Quick Sips - Shimmer #43 [June stuff]

Relationships move to the foreground for the June stories from Shimmer Magazine. Whether just beginning, in the case of a certain skeleton detective and the guy she meets in the forest (not as creepy as it sounds, tbh). Or at the possible beginning of the end, as in the case of a woman dealing with a partner trying to “fix” something that isn’t really broken. In both situations, one of the people involved has something that sets them apart and that makes them vulnerable because of how people might see them. And in both, the characters make steps toward seeing themselves as not broken, as worthy of decency and respect. And before I give too much away, to the reviews!

Art by Sandro Castelli

Quick Sips - Fireside Fiction #39

I had almost given up on seeing a January release from Fireside Fiction, but lo and behold on the last day of January we have three short stories, two of them flash length, that explore the boundaries of Otherness. All three, in their own ways, look at how people relate to each other. How labels are powerful. Monsters and gods, good and bad, black and white. And each story complicates nicely these concepts, breaking down binary thinking to show just how complicated the supposed dichotomies are. Looking at power and prejudice, the stories don't flinch from getting really fucking dark, but that also gives them a deep strength and lasting impact. These are stories that use voice to great effect, as well, letting the various characters speak and letting their words guide understanding and conflict. It's a great issue and it's time to review it!

Art by Galen Dara

Quick Sips - Fantastic Stories of the Imagination #237

Dear readers, prepare your comfiest of sweaters and get ready for a good cry, because this issue of Fantastic Stories of the Imagination really knows how to play with emotions. It's an effective one-two punch of heart breaking and heart warming and you should just know that going in because fuck, yeah, emotionally raw would be a good way to describe things at the moment. These are stories about loving someone and then losing them. In two very, very different ways. They are harrowing and they are inspiring and they have left me a bit wrung out. So yeah, without further warnings, to the reviews! 

Quick Sips - Flash Fiction Online November 2016

With the latest issue of Flash Fiction Online the publication continues its trend of recent months of focusing on the relationship between mothers and daughters. All three stories orbit this central relationship and the many forms it can take. And there is an additional focus in these stories of distance. The distance between a mother and a child. And the stories approach that very differently. These are very complex pieces, and ones that strike me as a definitely-not-objective reader. At their best the stories are brilliant examinations of scale and hope, difference and distance. So yeah, time to review! 

Art by Dario Bijelac

Quick Sips - Apex #87

August has arrive and with it the approach of autumn, which means at Apex Magazine it's a month for stories about death, beauty, and the vastness of space. There's three fiction pieces and four poems in this issue and a solid theme of complicity, murder, freedom, and dissolution. These are stories that examine the morality of killing and the morality of letting others kill. The burden of living chained and the desire for freedom. The small ways that beauty grows and flourishes even in the darkness. It's an issue full of blood and hope, and I'm just going to get to those reviews! 

Art by Marcela Bolivar

Quick Sips - Mothership Zeta #3

The editorials in this issue of Mothership Zeta swirl around the idea of fun. And the stories of the issue do a fine job of illustrating the many ways that fun can work. A fun that is funny and a fun that is fast and action-packed and a fun that is clever and witty and a fun that is earnest and uplifting. The stories move well, from light to darker to transcendent, each piece well selected and placed in the larger flow of the issue. And all told each story made me smile at something, a clever line or a funny situation or a breath of hope, and if fun was the goal, then I'd say the issue is a success. To the reviews! 

Art by Elizabeth Leggett

Quick Sips - Apex #75

Breaking a bit from the light July, the August Apex Magazine is rather full, having four original short stories and four poems. That's...quite a lot to get through, but the good news is that the issue is filled with great talent and great stories, fine pieces that capture a sinking darkness with a pinprick of light to be found, to be grasped like a brass ring, to be used to pierce the darkness and emerge from the other side. The stories are about identity, about pain and difference, and about finding a way to find comfort in that difference. It's a fine issue, and I'm going to review it...now!

Art by Billy Norrby

Quick Sips - Fantastic Stories of the Imagination April 2015

Another month's Fantastic Stories of the Imagination is what I'm looking at today. Two stories, are is usual, and these two once again rather strongly thematically linked. Both are science fiction stories, though the second has some definite fantasy elements. Both deal with leaving Earth behind, deal with raising children, deal with loss, deal with generations. They're both rather sad, but there is a hope to them as well, a indomitable will to them that gives them an optimistic feel. But you don't have to take my word for it; to the reviews!

Stories:

"All That We Carry, All That We Hold" by Damien Agelica Walters (2095 words)

A rather touching and tragic story with a hopeful end, this one focuses on a woman as she grows up around giant ships that ferry humans to the stars. At first, as a young girl, the ships are monsters and she fears them. Slowly her perception changes, but the ships never really become something she likes. They are vessels that take away those she cares about. Her first love. Her husband. It's only with her daughter that the ships become something different, because to her daughter the ships are wonderful, are full of possibilities and freedom from the sorrow and trouble of Earth. And when that daughter gets cancer and dies, the ships become the one thing that the mother clings to in order to keep going. To her they are still monsters, but she also sees them in the reflection of her daughter's eyes. As freedom. As escape. And so she goes out on a ship to a distant planet in order to begin something there. And to end something, as she takes her daughter's ashes and spreads them on the wind. As I said, a bit of a tragic story, but the focus is on the healing, on the possibility and freedom that space brings. So while the story might be a bit of a downer (few stories featuring childhood cancer are light), it's still got a nugget of hope and yearning that makes the story a solid read.

