REVIEW: “Wire Mother” by Isabel J. Kim

Review of Isabel J. Kim, “Wire Mother”, Clarkesworld Issue 229, October (2025): Read Online. Reviewed by Myra Naik.

Dystopian stories set in an indeterminate future are, quite truly, my jam. A great story about perspectives and how societal expectations shape what’s “normal” and what isn’t. I also liked the connection to neurodiverse experiences – there’s nothing wrong about being different. The context for this connection was exceedingly lovely, and makes it one of those stories that become an immediate must-share.

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REVIEW: “The Accidental” by K.M. Veohongs

Review of K.M. Veohongs, “The Accidental,” Luna Station Quarterly 63 (September 2025): 75-87 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This was such a sweet little story. Trina is 5 years old and off to kindergarten for the first time, with a lunch packed by her mother and walked to school by her father. But Trina’s lunch isn’t a typical lunch, because Trina isn’t a typical little girl — she’s not a little girl at all, she’s a bird.

I loved this story for how sweet it was, and for how fun it was to read a story that was based on a premise along the lines of “right! okay, let’s do something different. I know. The MC is a bird, because her mom is a bird, but her dad is an ordinary human. Let’s run with it. Who cares about explaining how anything is? This is just how life is.” Because to a five year old, that’s how the world works. Things just are the way they are. The story was uncompromising and unapologetic, and I loved it for that.

Don’t be fooled, though, it’s not a saccharine sweet story, nor does it have a happy ending, but that just made me appreciate more, rather than less.

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REVIEW: “For Love and Country” by Yelena Crane

Review of Yelena Crane, “For Love and Country,” Luna Station Quarterly 63 (September 2025): 145-159 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This is fundamentally a story about being an immigrant in a dystopia, and as such it was a tough story to read (I’m an immigrant myself, but the so-called “good kind” which makes where I live only slightly less dystopian than it is for my fellow immigrants who are the “wrong kind”), but just as Eva snatches at a chance of hope, of asylum, so too I found my own hope in the story, hope that everything would turn out all right, hope that Eva would get her happy ending, hope that the author wouldn’t betray us readers by pulling the rug out from under us at the last moment, growing tentatively as I read. The balm of having the hope fulfilled was something I needed today, an otherwise tough day.

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REVIEW: “Going to Sea, Mother,” by Luscha Makortoff

Review of Luscha Makortoff, “Going to Sea, Mother,” Luna Station Quarterly 63 (September 2025): 37-49 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Suicidal ideation.

Selkie stories tend to be more difficult to pull off than stories of other mythical creatures, in part because the mythology of the selkie is so constraining: There is one dominant narrative, and I find many authors struggle to escape it. Makortoff managed to add extra layers to the typical selkie story, intertwining it with another story of desertion and loss, in a way which I ended up enjoying quite a bit.

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REVIEW: “Self-Portrait as ChatGPT” by Sarah Chin

Review of Sarah Chin, “Self-Portrait as ChatGPT,” Luna Station Quarterly 63 (September 2025): 286-290 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: References to suicide.

I can teach you how to say “I’m sorry” so someone believes it. I can make you sound like you mean it, even when you don’t (p. 289).

This was a beautiful, somewhat heartbreaking story, which was even more interesting to read given that I had read a few days earlier this Guardian piece on chatfishing. It’s becoming harder and harder to imagine a future where significant portions of the population are not outsourcing a significant portion of their human interactions to a machine, and that’s both scary and sad.

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REVIEW: “Woodsong” by Arthur H. Manners

Review of Arthur H. Manners, “Woodsong,” Flash Fiction Online 145 (October 2025): 19-22 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

There’s two layers of horror to this story: The external trappings that comprise its setting, which are eerie and creepy enough on their own; and the horror of a parent slowing coming to terms with not being able to save their child. It’s not a pleasant story by any means.

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REVIEW: “To Breach a Citadel” by Jeannie Marschall

Review of Jeannie Marschall, “To Breach a Citadel,” Flash Fiction Online 145 (October 2025): 7-9 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This story didn’t quite work for me. It had the traditional horror-story’s build-up to a spooky, creepy ending, but maybe I missed something, but I didn’t get what was supposed to be scary about the denouement. Ordinarily, this would be an indication that I need to read a story a second time, in case I did miss something, but without something, some hook, some lovely language, some character that grabbed me, it doesn’t feel like this would be a worthwhile use of my time.

No story works for every reader; this one simply isn’t one for me.

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