Garber, “The Family Ghosts,” Luna Station Quarterly 62 (June 2025): 37-47 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Most families are haunted to some degree by the ghosts of their ancestors, but in this story, family ghosts are so much more than that —

“We are your family, your community, your past and your future” (p. 38)

and leaving means not only losing your family but also your history.

The metaphor is obviously one for generational wealth, support, etc. (or the lack thereof!) but its obviousness didn’t detract at all from my enjoyment of the story. I always approve of a story of someone who manages to escape bondage and find freedom.

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REVIEW: “Ends and Means” by Ana Wesley

Review of Ana Wesley, “Ends and Means,” Luna Station Quarterly 62 (June 2025): 261-281 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

It’s another post-apocalyptic story, two women desperately running and trying to stay safe, never sure where they will sleep, what they will eat, who will betray them next. There’s been a lot of these such stories lately, it feels like, and one thing I’ve realized lately is how few post-apocalyptic settings ever really go deep into worldbuilding. The apocalypses are rarely articulated, the enemies often feel interchangeable, the central characters — while varied and interesting in themselves — too seem like they could be swapped from one setting to another without their stories fundamentally changing.

All this to say: There’s been so many stories of this ilk in recent years that it’s now going to take something special for one to stand out for me. It took Wesley’s story a good five pages to get going, but then I finally started getting glimpse of something at least a little bit different: post-apocalyptic fantasy, rather than SF.

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REVIEW: “A Bedtime of Fire, Alchemy, and Ice” by JM Cyrus

Review of JM Cyrus, “A Bedtime of Fire, Alchemy, and Ice,” Luna Station Quarterly 62 (June 2025): 243-258 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Solo parenting a gaggle of young kids while you’ve got experimental research notes you need to write up is never an easy thing — whether or not your research is magical! But Morwedd’s wife is away, so she’s got no choice but to make the balance work.

What I loved most about this story was its portrayal of the sheer *joy* of parenting young children. Yes, under-5s are exhausting and relentless and complicated to parent, especially when there’s more than one of them; but so often it feels like people don’t talk often enough about how much fun it is to be a parent, how joyful it is. So this story just made me happy.

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REVIEW: “Silver and Silt” by Lydia O’Donnell

Review of Lydia O’Donnell, “Silver and Silt,” Luna Station Quarterly 62 (June 2025): 175-184 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

I don’t often come across stories featuring male selkies, so that was an interesting novelty in this one. But as with many stories about forbidden love, this one wasn’t really about whether the narrator and her selkie would have their happy ever after, and more about one girl’s path to finding what it is she really wants.

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REVIEW: “In the Orchard, Where Robots Grow” by Erin K. Wagner

Review of Erin K. Wagner, “In the Orchard, Where Robots Grow,” Luna Station Quarterly 62 (June 2025): 53-69 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Death of a parent.

It’s hard to call a post-apocalyptic SF story “cozy,” but as I read this story and reached for the right words, that’s the one I kept ending up with. It’s not “cozy” in the sense of happy and comforting but in the sense of small-scale, intimate, personal, much more about the breakdown of familial relationships than the breakdown of the robot in the orchard.

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REVIEW: “Yes, No, Goodbye” by LeeAnn Perry

Review of LeeAnn Perry, “Yes, No, Goodbye,” Flash Fiction Online 140 (May 2025): 26-28 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Suicidal ideation.

I’m never quite sure what to make of stories like this. It’s a ghost story, well-crafted and constructed, put together in a way that leads to a simple resolution and leaves few questions unanswered. But along the way it concentrates on the sad and the sordid and the unhappy, and whenever I read a story like this, I always wonder — what does the author expect me to get out of a story like this? I think sometimes I wish for a little more escapism from my reading than gritty realism stories like this provide.

(First published in The Dawn Review August 2023.)

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REVIEW: “To Be a Woman is To Be Without a Name” by Chidera Solomon Anikpe

Review of Chidera Solomon Anikpe, “To Be a Woman is To Be Without a Name,” Flash Fiction Online 140 (May 2025): 19-22 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

When FFO serves up one of its rare non-speculative stories, I’m never quite sure what to say. I include the stories on this blog because our commitment to reviewing all stories in a given issue or anthology trumps our focus on speculative fiction; but I sort of feel like I’m not sure what I’m supposed to get out of a non-spec fic short story, so I don’t know how to read it properly.

What I can say is that this somewhat-autobiographical-feeling story has a stark, strong conclusion.

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REVIEW: “Through These Moments, Darkly” by Samantha Murray

Review of Samantha Murray, “Through These Moments, Darkly”, Clarkesworld Issue 223, April (2025): Read Online. Reviewed by Myra Naik.

Reading this story on a cold spring day hits different. The “you” point of view for narration was a choice, and I’m happy to say it made sense for the story. Lovely words throughout – the prose was just as awesome as the plot. An evocative piece of writing.

This story is a hopeful delight.

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