Quick Sips 12/31/2021

The slowdown continues, though at this point it’s much more about the holidays than about my other deadline, which has now passed. There’s good news associated with it, too, but I’m waiting on word on when I can actually share it. Until then, more reviews! I’m doing my best to hang in there and not fall too far behind, but there’s a bit of a mountain of works to get through this month and this is already the last post that will land in 2021. Still, I did get through Nightmare, The Dark, and GigaNotoSaurus for monthly content, and the quarterly Future Science Fiction Digest, as well as some weekly/biweekly issues from Beneath Ceaseless Skies and Strange Horizons. Lots more to do yet, but I think I can I think I can I think I can.

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sip Reviews 2021 Recommended Reading List

Greetings and welcome to the Quick Sip Reviews 2021 Recommended Reading List! The purpose of this is fairly straightforward--to share with everyone the stories that I enjoyed most from my coverage of 2021 SFF short fiction. To make things as easy as possible, I've included links where possible to where to read or purchase the stories either individually or as part of a larger issue. If I've made an error of any sort in the author name, title, or publication details, please feel free to reach out to correct me. Thanks!

The works this year come from all over the short SFF realms, 100 total from 40 different publications and 98 different authors. Only two authors, Jen Brown and Marika Bailey, appear on the list more than once (each has two stories), and Strange Horizons leads the pack of publications, placing seven stories on the list. Two novellas appear, as well as thirteen novelettes, 78 short stories, and seven flash fiction works. So yeah, far and away more short stories than anything else, but that also makes sense given what I read, where the vast majority is short stories (I covered 1157 short stories, 112 novelettes, and 19 novellas). And randomly, this year saw more letters of the alphabet represented but missed authors with last names beginning with E, Q, and U (though one of the translators of one of the stories did have a surname beginning with U). 

If you want to find my thoughts on these stories, you can do a search in the browser version of the site for the author and title and it should bring you to the appropriate post. Or you can head over and become a patron, as all of these works were featured in my third year of Sip of the Week, my weekly recommendation posts sent directly to patrons of all levels.

2021 Year-In-Review

Hi and welcome to the post where I kinda sorta close out 2021 and welcome 2022. I say kinda sorta because I’m a little behind on the actually closing out 2021 bit, so I’ll still likely be posting review posts from December for a few weeks yet. But I have some preliminary stats on what I’ve been up to this year, some thoughts about it all, and some plans for the next year. So while I might still be wrapping up 2021 for a little while, I can say at least that I got through another calendar year, the seventh for Quick Sip Reviews. And the last for now that will see the site dedicated to just reviews. But more on that in a bit. First, the last year.

Quick Sips 12/24/2021

For those keeping score, yes, I’m still on my slowdown. And, given the next two weeks will have holidays and etc, it might continue to be slow for a while. But I’m still going. And I even have an early holiday present, because I’m covering Baffling Magazine a little bit early! Adding to that is my looks at the December Lightspeed and Fantasy, which means that numbers-wise I’m about where I have been recently. More than that, I’m starting to tick off more magazines that I’ve been covering forever that I won’t be covering in the same way anymore. Which makes me a little sad, even as it’s extremely necessary. Anyway, onward!

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 12/17/2021

The slowdown continues, but I’m still working as hard as I can to catch up on 2021 content. This week I think I finish up what I had missed from November, covering last month’s Mermaid’s Monthly, Tor, and Escape Artists releases (Pseudopod and Cast of Wonders, specifically, as Escape Pod and PodCastle were entirely reprints). I also got through the latest from Lackington’s, so I did manage to get to a little bit of December content. And it’s all rather great stuff. The deadline for the secret thing I’m working on is almost upon me, too, so we’ll see what I can get to next week, but I’ll keep on trying!

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 12/10/2021

People might have noticed that I’m slowing down as I near the end of the year. Which is very true. It’s unfortunate and something I was hoping to avoid, but mostly it’s also a very good sign. Not in that I’m giving myself more time to process or anything like that. The opposite, in fact! I’m actually very hard at work on something that I can’t announce yet, but that I am very hopeful will be a thing I can talk about and squee about with you all soon. It’s just put a lot on my plate that’s just a bit…unfortunate for making it through 2021 stories in a timely manner. But worry not! I will indeed be getting that all done. This week I’m catching up on November’s Fusion Fragment and a special issue from Strange Horizons, and getting to December’s Hexagon. Not the hugest of weeks, but if only you knew what all I was getting through otherwise. The suspense!

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 12/03/2021

So I was hoping to get to more than this, but time makes fools of us all. Plus, I just might be trying to swing something super secret at the moment and it’s eating a lot of my time. That said, though, it’s not like I didn’t get to anything. There’s two weeks of Strange Horizons, an issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, an anniversary issue of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, November’s Flash Fiction Online and GigaNotoSaurus, and the latest from khōréō magazine. Plus I’m trowing in a review of a Neon Hemlock novella that I was fortunate enough to get the chance to blurb. All told, quite a few works covered!

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!