REVIEW: “Peace” by Phoenix Mendoza

Review of Phoenix Mendoza, “Peace,” Luna Station Quarterly 61 (2025): 197-201 — Purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content warning: War.

The narrator (who’s name we never learn) and her partner, Lorna, are trapped in a war that seems unwinnable, fighting ever since the aliens arrived, three years ago. Despite this, Lorna still believes in peace, and tells the narrator that one day, she will too.

Reading such a story in the present climate, where there is so much war but the participants involved are ourselves and not aliens, was a strange experience. There’s something that feels almost safe about imagining battling against aliens: They are alien, after all, it’s okay for us to read about fighting them, killing them, murdering them. But the very fact that this feels okay, just because they are aliens, is a deeply uncomfortable feeling, because that’s exactly the same excuse people use for making war against other people.

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REVIEW: “A Moon Goddess to Watch Over Me” by Susan Kaye Quinn

Review of Susan Kaye Quinn, “A Moon Goddess to Watch Over Me,” Luna Station Quarterly 61 (2025): 385-389 — Purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Quinn’s story was an enjoyable mix of near-earth space exploration and ancient Chinese, Greek, and African mythologies, an unusual combination to say the least. It had a little bit too much reporting of back story, and not quite enough character or development of story, for my taste, because it was quite short, but it was still enjoyable nonetheless.

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REVIEW: “Is That New?” by Rosamund Lannin

Review of Rosamund Lannin, “Is That New?,” Luna Station Quarterly 61 (2025): 33-46 — Purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

There was something positively magical about how Lannin wove together the excessively mundane with the delightfully unexpected. At the end of a long train at the end of a long week which was the last week of a long academic term, this story broke through my exhaustion and made me smile, right up until it caught me by surprise. Fantasy with a twist of horror — what a fun read!

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REVIEW: “First to Go” by Jenny Perry Carr

Review of Jenny Perry Carr, “First to Go,” Luna Station Quarterly 61 (2025): 49-54 — Purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This was a sparse, spare little story about space-travel on the very personal, individual level. Its tight prose reflects the tension of the situation that the main character is in, giving us an intimate glimpse into her mind, and it meant that all it took was a single, perfect, line for it to send chills down my spine:

Maybe my only chance to be first to go.

If you need a win, a victory, then definitely read this story!

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REVIEW: “Sister Death” by Erin Kissick

Review of Erin Kissick, “Sister Death,” Luna Station Quarterly 61 (2025): 121-125 — Purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

While reading this story, I had a sense of being held at arm’s length, of never being given quite enough detail. We learn a lot of dragons and those who feed on their corpses, but very, very little about the woman who is traveling so far away from her home city just to visit the corpse. I felt a little bit cheated, by the end, because I think she was someone I’d like to know better.

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