Quick Sips - Mermaids Monthly Bonus Issue

Art by Nilah Magruder

Following a successful Kickstarter, there’s a new source of aquatic speculative fiction in town—Mermaids Monthly! Edited by Julia Rios, the publication is officially launching in the new year, with a one year planned run. To whet our appetites before then, though, there’s a special bonus issue that has gone out to supporters already but which I am super honored to announce is available to everyone to read for free right now! The issue includes two reprint stories (one of which appears both in the original Spanish and translated into English and which I've reviewed previously), two original poems, a short graphic story, and a bunch of wonderful illustrations and small announcements about the publication. As I reserve the right to review reprints, I decided to exercise that to cover the story I haven’t already reviewed on QSR before. And already the publication shows great promise and a wonderful range. The bonus is available in three formats (the art looking best in the pdf) that are free to download, and I definitely encourage you to check it out. In the mean time, I’ll get right to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #124

Art by Grandeduc / Adobe Stock Image

The September Lightspeed Magazine brings out three short stories and one novelette, many of them tinged with a level of meta-commentary, whether through an author literally self-inserting into the text or through a fictional author confronting themselves through a series of revision notes. There’s a blurring of form, of reality and fantasy (or science fiction), and the result is a selection of stories that provoke and challenge. That aren’t always a joy to read, but that question narrative structure, time, and do a lot of interesting things. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Uncanny #32 [February stuff]

Art by Nilah Magruder

Two short stories, one novelette, and two poems round out the February offerings from Uncanny Magazine. And in each of the stories there is a strange encounter. A meeting that will end up having some large implications. A magical creature meets a small boy. A woman meets a younger version of herself. A youth tries to convert a vampire to Christianity. From there, each story takes it’s own road, though all of them are into shadow, and loss, and death. It’s something of a grim issue, for all that the works come in what is generally thought of as a romantic month. And there’s just a lot to see and experience, so I’ll get right to my reviews!

Quick Sips - Uncanny #27 [March stuff]

Art by Christopher Jones

Three short stories and two poems usher Uncanny Magazine’s March offerings in with style, revolution, and heartbreak. The pieces move around survivors. Not people who have outlasted others, but those who are surviving their own personal hells and oppressions, their own personal griefs and losses. They are survivors by necessity, their worlds condensing in a squeeze of despair that makes everything seem impossible. And yet at the same time, these stories work to show people helping people. Showing main characters able to move to more active resistance and freedom because they are not alone, because they have the support they need to make their stories about more than just enduring the hardships they face, but rather excelling in the face of them to find healing and hope for the future. So yeah, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #262 [part 2/2]

I think this is it for this year’s anniversary shenanigans from Beneath Ceaseless Skies, with another two novelettes that explore corruption and tragedy, friendship and betrayal. And really, I think the pair do a great job of examining where friendships can fracture and break apart. They show the great pressure that comes from people growing and living and trying to pursue their dreams amid cruelty and corruption and violence. Tyranny and war. They show two pairs of women who begin the closest of friends, so hopeful of what the future will bring, and then follows the trajectory down into despair, into hurt, into betrayal. It’s a difficult issue, but very much worth grappling with. To the reviews!

Art by Mats Minnhagen

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #250 (part 1)

It's celebration time at Beneath Ceaseless Skies, as the publication turns 250 issues old! As such, there's a special double issue with twice the stories, twice the audio recordings, and brand new art. In honor of that, and because of some end-of-the-month timing issues, I'm going to breaking my review of the issue into two parts, because the issue is releasing part in April, part in May (at least, for free—the whole issue is available to purchase and available in its entirety to subscribers). The first two stories have a lot to do with men and women to me. With the narrative patterns that define how people interact. And how men's entitlement often ends up poisoning everything it touches. How they see themselves as victims even when they're the ones doing the most harm. How they always seem to run, to turn away from the opportunity to face their past and do better. To the reviews!

