Review of Shelly Jones, “The Lime Monster,” Flash Fiction Online 126 (March 2024): 11-13 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
here was something really lovely and empowering about this story, of how a woman took her childhood innocence and imagination and turned it into something to protect her land and heritage.
(Originally published in The Future Fire 52, January 2020.)
Review of P. H. Low, “The Flock is Your Blood,” Flash Fiction Online 110 (November 2022): 19-22 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This story does what many stories failed to do: Overcame my dislike of 2nd person POV with the sheer raw force of its power. I think the story could’ve ended half-way in and I would still have loved it.
(First published in If There’s Anyone Left, November 2020).
Review of Avra Margariti, “All the Dead Girls, Singing,” Small Wonders no. 7 (January 2024): 31-33 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Violence against women.
The story of Fairview, whose dead girls congregate by the edge of the lake, is raw and harsh and rough. On the one hand, it’s superficially a ghost story. On the other hand, it’s definitely not that, it’s a story of violence against women, and about the men who perpetrate it.
Read with care/caution.
(First published in Coppice and Brake 2020.)
Review of Brian Hugenbruch, “So You Want to Eat an Omnalik Starfish,” Small Wonders no. 3 (September 2023): 12 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
So I didn’t particularly want to eat any kind of starfish, omnalik or otherwise, because I’m not really into seafood. And yet, this short, compact story managed to convince me otherwise, with beautiful language and just the right touch to tug at my heart (“urgent grief”, indeed). Well done!
(First published in Syntax and Salt 2020).
Review of Jennifer Mace, “Upon What Soil They Fed,” Flash Fiction Online (March 2023): 20-22 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was a creepy little story about the unexpected things a door-to-door salesman might encounter.
(First published in Syntax & Salt January 2020).
Review of Melanie Bell, “Home Bound” Cossmass Infinities 9 (2022): 54-61 — Read or purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Death.
As someone who gave up a life in the US for a life in Europe — and, ultimately, England — I found a lot to sympathise with Beth, the heroine, in this story, who inherits her great-grandmother’s house and makes the leap across the ocean. I additionally sympathised with the basic premise of the story, that one’s soul can and up becoming bound up with the house that they live in, although in Beth’s case, this is literal: Her great-grandmother cannot die until she passes the house on to someone who shares her blood.
It did feel, a bit, though, like it was a story written by someone who has read about England, but hasn’t lived here. The NHS is slowly being dismantled and destroyed (although: <sarcams>Maybe a thriving NHS is the fantasy element of the story</sarcasm>), she’s more likely to be drinking squash than juice, McDonald’s is unlikely to be the main source of cheap coffees…) On the flip side, it’s been long enough since the start of Covid-19 that it feels wrong when stories don’t acknowledge it, and right when they do, as this one does.
Review of Claire McAneny, “Reaping Rewards,” Luna Station Quarterly 50 (2022): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Domestic abuse.
If only getting a problematic man out of your life was as easy as going to the local fortune teller…
Review of Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, Eve Mason, trans., “The Enchanted Prince”, in A String of Pearls: A Collection of Five German Fairy Tales by Women (2020): 53-56 — Order here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)
In fairy land there is a handsome young accomplished and most definitely eligible fairy prince, his only flaw that he allows his wit to tend towards cruelty. His mother the fairy queen instructs him to travel to planet earth to find a bride suitable to match him, and of course all the women he meets are impressed by his many virtues and they all seek to flatter his own vice, until the latter almost overcomes the former. Of course, the cure is to be found in a gentle human girl who cares naught for his boasts, because of course no profligate fairy prince could ever be fixed except through the reproof of an innocent woman. The structure of the story was stereotypical and trope-y, but the details that fleshed out the structure were strange and sometimes unexpected.
This was an odd little story!
(Originally published in German in 1892.)
Review of Caroline Stahl, Eve Mason, trans., “The Enchanted Prince”, in A String of Pearls: A Collection of Five German Fairy Tales by Women (2020): 43-51 — Order here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)
The premise is straightforward: Miranda, Armgard, and Wulfhilde are warned by their mother not to go into the forest, for fear that they will be lured into the realm of the enchanted prince, fated to live there until a princess can come and rescue him (though this was a nice twist on the usual damsel in distress!). Of course, they end up in the forest…
But the execution was marvelous. This was a wonderful Frankenstein’s monster of a story, such a conglomeration of different bits. Parts of it reminded me so intensely of The Silver Chair that I wonder if C. S. Lewis had read Stahl’s story, or another variant of it. Other parts were reminiscent of Bluebeard’s wives. And they were all tied together with a lovely quality of language that Mason’s translation really highlighted.
Review of Louise Brachmann, Eve Mason, trans., “The Realm of Wishes”, in A String of Pearls: A Collection of Five German Fairy Tales by Women (2020): 35-41 — Order here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)
This was the most traditional of all the tales: Edwy, a destitute fisherman catches a fantastical fish — “golden and azure and crimson” (p. 35) — whom he intends to sell for a great price. But the fish speaks and promises to grant him endless wishes instead, if only he’ll throw her back. Edwy follows all the standard tropes, requesting ever bigger and grander wishes until he finally asks for something that cannot be granted, and all his wishes are reversed and he ends up back where he started, in his poor fisher hut. Unlike some versions of this story, though, there is no happy resolution, no moral; he is just as discontented then as he was to start with.
(Originally published in German in 1813.)
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