Review of Lyra Bird, “Women of Nowhere,” Luna Station Quarterly 63 (September 2025): 171-184 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
100% absolutely and utterly gripping — that’s what this story was. It has one of the most distinctive narrative voices that I’ve come across in a very long time, drawing me straight in so that by the third sentence I was enthralled, not so much by the story as I was by wondering what slant path Bird would take me down next.
Review of Emma Francois, “To the Moon, Not Back,” Luna Station Quarterly 63 (September 2025): 105-126 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was a beautifully heart-wrenching story of deep love and betrayal. I felt sympathy for Beatrix, the narrator, every step of the way, even when I could tell, right from the start, that The Boy was never going to be The One for her. Didn’t make her pain any less real, didn’t make it hurt any less, didn’t make her anger any less righteous, or her desire for revenge any less justified.
Review of Isabel J. Kim, “Wire Mother”, Clarkesworld Issue 229, October (2025): Read Online. Reviewed by Myra Naik.
Dystopian stories set in an indeterminate future are, quite truly, my jam. A great story about perspectives and how societal expectations shape what’s “normal” and what isn’t. I also liked the connection to neurodiverse experiences – there’s nothing wrong about being different. The context for this connection was exceedingly lovely, and makes it one of those stories that become an immediate must-share.
Review of Yelena Crane, “For Love and Country,” Luna Station Quarterly 63 (September 2025): 145-159 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This is fundamentally a story about being an immigrant in a dystopia, and as such it was a tough story to read (I’m an immigrant myself, but the so-called “good kind” which makes where I live only slightly less dystopian than it is for my fellow immigrants who are the “wrong kind”), but just as Eva snatches at a chance of hope, of asylum, so too I found my own hope in the story, hope that everything would turn out all right, hope that Eva would get her happy ending, hope that the author wouldn’t betray us readers by pulling the rug out from under us at the last moment, growing tentatively as I read. The balm of having the hope fulfilled was something I needed today, an otherwise tough day.
Review of Sarah Chin, “Self-Portrait as ChatGPT,” Luna Station Quarterly 63 (September 2025): 286-290 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: References to suicide.
I can teach you how to say “I’m sorry” so someone believes it. I can make you sound like you mean it, even when you don’t (p. 289).
This was a beautiful, somewhat heartbreaking story, which was even more interesting to read given that I had read a few days earlier this Guardian piece on chatfishing. It’s becoming harder and harder to imagine a future where significant portions of the population are not outsourcing a significant portion of their human interactions to a machine, and that’s both scary and sad.
Review of Stefan Alcalá Slater, “The Things You Bought for the Robot,” Flash Fiction Online 144 (September 2025): 30-33 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
What makes a person a person? What makes a robot a person? With all the philosophy I’ve studied and taught, I’ve never found a better answer than that there is nothing more to being a person than being treated as one — an answer that works for humans or robots, and an answer that is worked out in this satisfying little story.
Review of Stephen Granade, “Dislocated,” Flash Fiction Online 143 (August 2025): 23-25 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
There was a very hopeful thread in this story, a thread entwined about the fact that even in the depths of awfulness humanity still knows how to band together in the form of support groups — whether it’s groups like AA in the real world or Nicola’s teleportation sickness support ground in Granade’s story — which left me feeling quite comforted, actually, considering how objectively depressing the story was. (The extremely delightful ending didn’t hurt, that’s for sure.)
Review of Lauren Kardos, “The Body Electric,” Flash Fiction Online 143 (August 2025): 20-22 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was a sad, depressing love story.
Review of Anna Clark, “No Laughter in a Vacuum,” Flash Fiction Online 143 (August 2025): 12-15 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Ellen — described by her ex-girlfriend as a personality vacuum all the way down — secures a job that exploits this: She absorbs other people’s social defects so they can more successfully navigate their lives. As we (the readers) get to see what social defects it is that her clients choose for her to erase, the story becomes a more and more uncomfortable read.
On one level, this is a story of masking, and it’s such a real and raw and realistic story of masking, I almost wanted to put a content note at the start of this review, not necessarily to warn people off from the story, but at least to warn them of it. I think the ending is intended to be happy one, but I was too caught up in what came before to find any joy in the resolution.
Review of KÁNYIN Olorunnisola, “Kolumbo 1619: Choose Your Own Adventure,” khōréō 4, no. 4 (2025) — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Racism, police brutality, murder.
This is a “choose your own adventure” through systematic racism in early 20th C America, over and over and over again. It’s the sort of story that never in a million years could I have ever written, because it is so far removed from my own (privileged!) experiences: I can only ever hope to get a glimpse of understanding of these experiences by reading about them. It’s a tough read, but I’m glad I had the opportunity to do so.
SFF Reviews