Quick Sips - Fireside Magazine #59

The four stories from Fireside Magazine this month deal with violation and consent, with connections and deceit and fate. There’s a good mix of fun and serious, fantasy and science fiction. There are alien sharks and magic curses, spirits trying to reach out and friends trying to keep each other safe. It’s hard to pin down a possible unifying theme, but I think they all come together in how they reveal the societal pressures at work that try and leave people open to harm. That try to keep people from banding together, from helping each other. And how individuals can push back against that, though often don’t, or often still fall against the pressure to conform, to accept the values and taboos and corruptions of the way things are. So let’s get to the reviews!

Art by Michelle Wong

Quick Sips - Omenana #9

It’s a new issue of Omenana! The first of 2017, it boasts six original stories that show stunning and often horrifying visions of SFF. These are pieces that largely lean toward speculative horror, toward the way that people can hurt each other and deceive each other and prey upon each other. The ways that humans can be made into vessels for their own destruction. The way that people seem to circle abuse and injustice like courting a mate. It’s not an entirely bleak issue, though many of the pieces are quite grim. There’s also a sense of hope to some of the pieces, that maybe we can find a better way, that maybe we can fly instead of impacting on the rocks of destruction. And before I give any more away here, let’s just dive into the reviews!

Art by Sunny Efemena