Review of Nicole Lynn, “Entropy in a Fruit Bowl,” Flash Fiction Online 140 (May 2025): 11-14 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Death of a parent, physical violence.
Apparently the trick to learning necromancy is: Start small. But love that only existed asymmetrically can never be resurrected once it is dead — these are the two lessons of this short, exceedingly sad, story.
(First published in The Arcanist October 2022.)
Review of Avra Margariti, “Robot, Changeling, Ghost,” Flash Fiction Online 140 (May 2025): 7-10 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Death of a child; child abuse.
I’m always excited when I see an Avra Margariti byline, as I know I’m in for something satisfying and probably unusual. This story is particularly dark, bordering on horror, full of hurt and loss and longing. It’s also disconcerting enough that I’d like to say: Read with care.
Review of M. J. Pettit, “The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Teleporter,” Flash Fiction Online 139 (April 2025): 25-28 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
I wanted to love this story — great title, a lot of humor, intriguing premise, a captivating hook at the beginning — but unfortunately, I just couldn’t quite. The combination of the 2nd person POV plus story-telling that presupposes I (as the “you” character in the story) know far more about what’s going on than I (as the reader!) actually do made it feel like I as a reader was being kept at arm’s length, making it hard for me to properly engage with the story.
Review of Selphie Ke, “Akane is Dead,” Flash Fiction Online 139 (April 2025): 21-24 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Pregnancy, death, femicide.
“The standard lie of the prostitute is ‘I love you’. The standard lie of the client is ‘I will marry you.’” It was a lesson writ on the hearts of every
Yoshiwara courtesan (p. 22).
This was a powerful story of sisterhood and vengeance, set in a setting I was almost entirely unfamiliar with, so I enjoyed my regular pauses to look up various words and references to learn more.
Review of David Hammond, “The Thing About the Castle,” Flash Fiction Online 139 (April 2025): 16-19 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Oh, gosh, this was a beautiful and touching story. You think it’s going to be about Zack, the narrator, who builds Lego castles and makes up stories about them, but it turns out to really be a story about his mother, and father, and about love, and about loss. So many feelings stuffed into so short a story!
Review of Louise Hughes, “Practical Knitters,” Flash Fiction Online 139 (April 2025): 8-10 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Anyone who has ever worked with yarn knows there’s more than a bit of magic in the craft. Hughes’s story is a warm fairy tale premised on making this point explicit. (But now I want the companion story about theoretical knitters — the ones who write the patterns that the practical knitters then knit!)
Review of Andrew Kozma, “You Have Been Murdered,” Flash Fiction Online 139 (April 2025): 29-31 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Murder (obvs), violence/blood.
I’m not normally a fan of 2nd-person stories, but this one really drew me in — not because it’s a story of how I was murdered, but because it’s a story about masking, about all the things people — whether murdered or maybe just merely neurodivergent — do to mask, to fit in (“you have been covering wonderfully”!). There was something about this story that felt like it was speaking directly to me; maybe that’s why, for once, the 2nd-person voice felt right. What a powerful story, one I’m unlikely to forget for a long time.
(First published in DIAGRAM Fall 2010.)
Review of Saul Lemerond, “Janet and I Try to Get Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tarts at the Gilbert Rd Super Target. It’s the One in Scottsdale. No, the Other One. The One on Gilbert,” Flash Fiction Online 139 (April 2025): 12-15 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
When I skimmed the table of contents of this issue of FFO, I knew immediately I had to read this story first. The title alone is practically a story in itself!
And I wasn’t disappointed: This was a perfectly packaged little gem, making me smile and laugh the whole way through, right up until the sucker punch ending. Relationships, whether natural or supernatural, are never easy, and often heart-breaking.
(First published in Electric Spec 16, no. 3, August 2021).
Review of Kimberly Crow, “The Chaperone,” Flash Fiction Online 138 (March 2025): 22-23 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content note: Infertility.
FFO occasionally serves up a story that has no speculative element, which is what this one is. It is nevertheless a thoughtful, poignant story that gets right at the heart of what it is like to long for a child you may never have.
(First published in WOW! Women On Writing, May 2024.)
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).
SFF Reviews