REVIEW: “What Any Dead Thing Wants” by Aimee Ogden

Review of Aimee Ogden, “What Any Dead Thing Wants,” Adventitious no. 1 (Feb/Mar 2026): 72-109 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

This was exceptionally long, meaning I kept putting it off whenever I’d sit down to read and review a story because I didn’t have the time.

I finally did today, and the story completely repaid what I spent on it. At the end, I find it hard to know what to say about it, other than echo Hob when he says that “he would have known what to do, if there were obvious bad guys” (p. 103). It’s a story where there’s no good moves, even when there are moves that are right, and it ends up being really, really sad.

(First published on psychopomp.com, 2024)

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REVIEW: “A Húlíjīng Always Keeps One Tail Hidden” by Melissa Ren

Review of Melissa Ren, “A Húlíjīng Always Keeps One Tail Hidden,” Adventitious no. 1 (Feb/Mar 2026): 51-54 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Death of a sibling.

I adore stories that introduce me to the mythos of another culture, and that’s what I got from Ren’s story, which was rich and sumptuous and felt like it contained far more than its mere 4 pages. It was marvelous and unexpected.

(First published in Triangulation: Hospitium 2024.)

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REVIEW: “Float. Sink. Tread. Swim.” by Shelly Jones

Review of Shelly Jones, “Float. Sink. Tread. Swim.” Flash Fiction Online 150 (March 2026): 20-23 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

There’s so many things in this story that I’d ordinarily put into a content note — the death of a parent, death of a child, the involvement of child protection services, religious persecution where the religious people are the persecutors rather than the persecuted — that it felt like the entire review would be in the content note if I did so. This story is every bit as sad and heavy as you might predict from the title.

(Interestingly, given where it was first published, it has no wizards, and does not take place in space.)

(First published in Wizards in Space, April 2024.)

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REVIEW: “Things Elan Reacquainted Himself With After Being Broken Out of His Single-Day Time Loop” by D. A. Straith

Review of D. A. Straith, “Things Elan Reacquainted Himself With After Being Broken Out of His Single-Day Time Loop,” Flash Fiction Online 141 (June 2025): 13-15 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

I do love a good list-story! This was short, but effective, especially in conjunction with another title-which-is-basically-a-story-in-itself.

(First published in Inner Worlds 2024.)

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REVIEW: “The Chaperone” by Kimberly Crow

Review of Kimberly Crow, “The Chaperone,” Flash Fiction Online 138 (March 2025): 22-23 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Infertility.

FFO occasionally serves up a story that has no speculative element, which is what this one is. It is nevertheless a thoughtful, poignant story that gets right at the heart of what it is like to long for a child you may never have.

(First published in WOW! Women On Writing, May 2024.)

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REVIEW: “Talisman and Bone” by Karen L. Kobylarz

Review of Karen L. Kobylarz, “Talisman and Bone,” Luna Station Quarterly 60 (2024): 157-183 — Purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Set in ancient Tyre, this story was peppered with all the little historical details that I love to see when an author is recreating the essence of an ancient culture — appropriate names, the use of a few foreign vocabulary words and phrases for important items like precious gems and spells, attention to clothing, the gods. But it’s not a simple historical fiction; the twist towards fantasy is strong and vibrant, yet the blending in of magic isn’t jarring or unrealistic. All the pieces fit together well.

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REVIEW: “We Are Island” by Atalanti Evripidou

Review of Atalanti Evripidou, “We Are Island,” Luna Station Quarterly 60 (2024): 127-145 — Purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

I love it when I read a story where one character’s love for another is so palpable, so shining, that you see it from the very first page and you get swooped up in it. This is one of those stories. Elias’s love for Ren is dazzling, and so is Ren’s for Elias.

And yet, as brightly as is shines, it doesn’t eclipse the background world that Evripidou has deftly constructed through the introduction of one simple change: It’s a world very much like ours except that there are chips available which when implanted allow people access to their familial memories. Evripidou works out the consequences of this one idea in ways that enhance her characters. It’s such a deftly-balanced story; I was super impressed. (And I desperately would love to see it turned into an 8- or 12-episode TV series, if one can do that with such a short story!)

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