Art by Jereme Peabody

Quick Sips - Glittership Summer 2017 part 1

The Summer 2017 issue of Glittership is out, and it is full of gloriously queer stories and poetry! And wouldn’t you know it, a certain intrepid reviewer might have a poem in this issue as well! I won’t, of course, be reviewing “becoming, ca. 2000,” but I wouldn’t mind if you all checked it out anyway. What remains I’m breaking up into two reviews, today looking at the first half of the issue’s content. Which would mean two original stories, two reprint stories, and a poem...except that my poem is first up, so I’m skipping that. And the first of the reprints, by Bogi Takács, I have already reviewed when it appeared in the inaugural issue of Capricious SF. What remains is a trio of stories that are dense and moody, that revolve around hurt and grief and fear. They are not, as a rule, happy stories, and some of them might have reduced me to a small collection of salty tears, but they are all deep and heavy and incredibly crafted. So yeah, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Nightmare #57

June has arrived at Nightmare Magazine and with it a pair of SFF horror stories featuring predators. These stories show just how different predators can be, one of them a woman shunned and isolated and hunting for a way to break out from her loneliness; the other the story of a man driven by his entitlement and desire to abuse. In both stories women are the ones targeted, women who are made into the objects of obsession and torment. The stories take two very different approaches toward a similar theme of manipulation, gaslighting, and abuse, and both are creepy as hell. June might be about the approach of summer with its long days and short nights, but it’s also about lengthening shadows and the rot that can hide in plain sight. To the reviews!

Art by agsandrew / Adobe Stock Art

Quick Sips - Mithila Review #8

As always, there’s a lot to see in the latest issue of Mithila Review, which seeks to look a bit at visual arts. For original fiction, there’s one flash, one short story, and one novelette, and there are nine different poems, not to mention a reprint and a load of nonfiction that I will leave you to discover on your own. What’s here, though, and what I’m looking at in my review, does an amazing job of showing people coming into contact with the unknown. Shows people who assume based on the narratives they have been told about the nature of the world. And who find that they can’t accept those narratives. That only by challenging the stories that other people tell about the world can its nature truly be revealed. The poems expand on this as well and everything works together wonderfully to create an issue that is cohesive and sharp. But I guess I should just get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #214

This issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies focuses in many ways on movement and transformations. On knowledge and ignorance. And, above all, on respect. Both stories feature women who have to navigate worlds that are not open to them. In one, the sexual aggression of men that is societally upheld becomes net that can only be slipped through by transforming into something safer. In the other, the stalking force is colonialism as well as misogyny. And in both the main conflict, and their ultimate salvation, arises from refusing to sacrifice themselves, refusing to give in to the societal pressures pushing them toward victimization and death. It's a very strong pair of stories that I should get to reviewing! 

Art by Jinxu Du

Quick Sips - Mothership Zeta #1

Amid some more somber news of publications closing, there are still some rays of sunshine, and Mothership Zeta is certainly one. Coming in as an ezine, the Mothership is the home for fun. Mostly, at least. The stories do have a flare of the fun, voices that roll from the tongue, a wry sense of humor and healthy amount of sarcasm. But stuck in here too are stories that slow things down. That break the humor in favor of topics that are much more serious. The issue manages to balance itself quite well, starting and ending with flash and moving between those two points from humor to sweet to dark and back again. There's also nonfiction and a reprint to enjoy that I will not be talking about here, but below are reviews of all eight of the original fiction stories. Here we go!

Art by Frank Wu

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #184

The second issue of the month from Beneath Ceaseless Skies is (much) shorter than the first, but still manages to pack in a lot to think about. These are some challenging stories, both addressing (among other things) the way societies stifle women, and how women struggle against the constraints that grow to imprison them. Some dream of the sky, and some dream of alien worlds. For many, though, the stories are fraught with loss and tragedy, as these two stories show so well. To the reviews!

