Review of Dafydd McKimm, “A Tiger in Eden,” Flash Fiction Online (June 2023): 6-9 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This story was beautifully enigmatic in the way it integrated fantasy and reality.
REVIEW: “To Rise, to Set” by Rich Larson
Review of Rich Larson, “To Rise, to Set,” Flash Fiction Online (June 2023): 10-13 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Rich Larson is one of those authors where whenever I see him in a journal line up, I get excited. His stories never fail to deliver — though what they deliver is different every time! This one gave me a strong character willing to speak up for her beliefs and for the protection of others. I will never not want to read stories that give me this.
REVIEW: “The Social Phobic’s Guide to Interior Design” by Sarah Grey
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: “A Midsummer Night’s Abduction” by Jennie Evenson
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: “On the Anniversary of Your Passing” by Thomas K. Carpenter
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: “The Perfect Brick of Feta” by Sam F. Weiss
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: “The Annual Conference of the Ladies in White” by Stephanie Feldman
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: “Bread of Life” by Beth Cato
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: “Air Kisses” by Damon Shaw
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: “The Bones and Their Girl” by Sylvia Heike
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.)
SFF Reviews 