Review of Margaret A. Hanson, “For the Good of the Engines,” Flash Fiction Online 156 (September 2026): 29-32 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was one of those delightful stories that tells you on its face that it’s science fiction, while concealing (albeit not too hard!) the fact that it’s really fantasy. Sweet and adorable.
Review of Stewart C Baker, “How to Cross a Covered Bridge,” Flash Fiction Online 156 (September 2026): 24-27 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Whoever would’ve thought a bridge could make a reader so sad?! Baker must have some kind of magic, because that’s exactly what they conjured up with this story (even if I think it didn’t necessarily need the final page).
Review of Elitsa Dermendzhiyska, “By Candlelight, By Blue Jeans,” Flash Fiction Online 156 (September 2026): 20-23 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was a story of ordinary, every day magic — which despite its ordinariness is one of the most powerful kinds of magic out there, as this story, set behind the Iron Curtain, shows. I loved it.
Review of Jonathon Burgess, “Ghostwalking,” Flash Fiction Online 156 (September 2026): 16-18 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Gosh, this story was beautiful and touching and perfect: Generations in three pages, stuffed full of love and protection.
Review of Elijah J. Mears, “Guardian of the Thresholds” Flash Fiction Online 156 (September 2026): 12-15 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
It must be some sort of cosmic fate that made me read this story on the day friends welcomed home three new kittens today and I’ve been inundated with photos, but it made reading it all the more adorable — and more touching.
(Also: every trans kid should have a guardian cat to help them cross their threshold.)
Review of Daniel Roop, “Welcome, Welcome.” Flash Fiction Online 156 (September 2026): 8-11 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was a lovely little tour through a child’s fear that death comes for us all — and that death can come in many ways! — to the adult who realizes that all the myriad ways one can die are always ways one can live. It was very sweet.
Review of Lindsey Duncan, “The Queen of Tish,” Luna Station Quarterly 66 (June 2026): 143-170 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
I always end up leaving the longer stories for last, when trying to do reviews in the crush of a busy world and life. But this one — by far the longest in this issue — was well worth the wait and totally repaid the time and effort I had to invest in getting through it all (including delaying dinner).
This was an excellent and beautiful time-travel story: It intrigued me from the get-go, and the pacing kept me going.
Review of Catherine George, “Hazard Pay; Competence; Wyrms,” Luna Station Quarterly 66 (June 2026): 89-104 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
As a union caseworker myself, I had a lot of fun reading this series of grievances between unions and employers — it reminded me that no matter how bad employer/employee relations get, at least I’m dealing with university vice chancellors and not basilisks! However, I will note that the most fantastical element of this story, in my opinion, was not the basilisks, wyrms, hamadryads, etc., but the fact that so many of the resolutions to the grievances were, in my opinion, fair and reasonable and appropriate! If only reality were like that…
Review of Lauren Ferebee, “Spaghettification,” Luna Station Quarterly 66 (June 2026): 195-205 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Death of a parent.
As a story of negotiating grief and memory of a dead parent, I found this eerie and a bit creepy and full of sucker punch lines like: “This is about omission and lies and what is rightfully ours from our ancestors” (p. 200). It’s a story that demonstrates the power of fantasy fiction: It provides us with a way to navigate the unfathomable.
Review of Isabel McKeough, “Time Surfing,” Luna Station Quarterly 66 (June 2026): 135-140 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
While overall I enjoyed this meditative little story, I felt like it was a bit of a bait and switch: the opening paragraphs set up a promise of tapping into the temporal magic of books and libraries, but in the remainder, while there was definitely temporal magic, it was rooted in dreams, uncoupled from anything bookish. Still, I can’t criticize a story too much for not being the one I would’ve written from the same premise.
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