Review of Michelle Knudsen, “Biter,” Adventitious no. 2 (Apr 2026): 179-186 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was a sweet little story of family angst and trauma wrapped up in the form of an animal that can only be described as, well, a biter.
Review of Emma Burnett, “Spirit Alembic Keeper,” Adventitious no. 2 (Apr 2026): 137-144 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: military conscription
Before the conscripts go off to war, first they go to August — leaving their souls behind, to be preserved untainted, until their bodies are done battling. But of course, bodies don’t go to war to come back. August’s profession is both vitally important and endlessly futile. There’s a feeling of inevitability about this story: You don’t know quite how it’s going to end, but that it will end in the only way it possibly could. When that ending comes, it is very satisfying.
(First published in Uncharted, year unknown)
Review of Jennifer Hudak, “Penance,” Adventitious no. 2 (Apr 2026): 101-108 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
I love a genre-bending story like this: It has all the trappings of a moderately generic SF setting, but the story itself is a story of gods and mortals and the one being who hears the voice of their god when they should not. I’m a sucker for this kind of story, so I enjoyed “Penance” very much — especially it’s absolute killer ending.
Review of Laurie Doyle, “Passing Through,” Adventitious no. 2 (Apr 2026): 45-49 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Sometimes a good story is one that can hint at a much broader world behind the brief snippet the story lets you see. Sometimes, a good story is one that gives no context, no background, no explanations, nothing to help you understand what is going on. Doyle’s story is one of the latter, and I loved it precisely for that reason.
(First published in Manawaker Studio’s Flash Fiction Podcast 2024.)
Review of Angela Liu, “Fernie,” Adventitious no. 2 (Apr 2026): 32-43 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
With time travel, dinosaurs, and sentient plants, this fun little story didn’t bother taking itself too seriously.
Review of Katharine Tyndall, “Madam Strzyga’s Pagan Pest Control,” Adventitious no. 2 (Apr 2026): 27-31 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
“Catholic solutions won’t work for pagan problems,” Madam Strzyga tells an anxious client (p. 29), in this funny little story that’s almost noteworthy for how mundane it is considering how fantastical it is. Pests are pests, whether they are natural or supernatural, I guess!
Review of Deborah L. Davitt, “The Place of Oblation,” Adventitious no. 2 (Apr 2026): 146-150 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This is a lovely little story, recommended for anyone who likes stories about aliens or stories about archaeology, or, even better, stories about both.
Review of Faith Allington, “Raze My Brain, Open My Eyes,” Adventitious no. 2 (Apr 2026): 135-136 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
If this story hadn’t been so short, it could perhaps have been more than simply a “bad-break-up-story,” but as an example of this genre, it at least involves someone choosing to turn their wallowing pain into a positive outcome.
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)
Review of Meagan Kane, “What a Name Does is Let You Leave,” Adventitious no. 1 (Feb/Mar 2026): 55-69 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Regular readers of this blog will know that I’m very deeply not a fan of 2nd person POV; unfortunately, that dislike is compounded when the POV is that of someone who is so obviously not me that the cognitive incongruence of being continually told that it is me overwhelms everything else.
Which is a shame, because I think told in a different perspective, I might have really enjoyed this story. Instead, I enjoyed it more in spite of itself, rather than because of it. There was a beautiful depth of longing threading through all of it which kept me reading on.
SFF Reviews