Review of Erin L. Swann, “Borrowed Breath and Starlit Scales,” Flash Fiction Online 138 (March 2025): 29-30 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
If you like stories of monstrous mermaids luring sailors into the depths, you’ll enjoy this. For me, I kept expecting more to happen — in a two-page story, specifics matter all the more, because there just isn’t enough time for generalities.
(First published in Factor Four October 2022).
Review of Corey Farrenkopf, “Drown-Haunted,” Flash Fiction Online 138 (March 2025): 25-28 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Death of a parent.
This story was eerily reminiscent of another I recently reviewed, “The Ferryman Makes His Morning Crossing” by Corey Davis (the eeriness only enhanced by the fact that the two authors share a given name!). There’s something very real and present in the fear that both of these stories express: Fear of a future where our lives and cities as we know them have been overtaken by rising tides, endlessly submerged. But Farrenkopf’s has a moment of hope, towards the end.
Review of Shantell Powell, “The Qalupalik,” Flash Fiction Online 138 (March 2025): 18-21 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: child endangerment.
This story took a sharp, unexpected, violent turn right at the end — and it needed it, because otherwise the set-up felt all too familiar and almost too often told. I appreciated having things turned on their head!
Review of Joshua Jones Lofflin, “Lizzie Williams’ Swampy Head,” Flash Fiction Online 138 (March 2025): 14-16 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
I often find short stories told in the voice of a child annoying, because far too often that voice feels cloying and fake. Not so at all with Lofflin’s story, which had all the sorcery inherent in a passel of young girls — he nails it.
(First published in MetaStellar May 2021.)
Review of Beth Goder, “Mirror-Hole,” Flash Fiction Online 137 (February 2025): 34-37 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was a deliciously odd and creepy little story. It felt unlike anything else I’ve ever read, which is increasingly rare the longer this blog has been around!
Review of Faith Allington, “The Lonely Eldritch Hearts Club,” Flash Fiction Online 137 (February 2025): 18-21 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
I’ve never had to partake in online dating fora myself, but I’ve heard the horror stories. Given how bad actuality is, could it be any worse to swipe right on an eldritch beast instead? Not according to this absolutely sweet and romantic little story of love and heartbreak.
Review of Rebecca Washburn, “A Flame At the Edge of Darkness,” Luna Station Quarterly 61 (2025): 361-383 — Purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
The story frames itself as being about the Darkness — a phenomenon that isn’t quite natural, isn’t quite artificial — and the Flames — the young girls who are the only predators of the Darkness; but in truth it’s much more a story of love and estrangement between mother and daughter. I had some sympathy with Maggie, the mother (from whose point of view the story is told), up until her thinly veiled homophobia was revealed, as well as the way she pretended her religion was “love”, and then I lost all sympathy for her. I spent the rest of the story desperately hoping that she wouldn’t get resolution, that there wouldn’t be redemption, wouldn’t be a happy ending, because that seemed like it would just be too easy. Having reached the ending, I’m not quite sure if I’m happy with it or not.
Review of B. Zelkovich, “The Secret Ingredient,” Luna Station Quarterly 61 (2025): 154-165 — Purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
If you love either “queers unable to recognize flirting when it stares them in the face” genre stories or stories about love over coffee, this is a story for you! Sweet, light, and entirely happy.
Review of Amara Mesnik, “Canary, Canary,” Luna Station Quarterly 61 (2025): 327-347 — Purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
One could describe the premise of this story as: Colonizing men get their comeuppance — and since it comes at the hands of a young woman, it’s rather satisfying. On the other hand, it could also be described as: Unbearably naive woman gets taught a lesson — and since that young woman is the same one, since Saisha only gets to be the heroine because it was her naivety that caused the problem in the first place, it’s also rather frustrating.
Review of Kelli Dianne Rule, “To Bethany, With Teeth,” Luna Station Quarterly 61 (2025): 349-359 — Purchase online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This story was one of my favorite kinds of speculative fiction: Ordinary world, ordinary life, except everything has just been shifted sideways slightly, so that everything is wrong, is weird, and as a reader you have know idea how or why or where the next weirdness is going to come it. It’s a story that keeps you on your toes. It’s also a little bit creepy and more than a little bit disturbing.
And I gotta say, I would totally watch the hell out of “DIY Me, Bro”!
SFF Reviews