Infrequent SF Microreviews

On the Effects and Efficiency of Birdsong: A Meta-Analysis, by F.T. Berner in Diabolical Plots. A sharp and incisive look at human impacts on the environment in the name of power and progress. Loved the ending.
www.diabolicalplots.com/dp-fiction-1...

Abstraction Is When I Design Giant Death Creatures and Attraction Is When I Do It for You by Claire Jia-Wen Clarkesworld Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine and Podcast.

Abstraction Is When I Design Giant Death Creatures and Attraction Is When I Do It For a you, by Claire Jia-Wen in Clarkesworld. I'm not gonna lie, I expected something light and funny with that title, and instead it ripped my heart out. Outstanding.
clarkesworldmagazine.com/jia-wen_09_25/

Silence, in the Doorway, with the Gun The titular character of the thirteenth-century Le Roman de Silence is born female, at a time when women cannot inherit. To avoid disinheriting his child, Silence’s father raises him as a son. Pers…

Silence, in the Doorway, with the Gun, by Nadia Radovich in Flash Fiction Online. Nature and nurture, lady knights and redos. Fun, sharp, and sad until it isn't.
www.flashfictiononline.com/article/sile...

Beneath Ceaseless Skies - The Nature of Spells, the Nature of Children by Aimee Ogden "Go mind your sisters and your brother," Jeanne-Marie tells her. The girl would have had a decent life, before the curse damned them all to this mortal Hell. A roof over her head, enough food to eat—m...

The Nature of Spells, the Nature of Children, by Aimee Ogden in Beneath Ceaseless Skies. A fascinating, fresh, and ruthless take on Beauty and the Beast. Absolutely stunning.
www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-...

Five Hundred Defects - Small Wonders You’ll hunt me down, of course. Humans will play it for laughs: “Inspection robot goes haywire, starts inspecting everything!”

Five Hundred Defects, by Michael Zahniser in Small Wonders. A lovely and fierce story about a QA robot on the lam. Has a lot to say about purpose and care and sentience.
smallwondersmag.com/piece/five-h...

Home is Where the Heart Rests, by Chidera Anikpe First, there was Ànyasi; the darkness; an endless void of nothingness. And then there was Àghará; Chaos; atoms spontaneously bursting into being; an existence with no progenitor. And then there was…

Home is Where the Heart Rests, by Chidera Anikpe in Translunar Travelers Lounge. I'm not sure I have the vocabulary to describe it, but it's beautiful and tender and wrenching. An excellent read.
translunartravelerslounge.com/2025/08/15/h...

Gifted and Talented - Small Wonders Being beyond time is a revolution against creation most bodies aren’t built to bear. It’ll kill you, that dark matter time.

Gifted and Talented, by Marika Bailey in Small Wonders. A wonderfully creative take on neuroatypicality and understanding with beautiful prose and some verses.
smallwondersmag.com/piece/gifted...

The Last Wills and Testaments of Captain Kolhe, by Abhijeet Sathe The first man to summon me is Whitney, my boatswain on the Dharini. This is how I learn that Virat didn’t cremate me. My body still lies on the white sand of our cove, rotting in the turquoise wate…

The Last Wills and Teatamenta of Captain Kolhe, by Abhijeet Sathe in Translunar Travelers Lounge. A privateer captain is summoned over and over again. Lovely, understated but powerful, and impeccably constructed.
translunartravelerslounge.com/2025/08/15/t...

The Significance Cofactor Your children love you. They cry as you leave with promises of souvenirs. You need to catch your flight. Ah, but their runny faces as you get in the car—I do not look.  You’re raising them well. The g...

The Significance Cofactor, by H.H. Pak in khōréō. I don't want to give too much away, but this is extremely good.
www.khoreomag.com/fiction/the-...

Real Housewives of the Intergalactic, by HJ Ramsay The spacecraft crashed when I was taking my six-year-old son to what had to be the most chaotic soccer organization north of Sacramento.

Real Housewives of the Intergalactic, by HJ Ramsay in Translunar Travelers Lounge. A soccer mom inadvertently ends up providing childcare to an alien whole keeping it secret from the government. Very fun and very touching!
translunartravelerslounge.com/2025/08/15/r...

Yarn as Warm as Dragon’s Breath, by Amanda Saville After surviving yet another day of feigning pleasantness for clients and coworkers, the small, pink, pearlescent dragon sitting on Lily’s doorstep felt like one more damn problem.

Yarn as Warm as Dragon's Breath, by Amanda Saville in Translunar Travelers Lounge. A sweet portrait of grief and a dragon, with knitting and a dragon and sisterhood and a dragon and did I mention the dragon, which I love?
translunartravelerslounge.com/2025/08/15/y...

Beneath Ceaseless Skies - The Forgotten by Trae Hawkins And though you are aware of your mind’s steady emptying, you recognize that you have come this far, to this land so cold and unforgiving, to support a life you detest. You recognize that, like the For...

The Forgotten, by Trae Hawkins in Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Sometimes I wonder if amnesia can be effectly deployed in short fiction, because it works best, to me, when in conversation with what is forgotten. So basically this story nailed it.
www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-...

Deliverance, by Elena Sichrovsky My grandma used to say “every terrible thing will fade when that blessed day comes, my dear.” Now that it’s finally happening my only comfort is that she isn’t around to be disappointed.

Deliverance, by Elena Sichrovsky in Translunar Travelers Lounge. Heaven comes to Earth and everyone bears the consequences. Intriguing worldbuilding and I love where it ends.
translunartravelerslounge.com/2025/08/15/d...

