Review of Oksana Marafioti, “Kryvoye,” Luna Station Quarterly 55 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Suicide.
I’m not sure I liked this story. Ivan is in love with two women, Darya and Marina, and when forced to decide between the two of them, the other one kills herself. Unsurprisingly, there is no happy ending. It all felt just a little bit sordid.
Review of Amanda Bintz, “Skip, Hop, Jump,” Luna Station Quarterly 55 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
I do like a good time-travel story, though I’m often disappointed by them. Bintz’s story was not disappointing; I really enjoyed how she took the spatial metaphor for time travel seriously, and used the resulting images as a red thread tying the whole story together. The story itself is full of serious moments, of childhood illness and trauma, but also moments of light.
Review of Janna Layton, “Captain Courageous in Venice,” Luna Station Quarterly 55 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This story takes on the style of the 18th C confessional, and I loved it. It is unapologetically queer, suitably historic, and just a lot of fun — full of adventure, romance, and drama. I grinned the entire way through.
Review of Lyndsey Croal, “Sleep Well, My Prince,” Luna Station Quarterly 55 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Ten years ago, the ship Pippa’s sister Rosa was on lost contact in the Kuiper Belt and nothing has been found of the ship since. Now Pippa captains her own ship, and is always on the lookout for an answer to what happened to her sister. When she finds it, it is far more complicated than anyone, including the reader, could have guessed.
The story had a very Star Trek feel to it, and I mean this in a most complimentary way — stable, believable sci fi telling a good story about characters that I liked.
Review of Kemi Ashing-Gawa and Tali Arima, “Jovis,” Luna Station Quarterly 55 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
It always makes me happy to read a co-authored story, especially when the end result has such a clear and singular voice, as this one does. Despite the eclectic mix of ancient ruins, fantastical creatures, and space shuttles — a combination that could very easily have felt fragmented — all the pieces came together in a way that felt coherent, chilling and eerie.
Review of L. S. Johnson, “In the Field,” Luna Station Quarterly 55 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Tam and Davey are soldiers, fresh from recent victory and ready to believe that this will be the final push. But this is not a happy story, it is an incredibly grim one, pervaded with the futility of war.
Review of Samantha Carr, “Technical Magic,” Luna Station Quarterly 55 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Cheyanne’s mother is ill, and her sister Tricia wants to put her into a care home; after all, the two sisters have been caring for her for five years, and there’s a limit to how long Cheyanne can be expected to put her life on hold.
But Cheyanne doesn’t want her mother in a home, and is willing to go to extreme measures to prevent this. Unfortunately, technical magic only works when you follow all the details and instructions properly. This not particularly happy story had a not particularly happy ending, but there was never any reason to think it would.
Review of Cynthia Gómez, “Lips Like Sugar,” Luna Station Quarterly 55 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Oblique references to sexual harassment and assault.
If you’re looking for an amusing and slightly raunchy bisexual vampire urban fantasy, this is a story for you.
Review of Libby Feltis, “Fittonia,” Luna Station Quarterly 55 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
There were so many little bits and pieces in this story that are things I love — an emphasis on the importance of names, throwbacks to classic literature, sass, innuendo, writers writing stories as a means of currency, and happy endings. It was such a fun read. It was always an extremely realistic and believable account of the life of a highly sensitive and empathetic person.
Review of Devon Borkowski, “Home for the Rising Sun,” Luna Station Quarterly 54 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was a strange, intensely beautiful at times, haunting story that I found incredibly hard to characterise or categorise.
SFF Reviews