Quick Sips - Fireside Magazine #80

Art by Shaina Lu

The latest issue of Fireside Magazine is all out now, featuring five new short stories and once again harmonizing the ebook releases of the issues with the content put out for free on the website (yay!). The works range in genre, but are linked by a kind of mood that marries some more whimsical or perceived innocent things, and complicating them and giving them an added weight. The love for a pet, a family business through the eyes of a child, a date to a new restaurant, a virtual environment with a mind of its own, and even instructions for building a fantasy creature—on their surface, the stories seem to promise a lot of fun. And it’s not that they aren’t fun, but these aren’t exactly beach reads, taking those premises and crafting some wrenching and challenging experiences that interrogate safety, magic, and family. To the reviews!

Quick Collections - The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper

[So a little housekeeping first, and a bit of an introduction. It’s been a while since I’ve looked at a collection or anthology here at QSR, mostly because of how I review for the blog (each story individually and substantively). It’s just so much work to do that for a collection of works that appears in book format on top of the other reviewing work that I do. I used to do these kinds of reviews, then, at Nerds of a Feather or The Book Smugglers, but I have had absolutely no energy to reach out to try and rekindle those ties, and so for ease I’ve decided to just make a new series her at Quick Sip Reviews that will focus specifically on collections and anthologies that I can get to. I won’t be breaking the books down into individual reviews, but instead looking at them as a whole with maybe some additional notes on works I really connceted with. These will be slightly different than my Regular Sip reviews, which look at singular longer works. But I’ve been reading a lot of collections lately, and I want a space to think too much about them!]

So my first introduction to Cinrak came in the form of “The Wild Ride of the Untamed Stars” (which appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies #252). And okay, a queer capybara pirate was a bit strange to run into, even at a SFF publication, but I was also almost immediately charmed. Anthropomorphic animals speak to the part of my heart that is a secret furry and I loved the adventure, the movement, the sense of a larger world and story. And here, finally, I get to find more of it. Not all of it, mind. The collection is not a linear novel but a mosaic one that checks in with Cinrak throughout her career, giving enough of the big events to capture a sense of scale and scope and continuity, but leaving enough unsaid that there’s still very much a sense that the myth and legend of Cinrak stretches much much farther, covering adventures that we’re only left hoping are covered in another collection some day.

Art by Dian Huynh

Quick Sips - Lackington's #19 [Voyages]

Art by Carrion House

May brings a new Voyages-themed issue of Lackington’s, with six original short stories to take you away from the comforts of your chair and transport you to different worlds and different times. The stories are all about movement, about the itch to travel and see new places. That might be another country or another planet. It might be a moon or just a little further down the track. But these are stories that revel in the journey and the joy and the meaning to be found through voyaging. They reveal worlds strange and familiar, haunting and affirming, and before I gush too much I should get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - GigaNotoSaurus April 2019

After a short hiatus GigaNotoSaurus returns with a bloody novelette for April. With the shift in editorial staff, the publication is off to a strong start, definitely taking some chances in terms of content and tone. This is a story about anger and hunger and how those things are suppressed, how they are hurt out of people. Taught to be feared, to be hated, to be reviled. But how they persist all the same, in the face of abuse and destruction, and how they are powerful enough to topple governments and bring about lasting Change. So without further delay, to the review!

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #252

Competition can bring out the worst in people, but as this issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies proves, it can also bring out the best. Both stories this issue are about races, and magical ones at that, featuring women who find themselves squaring off against their lovers (former or current) for the chance to win a great prize. In both stories, though, the actual prize might not matter as much as the competition itself, as the thrill of the race. Because when these characters are faced with what they’d do if they won, the results are...interesting. It’s a wonderfully fun pair of stories, expertly paired, and I’ll stop yammering on in introduction and just get to the reviews!

