Review of A J Dalton, “Review of the Pre-Anthropocene Museum,” Radon Journal 9 (2025): 72 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
The ending stanza of the poem is what made it for me.
REVIEW: “Ghost in the Shell” by Holly Lyn Walrath
Review of Holly Lyn Walrath, “Ghosts in the Shell,” Radon Journal 9 (2025): 70 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was the itty-bittiest of little flash fic stories — but Walrath nevertheless manages to pack quite a bit into that one single solid paragraph of text. It’s all introspection and yet it manages to convey a rich breadth of history and scene-setting, capped off with a satisfying ending. I love seeing a well-crafted piece of fiction like this!
REVIEW: “Buttons and Soap” by Josh Pearce
Review of Josh Pearce, “Buttons and Soap,” Radon Journal 9 (2025): 68 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
The structure of the poem meant I had to read it a couple of times in different orders — once straight through, once with just the parentheticals and once with just the non-parentheticals — to see if I could determine how it should be read, because the first read through just left me confused. The parentheticals alone do make sense, and have a nice rhythm and rhyme to them; but what is left behind when they are extracted didn’t feel to me like it held together.
The upshot is that I spent more time confused about this poem than I did reading it, which unfortunately means this one didn’t work for me.
REVIEW: “Dawn, the Humor Bot” by Veda Villiers
Review of Veda Villiers, “Dawn, the Humor Bot,” Radon Journal 9 (2025): 64-65 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
I don’t know if this poem was written before or after Trump 2.0, but there’s a certain apocalyptic despair woven through it that makes it feel very timely and appropriate for early 2025. But the poem ends on a note of hope — something we very much need.
REVIEW: “The Experience Machine” by Mark Dimaisip
Review of Mark Dimaisip, “The Experience Machine,” Radon Journal 9 (2025): 62-63 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Kudos to the editors for placing Dimaisip’s poem immediately after Whalbring’s poem reviewed here: In this ordering, Dimaisip’s reads like a sequel to Whalbring’s. If the latter poem offers up a potential future, the former provides us with a singular, specific, concrete reality of that future.
I’m not sure how I would’ve reacted to this poem on its own, but in read conjunction with the other one, I really liked it.
REVIEW: “Aging is a Word That Means ‘Slowly Becoming a Machine'” by Marcus Whalbring
Review of Marcus Whalbring, “Aging is a Word That Means ‘Slowly Becoming a Machine’,” Radon Journal 9 (2025): 60-61 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
I’ve come to really love and look forward to the poetry selection in each Radon Journal issue; the poems are exceptionally curated and there’s always at least one in every issue that is really, really good. In this issue, that poem is this one: Gorgeous and raw and aching and honest. I loved it.
REVIEW: “The World Ends With a Whimper” by Nicholas De Marino
Review of Nicholas De Marino, “The World Ends With a Whimper,” Radon Journal 9 (2025): 59 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
When one starts off their piece with a call-back to such an iconic poem, it sets the reader’s expectations high. While the poem was a strong one (cleverly constructed so it could be read in multiple ways), I’m not sure the title helped rather than hindered it, especially as the title was also the opening line. I wonder what the poem would’ve been like if instead of setting things up to repeat an idea, the title was instead used to introduce something new and unexpected?
REVIEW: “The Rag Pickers of Asteroid 482” by Trevor Cunnington
Review of Trevor Cunnington, “The Rag Pickers of Asteroid 482,” Radon Journal 9 (2025): 57-58 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This poem felt very much like a flash fic story that had been reformatted to become a poem, which is a bit unfortunate — because as a poem it was a bit underwhelming, but a story, I think it would’ve really intriguing and engaging!
REVIEW: “The World Has Been This Way For a Long Time” by Vincent Endwell
Review of Vincent Endwell, “The World Has Been This Way For a Long Time,” Radon Journal 9 (2025): 44-47 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This title intrigued me, as there was a delightful ambiguity in what it is signalling — would this be a happy story or a sad one? It could be either!
And then it turned out to almost be neither, rather instead it was mostly a quiet story, “speculative” in the sense that the narrator spent a lot of time wondering what if, what if, what if. But at the end, there is definitely some solace that we as the reader can take away.
REVIEW: “Dad Jokes” by David Lee Zweifler
Review of David Lee Zweifler, “Dad Jokes,” Radon Journal 9 (2025): 35 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
At one page, Zweifler set expectations high before I even started reading it: You’ve really got to nail it, in such a short space. Between the title, and the opening lines that are filled with grief and uncertainty, I wasn’t sure if I was going to end up wholly let down by the end.
And I so wasn’t. That finally line brought a slightly anxious, slightly sad story into something flooded with hope.
SFF Reviews 