Review of Xavier George, “Vestigial Speech,” Luna Station Quarterly 66 (June 2026): 173-176 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was an odd little story. As much as it was a story about tensions of language, it also felt like it was one about tension between love and lust — it felt like Lark and Lola were living in very different stories. I’m still not quite sure what to think of it.
Review of KT Reed, “The Last Birthday Cake,” Luna Station Quarterly 66 (June 2026): 189-192 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
“Today, [Alex’s] only plan had been cake” (p. 190), which, objectively speaking, is an excellent plan, but not one that is likely to hold out well in the face of what the world has planned for instead. Still, cake is great motivation, and Alex’s triumph in the end is, like the cake itself, something to be savored.
Review of Lesley Hart Gunn, “Track 19,” Luna Station Quarterly 66 (June 2026): 83-87 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This piece felt more like a sermon than a story — a self-help piece chiding me and telling me all the ways I’m doing life wrong. Packed with metaphors, that are sometimes pushed a bit too far, it left me with a bitter taste in my mouth.
Review of Rowan Tate, “Backwash,” Luna Station Quarterly 66 (June 2026): 15-17 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
I found this story both intense and eerie: There’s something about the sea which is inherently fantastical, and it felt like Tate had to do very little to construct a setting that was equal parts familiar and foreign.
Review of Safiya Cherfi, “The Bride and Her Thief,” Luna Station Quarterly 65 (January 2026): 247-262 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was a wonderfully enjoyable fairy tale, woven through in every thread with Arabic Muslim mythology.
Review of Bendix Ross, “Stevie,” Luna Station Quarterly 65 (January 2026): 103-129 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Far more than being a story of marine astrobiology, this is a story of a great bond of love between siblings. That was the hook that kept tugging me through to the very end.
Review of Jane Campbell, “Private Cabin, Ocean View,” Luna Station Quarterly 65 (January 2026): 55-76 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Infertility.
Stories often give off certain signs, usually signalling their genre, early on. Campbell’s story is long enough that she keeps her cards quite close to her chest for quite a while (comparatively, for a short story) — my first guess was that this was going to be a ghost story, then it took a turn that felt like it was heading towards horror. It took a further turn some time after that, while keeping the earlier elements, all woven together. It was intriguing and unsettling!
Review of K.M. Reed, “Heart’s Desire,” Luna Station Quarterly 65 (January 2026): 161-182 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Infanticide
This was a story of pacts and bargains and exchanges, — and of the difficulty of being a governess to dead children. It had a nice gothic feel to it, but overall it didn’t really catch my interest.
Review of Sylvie Althoff, “Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone,” Luna Station Quarterly 65 (January 2026): 131-152 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Those who really like jazz will appreciate Althoff’s ability to pull more than twenty pages out of one improv session at a small bar on a far-flung planet. For those who could take jazz or leave it, this story is rather…long.
Review of Ashley Burnett, “Eva,” Luna Station Quarterly 65 (January 2026): 185-203 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Enslavement, prison, forced adoption, forced pregnancy.
I find that I am beginning to tire to stories where misogyny is baked into the core of the narrative — even if the narrative is one of release, and freedom, and vengeance, and retribution, of escape for the woman/women involved, I am increasingly longing for stories that imagine an entirely different way of existence.
Still, I understand the value in ones that take our world as it is, and show that we can resist, so I don’t want to speak too negatively of Burnett’s story; it’s just not the story for me, I guess.
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