Review of Sarah Grey, “The Social Phobic’s Guide to Interior Design,” Flash Fiction Online 103 (April 2022): 26-28 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Grey captures exceedingly well the experience of being out in public, terrified of anyone noticing you or asking you a question. And it took me all the way until the end of the story to realise there is not a speculative drop in it.
(First published in Flash Fiction Online 2013).
Review of Jennie Evenson, “A Midsummer Night’s Abduction,” Flash Fiction Online 103 (April 2022): 22-25 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
The aliens have arrived, and they’ve captured Shakespeare — they need him to write a new play to convince their homeworlds to cease their war. So who do they turn to when Shakespeare is recalcitrant? An adjunct university lecturer, who researches Shakespeare, of course.
This was a rollicking fun story, full of humor, which I enjoyed a lot.
(First published in Every Day Fiction 2018).
Review of Thomas K. Carpenter, “On the Anniversary of Your Passing,” Flash Fiction Online 103 (April 2022): 17-20 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
I won’t give away too much of the story if I quibble with its title: Instead of “anniversary”, it should be “anniversaries“. This not-quite-a-time-travel story hinted at complexities that are never quite explained, but the ending is satisfying enough that I didn’t really care about the unanswered questions I had.
Review of Sam F. Weiss, “The Perfect Brick of Feta,” Flash Fiction Online 103 (April 2022): 13-16 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
In this story, Weiss combines the power of marketing with the elusive lure of virtual reality to create a glimpse of a possible future which both vaguely unsettles me and makes me really, really hungry for cheese.
Review of Stephanie Feldman, “The Annual Conference of the ladies in White,” Flash Fiction Online 103 (April 2022): 8-11 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Once a year all the Ladies in White from across history gather for their annual conference — this year, in a hotel “like an antique wedding cake preserved by moonlight” (p. 8), as only befits such a gothic gathering — except this year they aren’t the only people at their hotel. Chance has brought the narrator, herself a woman spurned, to the same hotel, and for a night she is adopted into their company. But she’s not ready, not yet, to become a lady in white herself. This is quite a hopefully, uplifting story for such a ghostly premise.
Review of Beth Cato, “Bread of Life,” Flash Fiction Online 93 (2021): Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This cosy SF story centers is all about how bread is a tie to home. As someone who lived six years in the Netherlands with a bunch of German colleagues continuously complaining about how they just couldn’t get good bread in the Netherlands (and who’d bring large stocks back with them from trips back home to Germany), the premise was moving and enjoyable. The story should also appeal to any reader who attempted to navigate their Covid lockdown via sourdough starters.
(Originally published in Nature 520, 2015.)
Review of Damon Shaw, “Air Kisses,” Flash Fiction Online 93 (2021): Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
A swimmer steals a kiss with terrible consequences in this sharp, taught, tightly-written story.
(First published in The Touch of the Sea, Lethe Press, 2012.)
Review of Sylvia Heike, “The Bones and Their Girl,” Flash Fiction Online 93 (2021): Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
When a story opens with someone discovering someone else’s bone collection, I’m not quite sure if it’s going to turn out to be a horror story or not!
This one is not. It’s a beautiful, sweet story, of Camille who is struggling to understand the herself that she has become as illness slowly takes over her, and Simon, who sees nothing but beauty in bones.
(Originally published in Syntax & Salt, 2019.)
Review of Kristina Ten, “All the Arms We Need,” Flash Fiction Online 93 (2021): Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
The premise of this story is simple: Sometimes, all we need is to be held, and sometimes two arms is not enough. What is better than two arms? Eight, of course, and better than that a thousand. What we learn in this exceedingly sweet story is that if an octopus is a better hugger than a human, a millipede is even better than an octopus.
Review of Sarah Grey, “Southside Gods,” Flash Fiction Online 87 (2021): Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
These are the southside gods — gods of the slums, of the working class. This is Holloway, god of water, who fixes washing machines and “is every plumber in the directory”; but he doesn’t do air conditioners. He just might be able to recommend a colleague, though…
Fresh, humorous, and with just the right of pathos, this was a little gem of a story.
(First published in Intergalactic Medicine Show September 2013).
SFF Reviews