Review of Belicia Rhea, “Another Cemetery Wedding,” Small Wonders no. 7 (January 2024): 29-30 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was an absolutely delightful little poem, about never-ending love, and myth, and fairy tales, and it just made me very happy to read it.
Review of Timothy Hickson, “Constellations of Flesh, Bone, and Memory,” Small Wonders no. 7 (January 2024): 25-27 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was an interesting, if slightly uncomfortable, read, full of memory and heredity and genetics. SF regularly reminds us that the future isn’t necessarily better than the present, and that’s certainly the moral I took from this story.
Review of Janna Miller, “The Sternum Ties it All Together,” Small Wonders no. 7 (January 2024): 22-24 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was a surprisingly gruesome little story — not quite body horror, but adjacent to it. Not ordinarily my cup of tea, but there was something quite gripping about it.
(First published in The Molotov Cocktail, 2022).
Review of Casey Lucas, “Lekythos,” Small Wonders no. 7 (January 2024): 20 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
There’s a lot of mythological allusions in this poem, but for me they didn’t quite all seem to hang together in a coherent way. I was a bit underwhelmed by the poem until the final two lines, which are brilliant.
Review of Wendy Nikel, “Whispers of Ascension,” Small Wonders no. 7 (January 2024): 17-19 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was a gripping little modern ghost story. I was particularly taken by the way in which the setting was both very vivid and yet only slowly revealed, something that’s difficult to do within the limitations of flash fic.
Review of Avi Burton, “Quantum Eurydice,” Small Wonders no. 7 (January 2024): 14-16 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Oh, I really loved this. It’s part myth, part literary commentary, and part Eurydice coming into her own. It’s the sort of story I’d give to my students to show them what stories can be.
(First published in Fantasy Magazine 2022).
Review of Amy Johnson, “The Mummy Gets Adopted,” Small Wonders no. 7 (January 2024): 10-12 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This lovely little poem features a cat, and is therefore an entirely excellent poem which everyone should read.
Review of Morgan Welch, “Hikari,” Small Wonders no. 7 (January 2024): 7-9 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Death of a parent.
It’s not often that I read a story where so little happens and yet by the end of it, I feel satisfied. “Hikari” is one of those stories, so quiet and still and calm that you feel better for having read it.
Review of Lyndsie Manusos, “Wood, Amber, Smoke,” Flash Fiction Online 124 (January 2024): 21-24 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This story started off strong, but in the end I felt it promised more than it delivered. The most intriguing character, the one I wanted to know more about, to know his story, was the one who wasn’t there at all.
Review of Emily Anderson Ula, “Salt,” Flash Fiction Online 124 (January 2024): 16-19 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
One of my perennial complaints about a lot of SFF stories is that they seem to occupy a world in which religion doesn’t exist (nor does anything that would fill the same role). So when I get a story that is all about googling solutions to demon possession, it scratches an itch that’s always lingering. Consequently, I really enjoyed this story! Even if it was terribly sad.
(First publishing in The Blood Pudding April 2021).
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