Art by Feliks Grzesiczek

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #176

I will admit that I had completely forgotten about Beneath Ceaseless Skies until I was putting together my spreadsheet and realized that I hadn't read a second installment this month. Shame on me. Of course, I remembered and that's why I'm back looking at these two stories. The fiction is actually a little on the short side this issue, neither story topping five thousand words, which is a rarity. Still, though short the stories are quite good, and provide some interesting themes to examine. Both are dark, both deal with some morally questionable Queens, and both are nice reads. Also, with this story Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam jumps to the fore as most reviewed writer of 2015 (so far) with five reviews. So there's that, too. Anyway, to the reviews!

Art by Julie Dillon

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #61 QUEERS DESTROY SCIENCE FICTION (part 2: the full-length Fiction!)

Okay, so apparently I miscounted when I originally said how many original fiction pieces were in Lightspeed Magazine's Queers Destroy Science Fiction. I had said there were ten stories. There are eleven. Eleven stories that are all worth checking out. I mean, wow. There is so much good fiction here. From stories dealing with the end of the world and cataclysmic war to seemingly smaller (or at least a bit more personally important) moments dealing with online harassment and the loss of a parent, the stories range wide and far. Characters are richly diverse, stories at turns funny and uplifting and heartbreaking and tragic. There is so much to like. So let's get to it!

Art by Elizabeth Leggett

Quick Sips - Farrago's Wainscot #14

Today I'm reviewing the latest issue of the revived Farrago's Wainscot, which has its second issue of new life this month. The first issue was certainly strange and this issue continues with the idea of the literary weird. This issue benefits from having stories with a bit more structure to them, though, a bit more of a standard narrative. Not that the bizarre structures that the stories in the last issue were bad, but that I found this batch of stories to be a bit easier to understand and get meaning from. Which made them more satisfying. The poetry is quite good again, with some long pieces mixed in with the shorter ones. All in all, four stories and four poems and a quite satisfying experience. To the reviews!
 

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #56

Today I'm looking at Lightspeed #56. Four new stories, two of them science fiction and two of them fantasy. The science fiction are both near-future (nearly present, in fact), and the fantasies range from contemporary fantasy to sci-fantasy. An interesting mix. So onward!

Art by Zelda Devon

Stories:

"Headwater LLC" by Sequoia Nagamatsu (3431 words)

This was my favorite story in the issue. About a woman, Yoko, who inadvertently betrayed her friend, Masa, a Kappa, so that now he and all the Kappa are held prisoner and exploited for their delicious and drug-like head water. There's something just very human in it all, in the way that Yoko wishes to do soemthing but can't bring herself to. She can feel bad about it, and can wish for change, can fantasize about doing something, but in the end the most she does to fight is to feel bad. It really is a great way of looking how people in a privileged class can think that they should do something for people who are being oppressed and exploited, but when it comes time to actually do something they balk, they fantasize, they make it about their own pain. The story does a great job of exploring the pain but also the failure of Yoko to help her friend.

"He Came From a Place of Openness and Truth" by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam (5882 words)

This story conflicted me by far the most out of any in this issue. About a boy who falls in love with an alien who at first is only using him for his genetic material but then falls in love with him. On the one hand, it has a homosexual relationship that is intense and shown without shame and that is great. I generally like the main character even as he's trying to deny that being with a man makes him gay. Which, hey, he could be bi, so it's not a terrible thing to think. He still likes looking at porn with women in it. But then, there are some serious issues I had with the relationship, not least of which is that there doesn't seem to be much consent. The main character is much, much younger than the alien who he falls in love with. And there's just the feeling that this might be coercive, because the alien doesn't begin as seeing the main character as valuing choice. It's...well, I'm conflicted. The idea that love can conquer all is a good message, and especially in a queer narrative, but I was very uncomfortable with what the story implied. Very. Not because the M/M stuff. I write M/M erotica and when I do, like with all erotica, I think there's a fine line that must be walked. And I'm not sure I felt this completely succeeded for me. It's kind of like vampires. Really old vampire who just looks the same as an actual young person doesn't really set up an even level of power in the relationship, and while the alien here is sure to ask for consent, it still seemed a little...well, sketchy to me. Maybe on purpose. And again, I liked some elements of the story. They just didn't come together for me.

