REVIEW: “”Secrets of the Goblin Market” by Valerie Hunter

Review of Valerie Hunter, “Secrets of the Goblin Market,” Luna Station Quarterly 64 (December 2025): 39-52 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

I do enjoy a goblin market story, but something struck me when reading this one, which is that all too often “goblin market” is all we are told about the setting, never anything about who the goblins are, or where they came from, why they run markets, or even whether the people shopping there are goblins themselves, or not. Too often, goblin market stories seem to just rely on the phrase evoking a setting by stirring up in the reader hazy memories of Rossetti’s poem.

Not so Hunter’s: A goblin market was specifically, carefully chosen as the appropriate setting for the story of Min, and her grandmother, and how Min decided to break all her grandmother’s rules. A sweet, satisfying story.

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REVIEW: “Shedding the Weight” by Chiemeziem Everest Udochukwu

Review of Chiemeziem Everest Udochukwu, “Shedding the Weight,” Flash Fiction Online 147 (December 2025): 15-17 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This was a nice little love story, but one of the reasons why I’ve always struggled with more literary, less speculative, fiction is that I often read literary fiction and think “what was the point?” I love spec fic because it explores, it pushes boundaries, it asks questions, and it allows me to learn. This just allowed me to be distracted, for a few minutes.

(First printed in Jellyfish Review December 2022.)

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REVIEW: “Hope is the Thing With Circuits and Steel” by Elitsa Dermendzhiyska

Review of Elitsa Dermendzhiyska, “Hope is the Thing With Circuits and Steel,” Flash Fiction Online 146 (November 2025): 44-47 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

I felt like there was something lurking at the edge of this story that was really quite fascinating and worthy, but for some reason, I never quite grasped it. Partly it was that I was never quite sure who the “we” of the narrators were, or what their relationship was to the grandmothers; part of it was that I wasn’t sure if the grandmothers’ continued exhortation to “just google it” was sincere or sarcastic — a sad commentary on how what used to be one of the best parts of the internet has become polluted by its AI-generated results. Whatever the reason(s), sadly this story just wasn’t quite the one for me.

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REVIEW: “Gifts From On High” by V. H. Chen

Review of V. H. Chen, “Gifts From On High,” Flash Fiction Online 146 (November 2025): 36-43 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

It’s amazing how effectively a series of text messages can convey the fraught relationship between a parent and a grandparent with respect to a child. It’s also amazing how effectively a series of text messages can convey, alternatingly: annoyance, overinvolvement, smugness, concern, humor, and panic. I laughed and laughed by the end of this delightful little sweet story.

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REVIEW: “Loxley is One Thousand Bats” by Camsyn Clair

Review of Camsyn Clair, “Loxley is One Thousand Bats,” Flash Fiction Online 146 (November 2025): 33-35 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Self-harm.

The thousand bats are a metaphor, and at the start of the story I worried that it might end up being a too-heavy-handed one. That worry was not founded; the story developed to focus on the story, rather than the metaphor, and so ultimately the entire thing worked for me.

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REVIEW: “The Tao of Thorsten Codbiter” by Kate Horsley

Review of Kate Horsley, “The Tao of Thorsten Codbiter,” Flash Fiction Online 146 (November 2025): 29-31 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

…plus the back has a cut-out coupon for ten free Vikings with the purchase of every genuine Ox-horn drinking vessel (p. 29).

I love it when within the first five sentences of a story, I already know I will love it.

As Tom tries to bring his mom around to the idea of sharing her house with Agmundr, Gorm, Frode, Thorstein, Bodil, and five other Vikings, I laughed and laughed and laughed. As the ten of them surround Tom with support as his mother faces her final dies, I wanted to cry along with them, while Horsley’s final line is exactly the right way to end this story. A delightful morsel of a masterpiece. More stories like this, please.

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REVIEW: “Unfinished Conversations Package” by Chris Baker

Review of Chris Baker, “Unfinished Conversations Package,” Flash Fiction Online 146 (November 2025): 20-28 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

As Dan Kalder tries to find closure with the death of his father, we as the reader get taken on a bit of an emotional rollercoaster — laughter, annoyance, tears, and a bit of shock. On the one hand, I appreciated the dexterity with which this story was constructed. On the other hand, the central conceit of that construction rests upon technology whose use in any form I struggle to get behind, so as a story that uses it uncritically, it ended up not sitting very well with me. (This isn’t to say that I think Baker used genAI to write the story, not the least; just that its use in the story meant the story didn’t work for me.)

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