Quick Sips - Lackington's #22

Art by Kat Weaver

The latest issue of Lackington’s is out now and the theme for the issue is Archives. Now, like all themes at Lackington’s, things are often straightforward. Yes, some of the stories feature literal archives and collections. Museums and academic centers. Tomes and texts and all the things you might expect to find on dusty shelves preserved in time. But there are archives here that go beyond those, that jump out of the neglected shelves. Archives of people, of languages both living and dead, of refuges from hungry gods, of whole worlds and people finding ways to catalog and preserve themselves through time and space. The works are often deep and heavy, touched by poetry and more than a bit of tragedy. But there is hope to be found as well, and occasionally a spot of fun. The works cover an array of genres and styles, framing devices and voices, and they themselves represent an archive. An archive of archives, in a meta turn as only this publication can give. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Escape Pod #754-756

Three original stories make for a pretty full month this October at Escape Pod. The works as always interrogate and celebrate science fiction. Here, there are post-disaster dystopias and far off-world military adventures (and horrors). The pieces examine empathy and cruelty amidst corruption, slavery, and colonization. To the backdrop of exploitation, betrayal, and genocide. These are not overwhelmingly happy stories. The characters are caught in places they cannot easily or perhaps ever escape from. But that doesn’t mean they can’t find ways to reach out in kindness, understanding, and love—doesn’t mean they can’t try to find those things for themselves, either. So let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Flash Fiction Online July 2019

The editorial in July’s Flash Fiction Online says that the stories of the issue are linked by their focus on choices, and I agree with that. These are stories where the characters are faced with a decision of how to react to a situation. Of how to move forward in a place where their options are not infinite, and in many ways where their options are not even very good. They are being limited by loss, by the malice of others, and by systemic corruptions. And it leads the characters in very different, and interesting directions that speak to how people hold to hope when their worlds seem to be pushing them into impossible choices. To the reviews!