REVIEW: “In the Orchard, Where Robots Grow” by Erin K. Wagner

Review of Erin K. Wagner, “In the Orchard, Where Robots Grow,” Luna Station Quarterly 62 (June 2025): 53-69 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Death of a parent.

It’s hard to call a post-apocalyptic SF story “cozy,” but as I read this story and reached for the right words, that’s the one I kept ending up with. It’s not “cozy” in the sense of happy and comforting but in the sense of small-scale, intimate, personal, much more about the breakdown of familial relationships than the breakdown of the robot in the orchard.

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REVIEW: “The Philosophy of Weeds” by Lesley Hart Gunn

Review of Lesley Hart Gunn, “The Philosophy of Weeds,” Luna Station Quarterly 62 (June 2025): 187-189 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

“Be careful what you cultivate,” Lana’s husband warns her, but honestly, of the two of them, I’m on Lana’s side, on the side of letting the weeds grow and flourish. No matter how destructive they are in this tight, short story, they are far less destructive than what it is that her husband is cultivating.

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REVIEW: “Downstairs Neighbor” by H.V. Patterson

Review of H.V. Patterson, “Downstairs Neighbor,” Luna Station Quarterly 62 (June 2025): 71-78 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Moving out and on your own is never easy, even when space and independence is what you want. Thankfully, this can be made easier with the presence of a helpful neighbor — which is exactly what the narrator in this story gets, even if it’s not quite the neighbor she might have expected! This was a fun little story.

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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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REVIEW: “Transubstantiation” by Sam W. Pisciotta

Review of Sam W. Pisciotta, “Transubstantiation,” Flash Fiction Online 140 (May 2025): 23-25 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

There’s something about the glorification of motherhood (the whole “becoming a mother makes you a goddess” trope) in this story that doesn’t sit well at all with me. The emphasis on the transcendence of the mother also diminishes the role of the father, and while the resolution of the story comes as the father finds a way to restore his rightful place in the family, it’s a resolution to a problem that I wish hadn’t been there in the first place.

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REVIEW: “To Be a Woman is To Be Without a Name” by Chidera Solomon Anikpe

Review of Chidera Solomon Anikpe, “To Be a Woman is To Be Without a Name,” Flash Fiction Online 140 (May 2025): 19-22 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

When FFO serves up one of its rare non-speculative stories, I’m never quite sure what to say. I include the stories on this blog because our commitment to reviewing all stories in a given issue or anthology trumps our focus on speculative fiction; but I sort of feel like I’m not sure what I’m supposed to get out of a non-spec fic short story, so I don’t know how to read it properly.

What I can say is that this somewhat-autobiographical-feeling story has a stark, strong conclusion.

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REVIEW: “Eight Legs of the Mother Hunted” by Brandon Case

Review of Brandon Case, “Eight Legs of the Mother Hunted,” Flash Fiction Online 140 (May 2025): 15-18 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Spiders (obvs); death of a child.

I love it when a story can get me to empathise with something that normally gives me the ick — it’s the mark of a quality writer when that happens. I’m not a huge fan of spiders, but I am 100% on the side of the titular mother hunted. Her pain is my pain, and her victory my victory. What a gorgeous little story.

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