But Depart Into The Wild Mountains — Baffling Magazine by Caro Jansen “Another house, another husband opening the door.”

But Depart Into the Wild Mountains, by Caro Jansen in Baffling Magazine. A different take on extermination and The Metamorphosis. A delight, full of details to make things feel lived-in.
www.bafflingmag.com/issue-twenty...

Libra Season — Baffling Magazine by Gillian Knox “We’ve always traveled in packs. Us fair ones.”

Libra Season by Gillian Knox in Baffling Magazine. The one where it's always really hard to figure out what to do tonight. Understated but nails the landing.
www.bafflingmag.com/issue-twenty...

Best Face Forward — Baffling Magazine by Nigel Faustino “This face is all wrong, and Althea has barely set it flat before she begins the agony of cutting it right back off.”

Best Face Forward, by Nigel Faustino in Baffling Magazine. An excellent materialization of a familiar feeling, along with just a tinge of body horror.
www.bafflingmag.com/issue-twenty...

a woman holding a cupcake with the words good for her above her Alt: Gif from Arrested Development of a woman holding a cupcake and saying "Good for her."

Also:

Things You Learn As A Werewolf (That Will Come In Handy Later) — Baffling Magazine by Morgan Wilson “ 1. How to do your own first aid, because hospital isn’t an option, even outside of full moons. “

Things You Learn As A Werewolf (That Will Come In Handy Later), by Morgan Wilson in Baffling Magazine. Is there a term for this hybrid epistolary-narrative format? It's one of my favorite things, and Wilson pulls it off effortlessly, knowing exactly what to say and what to leave unsaid.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies - Woman Like Stone Like Water by Malda Marlys The stranger turned at the noise she was making and stared at her rather rudely. (Did plains people not train their children properly?) He didn’t quite seem able to stand, but he scooted away from her...

Woman Like Stone Like Water, by Malda Marlys in Beneath Ceaseless Skies. So deftly told that I didn't even register the lack of dialogue until most of the way through. I don't think I've ever read anything quite like this.
www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/woma...

This account is finally living up to its name, huh? Oh well. Vacation's over, back to reading!

Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy - Reactor Perihelion and its crew embark on a dangerous new mission at a corporate-controlled station in the throes of a hostile takeover… Novelette | 7,540 words They were still three hours out when Perihelion...

Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy, by Martha Wells in Reactor. I mean...Murderbot! And this is so good, the way it neatly fills in some gaps while shedding more light on things, particularly Iris and ART's relationship.
reactormag.com/rapport-mart...

Missing Helen by Tia Tashiro Clarkesworld Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine and Podcast.

Missing Helen, by Tia Tashiro in Clarkesworld. The complexities of cloning and relationships. Deft as a scalpel.
clarkesworldmagazine.com/tashiro_07_25/

The Lord of Mars - Lightspeed Magazine The grow pods clung to a red, humped ridge about a twenty-minute hike west from the habitats. Inside one of their plastic domes, a farmer named Oliver Judd nestled potato starts in the ground with nim...

The Lord of Mars, by Meghan McCarron in Lightspeed. Absolutely perfect. The planetary anthem for Mars should be Solidarity Forever.
www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-...

Recitations I came down to the disaster zone in a bubble-skiff, launched from a Responder-class galaxyship in high orbit. It skips and bumps on the turbulence. There are six of us, each wearing the flat white …

Recitations, by Jacob Braugher in Flash Fiction Online. I love when speculative fiction literalizes a metaphor, and this kind of does that with "thoughts and prayers" while also delivering a scathing critique of thoughts and prayers. Worth the read.
www.flashfictiononline.com/article/reci...

Cypress Teeth They send you down into the swamps of Atchafalaya to die with nothing between your teeth but contract ink and shame. There’s a lot of misery to sow across the continent, after all, and no room for a r...

Cypress Teeth, by Natasha King in khōréō. An exhortation to a devil that might have been and may yet be. Absolutely gorgeous and evocative prose, strong voice, and definitely worth a read.
www.khoreomag.com/fiction/cypr...

What Else, What Else, in the Joyous City? - Lightspeed Magazine In Salemo, virtually the entire populace is kept in drudgery and toil. There are no public parks, nor libraries, nor song, nor wine, nor holidays. People slave away in seventy-two -hour workweeks, sus...

What Else, What Else, in the Joyous City?, by Sadoeuphemist in Lightspeed. Variations on Omelas. Man, I love a good Omelas story, and this one really digs into it.
www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/what...

Please Properly Cage Your Words, by Beth Goder in Diabolical Plots. Metafiction with some horror vibes, excellent progressive cracking and breaking of the fourth wall.
www.diabolicalplots.com/dp-fiction-1...

All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt - Lightspeed Magazine It had been a long day of convention. All I wanted was a quiet drink in the hotel bar and quality time in my room with a romance novel. The utter cad from Planetary Industries was an unanticipated bub...

All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt, by Marissa Lingen in Lightspeed. A delightfully funny story set at a gift shop manager convention on a space station.
www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/all-...

A Recipe for the Day Alban Kills the King — Orion's Belt Start by chopping the onions.

A Recipe for the Day Alban Kills the King, by M.R. Robinson in Orion's Belt. Absolutely lovely and full of feeling. I love the structure/conceit, even if it made me hungry.
www.orions-belt.net/archives/a-r...

When the Reaper Arrives, Do Not Mourn for Her, by Sophia-Maria Nicolopoulos in Penumbric Mag. Lovely and heart wrenching story about palliative care and love.
www.penumbric.com/currentissue...