September keeps right on rolling at Strange Horizons, and between the latest two issues there is a short story and two poems to look at. The stories evoke darkness and myth, and the places in the world where magic seems able to slip through. The deep woods. The moments of tragedy that break the world a bit. But as much as there is violence and sorrow and grief and loss, there are moments of healing as well, and compassion and empathy, that might be able to knit back together the torn fabric of reality, while maintaining a bit of that magic. To the reviews!
It’s a full two weeks from Strange Horizons and Samovar, which released a new issue full of translated SFF. With three stories and two poems to look at, the overall feeling this week is, once again, strange. Especially with Samovar, I feel like there is a wonderful vagueness to some of the work, a touch of surrealism that makes the pieces pop. They are works that are first viewed through the lens of translation, but further than that they are also pieces that don’t seek to explain themselves, offering up rather literary takes on genre while still definitely retaining a strong speculative weirdness. Plus the pieces from the regular Strange Horizons week mix history, the unknown, and some deep feelings of grief and despair. This is not a light offering of short SFF, but the publications really hit hard with their variety and complexity. To the reviews!
