REVIEW: “All Our Whiskered Idols” by Kahlo Smith

Review of Kahlo Smith, “All Our Whiskered Idols,” Luna Station Quarterly 54 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Ruminations on death.

Smith’s story is an exploration of the complications and complexities of family, and death, and religion, and grief. The first part of it was almost aggressively ordinary — good and satisfyingly told, but leaving me wondering what was going to be speculative about it — which made the contrast of the second, weird and wildy speculative, part all the more sharp.

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REVIEW: “Last Letter First” by Kristina Ten

Review of Kristina Ten, “Last Letter First,” Luna Station Quarterly 54 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Pregnancy, abortion.

What started off as a fun little story about the intimacy of acquaintance — the way in which two strangers thrown together through coincidence can suddenly become friends, only to just as suddenly separate, to go their own way and never see each other again — segued neatly into unexpected depths. In a sense, the reader and the story are themselves like Duri and Margosha, thrown together by accident, revealing something of each other, and then passing on.

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REVIEW: “Mother Mangue” by Lis Vilas Boas

Review of Lis Vilas Boas, “Mother Mangue,” Luna Station Quarterly 54 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Childbirth, references to infertility.

Mother Mangue is “a mother ready to help” when people are in need of help, and “when they don’t need her, she is just the witch.” The help she offers is both to bring babies into the world that are refusing to come; and to prevent others from coming when they are not wanted. Her story, a quiet one of longing and despair, takes shape when she seeks out for herself that which she has only ever given to others.

This is a long story full of many unexpected twists. It kept me curious all the way to the end.

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REVIEW: “Silk” by Alyssa C. Greene

Review of Alyssa C. Greene, “Silk,” Luna Station Quarterly 54 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Considering the subject of this story was weaving, it feels appropriate to describe it as “intricately woven,” threads being fed to the reader a bit at a time so that we don’t get the whole pattern at once, but have to wait for it to be built, all the while, horror deepening in the background.

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REVIEW: “A Memory is Like a Talon” by Anna Martino

Review of Anna Martino, “A Memory is Like a Talon,” Luna Station Quarterly 53 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Oh, this was a wonderful story — beautiful, visceral, raw, powerful. It’s about a shapeshifter and the one who loves them during WWI, and of their descendants, and it was just gorgeous.

I am now going out to seek out everything else Martino has written, because if they are half as good as this, they will be amazing.

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REVIEW: “The Twin’s Paradox” by P. L. Watts

Review of P. L. Watts, “The Twin’s Paradox,” Luna Station Quarterly 53 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This was a simple story: One of a pair of identical twins goes on a journey to Alpha Centauri, the other stays at home, and when the former returns they are no longer identical because the latter has aged. A good premise, but there wasn’t much more than that, no twist, no unexpected move, no deeper insight. Just a simple story.

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