REVIEW: “Terra” by Laura Stone

Review of Laura Stone, “Terra,” Luna Station Quarterly 63 (September 2025): 265-285 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This was a long, reflective story, centered around the musings of a single, solitary character — Cass’s shipmate Simms died before we, the reader, ever met her — which is a narrative structure that I think is difficult to pull off: It’s hard to keep the pace from dragging. It took more than half the story for events to begin, and even then, they seemed to take forever. As a consequence, when the horror elements kicked in, I ended up more bored than scared. This one just wasn’t for me.

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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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REVIEW: “This is What Mouths Are For” by Parker M. O’Neill

Review of Parker M. O’Neill, “This is What Mouths Are For,” Flash Fiction Online 145 (October 2025): 24-26 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

There are four mouths in this story — Guiltymouth, Anxiousmouth, Bittermouth, and Haughtymouth. All four mouths do what you’d expect mouths to do, and what I love about horror as a genre is how it provides space for the ordinary, everyday to twist into the macabre. O’Neill pulls this off excellently: About four paragraphs before the end I suddenly went “oh god,” as I figured how it was all going to end.

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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: “Melilot Dreams” by EC Dorgan

Review of EC Dorgan, “Melilot Dreams,” Luna Station Quarterly 62 (June 2025): 81-92 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Most post-apocalyptic stories lean heavily to the SF genre, but this one doesn’t wear that genre on its sleeve; if anything, it tends more towards horror, of a very reflective, personal, and introspective kind. We never learn much about the apocalypse other than that it was AI-driven, but quite a bit about the narrator, their life before and after, and the loneliness of trying to stay alive.

It is a deeply, deeply unhappy story.

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REVIEW: “Sour Milk” by Phoenix Mendoza

Review of Phoenix Mendoza, “Sour Milk,” Flash Fiction Online 140 (May 2025): 30-32 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: body horror; child neglect; femicide

That this is going to be a gruesome story is made obvious right from the start — there’s dead bodies right away in paragraph two. Jean-Marie likes to talk to these women, swollen and maggoty and slick with decomposition, because she has no mother of her own, no one else to talk to. And because this is a horror story, of course the Ladies talk back — they need her just as much as she needs them.

This is definitely not going to be a story for everyone, but if you like horror, it’s deftly crafted.

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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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