This is certainly an eclectic month for Motherboard's Terraform, with stories that show the great range possible even within the narrow range that the publication aims for. From bizarre stories of dogs and the defense of Earth to more tender stories of identity and relationships in the digital age, the stories reveal different aspects of humanity. Humanity the confused. Humanity the hopeful. Humanity the resourceful. Humanity the doomed. It's a great mix of views about where the future might take us, focusing on things that seem huge and making them achingly personal. It's a fine bunch of tales that I will review now!
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!
Fuck this is a huge issue of Apex Magazine. And I know, I know, that's the whole point, because this is the publication hitting eighty issues! It's also the reward issue for the subscription drive from late 2015, which means there is...a lot of fiction and poetry. Six pieces of original fiction and seven original poems make this the largest I've read this month, and it's not like the stories are all that short, with no flash and one story tipping the scales at 14k. So yes, it's big. But is it good? Yes. So much yes. Two stories by Ursula Verson bookend the fiction, circling around age and friendship and changing roles, and the gooey center features stories about inequality and difference and the unseen that exists all around us, about worlds within worlds, about danger and otherness and it's dark and effective and yes, very good. The poetry mixes science and love, loss and grief. All in all, it's a hell of an issue, a giant thank you to fans of the publication, and I'm going to review it, okay?
2016 is officially here, and my first review of an actual issue is, of course, Flash Fiction Online. Why? Well, firstly because the publication is always out on time, the first day of the month, and because it's just the right length for kicking off the new month and the new year. Three flash fiction stories, all razor-sharp and punchy and complex, the issue continues to provide high quality (very) short stories month after month. This issue is all about starting over, which is fitting for the new year. The stories all circle around the idea, either of going back to try life again or else leaving behind an old life to start a new one or else having to keep going after a loss. The stories show how people handle the idea of endings and beginnings, and there's a lot to like in them. So let's start the first reviews of 2016!
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| Art by Dario Bijelac |
