Short Reviews of Short SFF
Review of Kurt Newton, “The Invisible,” Flash Fiction Online (May 2023): 16-19 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This story can be summed up “coping mechanisms for past trauma gone wrong”. At first, the idea seems great, but knowing that this issue of FFO is all about horror, you also know from the start that things are all going to go wrong. It was delicious finding out how.
Review of Sarah Cline, “Skin the Teeth,” Flash Fiction Online (May 2023): 11-14 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Gory, creepy, disturbing: those three words sum up this story. It’s crazy cat lady taken to an entirely differently level!
Review of H. V. Patterson, “Unexplained,” Flash Fiction Online (May 2023): 7-10 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Patterson’s story is the opening one in a horror-themed issue of FFO, and while the immediate scene is of a woman who has suddenly lost a finger, this isn’t a story about gore and body horror. Rather, the terror is much more psychological: No doctor believes that she ever used to have 10 fingers.
I’m pretty sure every woman (and probably many men) has had the experience of telling someone about something that has happened to her, medical or otherwise, and not being believed. Patterson taps into this fear deftly, and the ending is a killer.
Review of Avril Mulligan, “Forest-Sister,” Luna Station Quarterly 55 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Every week when his mother goes to the market, Tom’s father sends him and his younger sister, Bib, into the forest, to find their half-sister, their forest-sister; and every day Tom has to live with the debt he owes his forest-sister.
There is a darkness to this story, which comes through in chips and pieces through the beautiful language that Mulligan deploys. It’s a story about the complexities and complications of familial relationships, and desire, and debt, and it will leave a weight upon your heart when you read it.
Review of B. Zelkovich, “A Lullaby for Mattie Barker,” Luna Station Quarterly 55 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
The story opens on Mattie Barker arriving in a small and sleepy town to take up her dream job — sexton of the local church. The peace that Mattie feels tending the church garden and graveyard bleeds through to the reader, and nothing can destroy it, not even the ghosts who haunt the graveyard. All in all a very lovely reading experience, full of love and loss and longing.
Review of Rhonda Parrish, “Good News, Bad News,” Luna Station Quarterly 55 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: References to addiction.
This was ostensibly a story of post-apocalyptic Drumheller, but I found it weirdly idealised and utopian. Ty, one of the secondary characters, has a background in “science,” and hence is able to design hydroponics, make use of laboratories, build solar-powered systems — quite the collection of skills beyond the ken of most of the scientists I know! Papillon, the main character, takes on the role of ruler of a metaphorical fiefdom with ease. Everything seems to work out just a little too well and a little too easily for everyone involved. But I did like the sentiment expressed at the ending — almost enough to redeem the story.
Review of Tannara Young, “Who Do We Become?,” Luna Station Quarterly 55 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
The story opens with the scene unfolding on the protracted hanging of thief Bey Lestorn. We never get to see the end of it, because with deft and vivid imagery, Young suddenly yanks the story sideways, leaving both the characters and the reader going “what on earth just happened??” That doesn’t often happen with me when I’m reading, so full kudos to Young for such an effective shift.
The rest of the story traces the fallout from this one singular event, and it was compellingly and thoughtprovokingly told.
Review of Camden Rose, “Built for Her,” Luna Station Quarterly 55 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Domestic violence.
This story opened uncomfortably for me: An abusive woman stalking the girlfriend who left her, and then sculpting a replacement for her. (Perhaps it’s because my weekly Buffy rewatch group chat recently reached “Dead Things,” an episode that gets worse the older I get and the more experience I have with toxic patriarchy and masculinity.) It put me on edge from the beginning, reading the rest of the story with a sense of trepidation. Unfortunately, it didn’t redeem itself for me.
Review of Ellen Morriss Prewitt, “The Very Hand of God,” Luna Station Quarterly 55 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Eugene spends his days out on the streets to keep out from underfoot of his wife, and it’s there that he discovers the shards of pink, polished glass What are they from? How did they get there? What relationship do they have to the title of the story? This is the sort of story that leaves you guessing for quite a long time about these answers, and, more fundamentally, about what kind of story it’s going to be.
Review of Megan Chee, “The Dreamweaver’s Name,” Luna Station Quarterly 55 (2023): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
The premise of this story was something that I think I could have liked a lot; but unfortunately, the story itself read like notes for the finished product, rather than a story itself. Too much info-dump, told too abstractly. That being said, if the ideas in this story are representative of the sorts of things Chee writes, I’d certainly be willing to try something else by her.
SFF Reviews