Art by Jereme Peabody

Quick Sips - Clarkesworld #139

It’s a phenomenal April of fiction at Clarkesworld Magazine, with four short stories and a translated novelette to bite into. And these are evocative, emotional stories that look at connections and cooperation. That look at people helping people in many different ways. To comfort one another. To protect one another. But also to push one another to do better. To reach a fuller potential. To push toward a better future where we aren’t defined by hate and loss and sorrow. The stories are at times tinged by grief and tragedy, but they shine with a lovely strength, and a flowing sweep of language and ideas. It’s just a fantastically strong issue, and I’ll get to those reviews!

Art by Arthur Haas

X Marks the Story - March 2018

The latest X Marks the Story is live at The Book Smugglers!

Here's the list!

“The Emotionless, In Love”, Jason Sanford (published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies #246, March 2018)

“The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington”, Phenderson Djèlí Clark (published at Fireside Magazine, February 2018)

“Five Tangibles and One”, D.A. Xiaolin Spires (published at Terraform SF, February 2018)

“Traces of Us”, Vanessa Fogg (published at GigaNotoSaurus, March 2018)

“Of Warps and Wefts”, Innocent Chizaram Ilo (published at Strange Horizons, March 2018)

“From the Womb of the Land, Our Bones Entwined”, AJ Fitzwater (published in Pacific Monsters, Fox Spirit Books, November 2017)

Plus there's more X-plorations to be found. Cheers!

---

Quick Sips - Glittership February 2018

Glittership is back after a short delay with new 2018 content! Woo! First up is an original story, a reprint, and a poem, all of which are gloriously queer. The fiction is set in the "real" world with a heavy emphasis on death and with people generally occupying space bordering both the living and the dead. Especially for queer people who are in a state of constant danger, it's a precarious space, but it can also be a powerful one that allows them to face the larger world and its mysteries more directly. These are rather wrenching pieces, and the the poetry doesn't let up, looking at shapeshifting and portrayal and it's just wonderful work all around that I should get to reviewing!

Quick Sips - GigaNotoSaurus February 2018

Perhaps appropriate for the month, GigaNotoSaurus brings a rather romantic piece for its February release. Or, at least, a story very interested in love and trust, hope and freedom. It’s a story that features two very different characters finding a common language, a common purpose, and staying true to each other in order to do something they couldn’t do alone. It’s a touching and beautiful piece, for all that it’s dominated by the weight of captivity and the desire for release. But before I spoil everything, let’s get to the review!

Quick Sips - Shimmer #31 (June Stuff)

The science fiction issue continues at Shimmer with two more stories this month that examine place and care and struggle. Both stories, as promised in the issue's editorial, make fine use of language to build their worlds, their voices. The stories blood onto the page with strangeness and with yearning and both make use of characters facing the end of something. The end of the world, the end of a single life. There are moments of profound change and resistance and I'm just going to get to those reviews! 

Art by Sandro Castelli

Quick Sips - Capricious #1

I'm looking at Capricious today, a brand spanking new New Zealand-centered magazine. Why? I will be honest and say because September has been a very slow month and because I saw the link on Twitter from someone whose story I wanted to read. Shallow, perhaps, but the publication looks like an interesting one, and pays at least a cent a word, and it's not incredibly long. Four stories is just about right for me, and so all of these things conspired to get me to review the issue. Will I pick up the next one? Probably that depends on how full that month is, but I will say that I did enjoy these stories. There is a definite sense that genres are being traversed, mixed, and subverted. Most of the stories blend science fiction and fantasy elements, and I'm quite a fan of those kinds of stories. And really, the stories accomplish their blends in unique ways, none of them really the same or even similar except in their ambition and skill.

I'm not one who goes into a publication hoping for some strict adherence to a theme. Color me the wrong kind of SFF reader, but I like to be surprised and I like to be challenged. Like the alien in the third story, sometimes what we go looking for isn't what we need to learn. And I think that this issue does a good job of justifying its place in the field. It does a nice job of presenting stories that are fresh and unique, that weave genres and themes in interesting ways. So yeah, I should really get to the reviews...

Art by Anastasia (Mircha) Astasheva