"Molten Heart" by Alexis A. Hunter (725 words)

In this story a sort of golem, created of clay, helps to raise a young girl to her thirteenth year. A mix of fantasy and science fiction, the golem is magic but the story takes place on a terraformed world. The golem is made to help raise a child, but is made imperfect in hopes that the child won't bond with it too closely. It lakes eyes and a mouth. Lacks a voice. But still the golem loves the child, and child loves it. This is another story about loss and about generations, but this one is a bit different, showing that when the child grows up and has a child of her own, that the golem is revived. So that it's not really gone, just dormant, and that it can still love and share its love across the generations. It's still a bit of a sad story, because the golem can never stay, because there is that limit of thirteen years even if everyone wants it to be longer. But at the same time, there is progress, and this time the golem is given a voice. And maybe, the implication seems to be, there will be a time when it can stay. At the very least, it's continued presence from generation to generation means that it's never really dead, that its love keeps it going, and that it can share it always. A very short story, this one, but with a nice sad loveliness to it that made it impact just right.

Quick Sips - Shimmer #23 (February Stuff)

Back to Shimmer to check out the second half of the bi-monthly publication's twenty-third issue. Two stories, both with the style that makes Shimmer so fun to read. So let's begin!

Stories:

"Be Not Unequally Yoked" by Alexis A.  Hunter (6627 words)

The tale of an young Amish horse-shifter trying to figure out a way to be, this story made me stop and step back a moment. Because there's a lot going on. Joash is part man, part mare. That his horse-self is female is an interesting thing, and one that kind of plays into the idea that he has a feminine side that he's not exactly allowed to express, one that is powerful and freeing but that he is deeply ashamed of. And part of that, though not all of it I hope, plays into the fact that he is gay (or at least bi and more attracted now to other men). And, being Amish, that's another thing that isn't allowed, that he has to sort of make his choice on. And while at first he wants only to sacrifice himself for his family, to bury the part of him that doesn't fit, he also knows that it's not something he can really control. The metaphor works and I like that he's inspired to try to find a place to belong, and that the story doesn't take some of the easier routes. But Joash's yearning and hunger feels very real, very potent, and makes this quite a emotional story, Joash being pulled by his family, by his religion and culture to bury that part of himself, but not being able to. It's not an incredibly happy story, in part because Joash is not well equipped to strike out on his own, and while the ending might be him deciding to try, it's hard not to imagine him meeting some misfortune on the way. Like with many young men leaving home because of who they are, the path is not an easy one. But as the story doesn't go there, it's a great piece that hits hard.

"Monsters in Space" by Angela Ambroz (4905 words)

I'm going to say that the best thing about this story is the amazing voice of the main character. Louise is irreverent and brash and all sorts of hyper and a product of the times when people are driven to embrace multitasking and not thinking about things too much and buying all the things. It's a fun main character because she's going about a mile a minute and just can't be bothered about most things. It's a fun story, too, taking place on the moon Titan and dealing mostly with economics and workers' rights. And wait, that sounds much more boring than this story is. It's fun and free and just goes and keeps going in that same fun tone throughout. Even when things hit the fan and everything blows up in Louise's face (quite literally). Through it all she maintains her forward momentum, not really concerned about where she's going as that she going. It's a fast-paced, humorous story that made me smile, and for that I quite enjoyed it.

Quick Sips - Flash Fiction Online February 2015

The beginning of the month is always packed full of issues coming out, but I believe that Flash Fiction Online is one of the few to come out on the first itself, regardless of where that days falls. Which means it's one of my first stops each month. This month, as usual, there are three stories. So let's get started...

Stories:

"Dreamtime" by Phillis A. Duncan (504 words)

A rather surreal story swirling around the life of an aboriginal Australian who dreams in music and stars. Very short, it paints a moving picture of walkabouts and dreamtime and what they might mean to the man experiencing them. And, more than that, the story links this walkabout to the ultimate sort of walkabout, eventually traversing the cosmos and reforming, somehow bringing with the spirit and the music that brings the narrator away from civilization and into the unknown. It's a lyrical story, and one that seems largely concerned with the yearning impulse to belong somewhere, to find comfort in otherness. I'm not sure I entirely "get" it, but it sounds nice and it does seem to have a strong message of getting out and letting some things go unexplained and unmeasured. To keep the magic and possibility in things. A fun read.

"Duplicate" by Crystal Lynn Hilbert (963 words)

A cute and rather wry story about a mad scientist whose unwitting creation, the duplicate of a woman, turns out to be more perfect than he thought. Caught in the middle of a trial over what she is, over what kind of life she counts as, the duplicate plays dumb and innocent and allows the world to think that the scientist failed when he created her. But in reality something else happened, and the new woman seems to truly be a duplicate. Or something approaching it. And together with the original the pair live something like a happily ever after. I'm not entirely sure about the implications at the end, except that there are some nice lines and a sense of the mad scientist getting what he deserved. It doesn't say too much about the original's or the duplicate's role in everything though. Was this what they had planned all along? It doesn't seem that way, given what they say to each other, but I was a little curious to see what differences between the versions existed. As it is, it's a nice story that leaves itself open to interpretation.

"Gold Dress, No Eyes" by Alexis A. Hunter (816 words)

The most haunting of the stories, this one is more a scene and the lingering memories of the collected violence. A woman, a musician, is dead, murdered on a cruise through space by an enemy attack. Her eyes have been removed. But more than that is the story of her life, love, and loss. The artifacts from her tragic love of a female soldier who was killed in battle, who was supposed to be along for this trip, for this vacation. Emotional and gut-punchy, this story lingers on all the small details that make the emotions real, the way the items are worn and personal. There is so much detail that the story fills itself in, and the reader is left with the wounds, with the signs of loss and the feeling of violence. There's an awful lot to like about the story, from the care given to each image to the graceful brutality of its execution. Strong work.