Review of Christine Hanolsy, “Festival,” Flash Fiction Online 151 (June 2026): 18-20 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was a story of both regrets and hopes, and the fact that by the end, the hopes and dreams outweighed the regrets and sorrows made me very happy.
(First published in Small Wonders September 2023)
Review of P. A. Cornell, “The Soundtrack of My Afterlife,” Adventitious no. 1 (Feb/Mar 2026): 26-47 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: attempted rape.
“Then I died and became a car” (p. 26).
Sometimes, all it takes is one sentence in the opening page to make me know I’m going to love a story. That was this sentence for this story!
And I did love it. I’m of an age where the soundtrack of the narrator’s afterlife was also the soundtrack of my childhood, and of the songs I’m sharing with my own kid. Nothing like a good dose of nostalgia! But I also loved Cornell’s delicate touch in this coming-of-age story, and how realistic it felt. Honestly, this should be a movie!
Review of Abigail Guerrero, “This is Why Magical Realism
and Family Tree School Projects Shouldn’t Mix,” Adventitious no. 1 (Feb/Mar 2026): 19-25 — Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
I’m not sure if this was a ghost story, a fantasy story, a slipstream story, a magical realism story, or something else altogether, but I am sure it was A LOT of fun to read! And I loved the thread of something deeper and more serious that ran through it all: That we are not bound by our pasts and we are free to decide what our futures will be.
Review of Joelle Killian, “After Enlightenment, the Sewage,” Flash Fiction Online 152 (May 2026): 7-9 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Addiction and rehab.
I had expected the title to be somewhat more metaphorical than it turned out to actually be. I think I would preferred it to be a little less literal.
Review of David Farrow, “The Last Eleven Seconds,” Flash Fiction Online 151 (April 2026): 8-12 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: War.
These eleven seconds last an eternity, and every second I took reading it, I wanted them to last even longer.
Review of Christine Hanolsy, “A Thimbleful of Need,” Flash Fiction Online 149 (February 2026): 15-18 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Addiction.
This story of unequal desire and unmet needs left an unhappy taste in my mouth at the end.
Review of Jessie Roy, “Rice Child, Dragon Child,” Flash Fiction Online 148 (January 2026): 22-25 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This felt a bit like a modern day “Sophie’s Choice,” with the narrator forced to decide between the future of her dreams and a future of security, each choice coming with its own hidden, unknown costs. I loved the setting and the central plot mechanism — the narrator’s gogok that can slice dreams away from one person, preserving them to give to another.
Review of Julie Sondra Decker, “Everyone’s Gay in Space,” After Dinner Conversation 3, no. 12 (December 2022): 109-131 — Subscribe here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
(Note: After Dinner Conversation pairs spec fic stories with philosophical reflection questions. In some reviews, I’ll engage with the questions; in some, I won’t.)
I found this story to be a rather blunt take on the central moral issues involved — childbirth, abortion, disease, eugenics. I also found it to be full of judgement, unhappy relationships, and homophobia. The overall lack of nuance made the whole story feel very heavy-handed, and didactic, and that made it not particularly enjoyable to read. No one likes to feel that they are being moralized at.
There was also not nearly as much space gayness (gaiety?) as I expected, given the title of the story.
Review of Mikhaela Woodward, “Attach,” Luna Station Quarterly 64 (December 2025): 209-224 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
This was one of those marvellous stories where at every single point, I have no idea where it was going to go. It’s so rare to get a story like this, it leaves me almost breathless.
Review of Summer Jewel Keown, “The Weather Girl,” Luna Station Quarterly 64 (December 2025): 261-273 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
It’s a bit weird reading a romance when you know from pretty much the first line that it doesn’t have a happy ending, but nevertheless I enjoyed the unfolding of this one, waiting to see just how the unhappy ending would come about. Unfortunately, in the end, it was for boring, mundane, ordinary reasons, which kind of defeated any more fantastic/speculative elements that the story had, for me.
SFF Reviews