Review of Angela James, “I Was Made For Loving You,” Flash Fiction Online 143 (August 2025): 16-19 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was a very strange story — made even more strange for me because I didn’t know who Gene Simmons was, and for about two pages confused him with Richard Simmons before I stopped to look him up on wikipedia.
That being said, I’m not sure the story would’ve been all that much less strange if I had known who he was from the start!
Review of Anna Clark, “No Laughter in a Vacuum,” Flash Fiction Online 143 (August 2025): 12-15 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Ellen — described by her ex-girlfriend as a personality vacuum all the way down — secures a job that exploits this: She absorbs other people’s social defects so they can more successfully navigate their lives. As we (the readers) get to see what social defects it is that her clients choose for her to erase, the story becomes a more and more uncomfortable read.
On one level, this is a story of masking, and it’s such a real and raw and realistic story of masking, I almost wanted to put a content note at the start of this review, not necessarily to warn people off from the story, but at least to warn them of it. I think the ending is intended to be happy one, but I was too caught up in what came before to find any joy in the resolution.
Review of Lisa Fox, “Textures,” Flash Fiction Online 143 (August 2025): 7-10 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This is a story of love, and weddings, and memories. It’s sweet and short and sad, and full of beautiful metaphors such as “If love had a texture, it would be satin” (p. 7).
But — Annie, the main character, says of this metaphor,
In thirty-five years of working with brides, I knew which marriages would last by the way they responded to my metaphor (p. 7).
I wonder what she would think of my reaction, which is that satin wrinkles easily and the wrinkles are almost impossible to iron out!
Review of S.L. Harris, “The Harrowing of Hell (Third Circle, Sausage Counter, Contracts Office),” Flash Fiction Online 142 (July 2025): 27-30 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Anyone who has their own story about “terrible summer employment,” this story is for you! Even if you don’t have such a story, read this one anyway, you’ll get some laughs out of it, and we can all use those.
Review of Deanna J. Valdez, “My Flesh, My Beating Heart, A Willing Meal That Refuses to Remember the Dangers of Being Eaten,” Flash Fiction Online 142 (July 2025): 23-26 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Violence against women.
I’ve read a lot of stories that take the “monster on my back” metaphor literally — some of them are enormously effective and I love how they can be so straightforward without being trite. Unfortunately, this one isn’t quite one of them.
Review of Kel Coleman, “The Sacred, the Sacrificial,” Flash Fiction Online 142 (July 2025): 20-21 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was an interesting story, but I feel like it was written for a reader who isn’t me.
(First published in Pipe Wrench, 2021.)
Review of Emlyn Meredith Dorneman, “To Ashes,” Flash Fiction Online 142 (July 2025): 16-19 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
I loved the way that Dorneman’s use of language felt like an assault on the senses, replicating in my reading the story the same experiences of the characters within the story. It all felt a bit overwhelming, and strange, and increasingly horrifying.
Review of Jason Pearce, “A Concise History of the Goldfish Trade,” Flash Fiction Online 142 (July 2025): 12-14 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
There’s something about this story that feels very much like the type of fairy tale where a gullible young boy trades away his wealth for a myth. Two things made it more than that — Pearce’s setting amonst his ancestral Mi’kmaw, and the fact that the gullible young boy turns the tables at the end.
Review of Jacob Baugher, “Recitations,” Flash Fiction Online 142 (July 2025): 8-11 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Sometimes all an author has to do to win me over is provide me with one great phrase. As soon as I read “as if thoughts and prayers were an actual sacrifice” (p. 9), I knew that Baugher could do practically nothing to ruin his story for me. But even without this masterful piece of wordcraft, I’d’ve still enjoyed this beautifully imagined story.
Review of Zeke Jarvis, “Skinfluencer,” Flash Fiction Online 141 (June 2025): 27-29 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Body modification / possible body horror.
Sometimes speculative fiction is incredibly realistic: This story certainly couldn’t happen today, but reading it I feel like this could easily happen in 5-10 years’ time.
(First published in Backchannels 2023.)
SFF Reviews