Review of Lesley Hart Gunn, “The Philosophy of Weeds,” Luna Station Quarterly 62 (June 2025): 187-189 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
“Be careful what you cultivate,” Lana’s husband warns her, but honestly, of the two of them, I’m on Lana’s side, on the side of letting the weeds grow and flourish. No matter how destructive they are in this tight, short story, they are far less destructive than what it is that her husband is cultivating.
Review of H.V. Patterson, “Downstairs Neighbor,” Luna Station Quarterly 62 (June 2025): 71-78 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Moving out and on your own is never easy, even when space and independence is what you want. Thankfully, this can be made easier with the presence of a helpful neighbor — which is exactly what the narrator in this story gets, even if it’s not quite the neighbor she might have expected! This was a fun little story.
Review of Sam W. Pisciotta, “Transubstantiation,” Flash Fiction Online 140 (May 2025): 23-25 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
There’s something about the glorification of motherhood (the whole “becoming a mother makes you a goddess” trope) in this story that doesn’t sit well at all with me. The emphasis on the transcendence of the mother also diminishes the role of the father, and while the resolution of the story comes as the father finds a way to restore his rightful place in the family, it’s a resolution to a problem that I wish hadn’t been there in the first place.
Review of Nicole Lynn, “Entropy in a Fruit Bowl,” Flash Fiction Online 140 (May 2025): 11-14 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Death of a parent, physical violence.
Apparently the trick to learning necromancy is: Start small. But love that only existed asymmetrically can never be resurrected once it is dead — these are the two lessons of this short, exceedingly sad, story.
(First published in The Arcanist October 2022.)
Review of Selphie Ke, “Akane is Dead,” Flash Fiction Online 139 (April 2025): 21-24 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Pregnancy, death, femicide.
“The standard lie of the prostitute is ‘I love you’. The standard lie of the client is ‘I will marry you.’” It was a lesson writ on the hearts of every
Yoshiwara courtesan (p. 22).
This was a powerful story of sisterhood and vengeance, set in a setting I was almost entirely unfamiliar with, so I enjoyed my regular pauses to look up various words and references to learn more.
Review of David Hammond, “The Thing About the Castle,” Flash Fiction Online 139 (April 2025): 16-19 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Oh, gosh, this was a beautiful and touching story. You think it’s going to be about Zack, the narrator, who builds Lego castles and makes up stories about them, but it turns out to really be a story about his mother, and father, and about love, and about loss. So many feelings stuffed into so short a story!
Review of Louise Hughes, “Practical Knitters,” Flash Fiction Online 139 (April 2025): 8-10 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Anyone who has ever worked with yarn knows there’s more than a bit of magic in the craft. Hughes’s story is a warm fairy tale premised on making this point explicit. (But now I want the companion story about theoretical knitters — the ones who write the patterns that the practical knitters then knit!)
Review of Andrew Kozma, “You Have Been Murdered,” Flash Fiction Online 139 (April 2025): 29-31 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Murder (obvs), violence/blood.
I’m not normally a fan of 2nd-person stories, but this one really drew me in — not because it’s a story of how I was murdered, but because it’s a story about masking, about all the things people — whether murdered or maybe just merely neurodivergent — do to mask, to fit in (“you have been covering wonderfully”!). There was something about this story that felt like it was speaking directly to me; maybe that’s why, for once, the 2nd-person voice felt right. What a powerful story, one I’m unlikely to forget for a long time.
(First published in DIAGRAM Fall 2010.)
Review of Saul Lemerond, “Janet and I Try to Get Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tarts at the Gilbert Rd Super Target. It’s the One in Scottsdale. No, the Other One. The One on Gilbert,” Flash Fiction Online 139 (April 2025): 12-15 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
When I skimmed the table of contents of this issue of FFO, I knew immediately I had to read this story first. The title alone is practically a story in itself!
And I wasn’t disappointed: This was a perfectly packaged little gem, making me smile and laugh the whole way through, right up until the sucker punch ending. Relationships, whether natural or supernatural, are never easy, and often heart-breaking.
(First published in Electric Spec 16, no. 3, August 2021).
Review of Samantha Murray, “Through These Moments, Darkly”, Clarkesworld Issue 223, April (2025): Read Online. Reviewed by Myra Naik.
Reading this story on a cold spring day hits different. The “you” point of view for narration was a choice, and I’m happy to say it made sense for the story. Lovely words throughout – the prose was just as awesome as the plot. An evocative piece of writing.
This story is a hopeful delight.
SFF Reviews