"Men of Unborrowed Vision" by Jeremiah Tolbert (7127 words)

On the surface I think this story has a lot to say. About activists who have to face an attack that threatens the very collaborative and collective cohesion of humanity, it's about overcoming the barriers that corporate capitalism places between mutual beneficial cooperation. The characters are well done and the plot moves along nicely as long as you ignore the fact that the attack makes almost no sense. It even mentions this, because this attack on collectivity, which comes in the form of a virus that makes people anti-social, is a collaborative effort. Moreover, it's coming from corporate executives. Who depend on collectivity to exploit in order to make money. Perhaps if the movement posed enough of a threat to corporate interests I could see this, but in the story it's not put forth that the activists are really "winning." People are still super rich. So I just don't get how someone could be so crazy to actually pull off this attack. I like the message. It does seem at times that corporations want to see people alone and easy to prey on, but they want herds, not loners. It's a nice humans coming together story, but not one that I could completely believe.

"Archon" by Matthew Hughes (5508 words)

Another chapter in the Kaslo Chronicles, of which I have read the last few but not all of them. Basically science is replaced by magic as the guiding force of the universe and Kaslo joins forces with a mage, Obron, to do what he can to survive and...I'm not precisely sure. Part of not having read the whole thing is that the motivation for the characters is a little hazy to me. They're reacting to being attacked and trying to counter some threat from an unknown enemy. It reads fairly entertainingly but this installment is a little dull. Lots of talking heads and not much action. Even when a demon shows up it's dispatched with ease and it just seemed much more a housekeeping part of the story. People need to meet, pieces need to be moved around the board, but nothing all that new or interesting happens. I still thought it was a fine story, just not one of the most interesting in the ongoing narrative.

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #164

Wow, Beneath Ceaseless Skies #164 is a short one for the publication. At least, the things I'm looking at here aren't all that much. I'm not looking at the novel excerpt, which would have made this more typical in length to other BCS issues. Not that I'm complaining. With everything out there to read, sometimes having a short issue is a good thing. So here we go!

Stories:

"Everything Beneath You" by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam (4697 words)

A story primarily concerned with gender and choice and I have to say that I like it though it does seem mostly a way to make a point rather than a way to tell a story. But then, that's not always a bad thing. I like that the main character is a woman who wants to be a woman but free of the expectations of being a woman. I like that she refuses the easy answer of becoming a man, and that she brings a confusion and a complexity to gender that some people see as needless. Because the more complex solution is often the right one. So what if there's some confusion at first. People are supposed to be equal to it, are supposed to be able to deal with it. Things are not supposed to be easy, simple. It's kind of unfortunate that she has to give up on her life with her love. I'm not a huge fan of that. Seems to me like she wouldn't give up just because she's told it's impossible. Maybe I'm wrong. But I want to see her get it all. Being told that you can't have everything isn't quite what I want to hear. Because she's right, there is no reason why she can't. It's an arbitrary concession forced on her because she's not the one with power, because the person with power is male and thinks things should be simple. I want to see her succeed in more than just story. But this story is still good, with a solid flow and an epic, mythological feel to it. Good stuff to think about.

"The Metamorphoses of Narcissus" by Tamara Vardomskaya (3231 words)

A story about transformations, as a dancer is transformed first into art, and then into something more. Around her, a nation is transformed from peace to war and back, but different. At first obsessed with an edgy artist, the main character gets swept away by the war and becomes a nurse, falls in love and marries an injured man, and then has to face the life she might have had if the war had not erupted. Somehow, in all the sadness of the story, I felt that it was hopeful, that it was saying that people are, ultimately, more than art, that art is aspiring to show something but isn't really something that can make up for life. It's interesting, and rather melancholic, looking at the lessons that war teaches, how is stripes away artifice and narcissism and how for the main character it teaches her what to value, gives her some perspective. An interesting story, and definitely worth checking out.