Quick Sips - Terraform November 2019

I wasn't actually sure if there would be a release from Vice's Terraform this month, as their publishing schedule has gone rather erratic of late. But they did indeed drop a story toward the end of the month, and it's certainly on brand for near future science fiction that walks a rather dark edge. The piece looks at the future of medicine, not just in the ways that things like nanobots might be used to keep people healthy and prevent illness and damage, but also in the way that technology will effect legislation and the law. The piece is framed inside a courtroom, where the question put the court is where religious objections to medical technology meet criminal actions up to and including murder. To the review!

Quick Sips - Terraform March 2019

There's a lot going on at Motherboard's Terraform this month, with not only the three short stories I'm covering, but a reprint and an excerpt that you could check out as well. The original fiction covers a number of rather bleak futures ruled by corporate greed and government overreach. Not, mind you, over-regulation, but rather looks at how governments can be tools of oppression, punishing those already suffering from intense pressure and a general hopelessness about the future. It shows how people can be funneled down paths that are supposed to keep them "safe" and "happy" without ever really getting there and without ever being satisfied or content with the actual work they do. The stories show how these harsh futures push people into isolation, and how people seek to reach back out in any way they can. It's not a light bunch of stories, but they're definitely worth grappling with. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Terraform August 2018

Motherboard's Terraform seems to be going through a new transformation of sorts. Not in its schedule or really even in the themes and genres it publishes, but rather in the length of works it focuses on. For a little while now, the bulk of the work it's been publishing has been ranging less into the flash fiction length and more solidly into short stories. Which means a bit of extra space to explore the futures these authors imagine—which can be both a good and a not-so-good thing, given how dark and gritty a lot of those future are. This month five short stories reveal futures full of slavery and corruption, drugs and borders. They star characters trying to heal the fissures they've opened up in their lives, or falling headlong into them. So yeah, let's get to the reviews!