Quick Sips - Nightmare #94

Art by Chainat / Fotolio

The stories in the July Nightmare Magazine showcase very different kinds of horror. In one, a woman on the run reaches out to a ghost, the two linked by the ways they’ve been targeted, by the violence that they must share space with, that threatens to anchor them forever to one place. In the other, a group of friends deal with a strange and much more…arbitrary horror. The horror of erasure at the hands of a faceless, disembodied malevolence. One that runs on a kind of religious intolerance whose rules are mysterious and veiled but whose results are no less profound for it. The works explore people trying and not always succeeding at escaping the horror that’s chasing them, and before I give too much away, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 06/29/2020

Art by Sam Guay

So it’s been a very busy month at Strange Horizons. Not only was there already a special Fund Drive issue, but another special issue on top of it. This one focuses on Chosen Family, and features two new stories and three new poems, on top of a slew of nonfiction that I’m not covering here but that’s very worth checking out. The works explore the idea of chosen families quite well, showing where the bonds of biological families can fracture and fall apart, where they can be toxic and abrasive, and showing that even with family, consent is vital, choice paramount. The works find characters who have been hurt, who have been caged, and who don’t want to live that way any more, choosing for themselves who they spend their lives with, who they make their families with. To the reviews!

THE SIPPY AWARDS 2019! The "I'm Sleeping with the Lights On" Sippy for Excellent Horror in Short SFF

Day 2 of the 2019 Sippy Awards takes something of an abrupt turn from relationships to look at stories that I felt excelled at something a bit...creepier. Now, some people try to separate SFF and horror, treating them as two entirely different things. But like peanut butter and chocolate, I often feel like the two do so well together. And there's no denying the horror elements of some SFF stories, and no taking out the SFF elements from some horror stories. So call them what you will, but today I'm celebrating the...

“I’m Sleeping with the Lights On” Sippy Award 

for Excellent Horror in Short SFF

For me, horror is all about fear, about feeling. And there's no denying that in 2019 there was plenty of that to go around. But even as fear is often used as a tool to divide, to instill hate and bigotry, to inspire violence, I feel it can also be a tool to unite, to build empathy, and to inspire hope. Often horror is a genre where uncomfortable and disturbing themes and content come out to play. The inclusion of those elements confronts readers with things that they often might feel like ignoring. And through those confrontations, some readers must face the weight of the real-world horrors going on all around them, made personal and poignant in the fictional spaces these works open up. From toxic relationships to cosmic insignificance, the works range in their focus, but all tread carefully and powerfully amidst pain, predation, and abuse.

Probably coming as no surprise, the stories here came from two of the biggest SFF horror publications around, The Dark and Nightmare magazines. Not that other publications don't also do horror well, but these two had some incredibly strong years, and the stories here represent by favorites, full of creep and cringe, dread and unease. They also, though, aren't afraid to be funny, and don't hesitate use a bit of gallows humor to get their points across. They are turns beautiful and repulsive, sensual and terrifying. So let's give out these awards!

Quick Sips - The Dark #55

Art by Miranda Adria

The Dark is closing out 2019 with two stories that treat with horror in very different ways. In one, a young woman deals with social isolation and trauma while trying to both solve a mystery and navigate a very fragile space within her family. In the other, an artist deals with a much more physical isolation as he finds himself in a remote house where his inspiration has taken a rather sinister turn. In both, though, the characters are up against supernatural threats alongside emotional and mental ones. The baggage they carry is a weight on them, and they've effectively been thrown into the deep end with it. Can they shed it, or build it into something they can use to steer a course to safer waters, or will they be dragged down to the depths by it? To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Nightmare #85

Art by Elena Schweitzer / Adobe Stock Image

The stories in October’s Nightmare Magazine a quite different, though both are definitely horrifying in their own way. In one, a woman deals with being the final girl, the one left to the end of the massacres. The one who has survived twice but is now considered cursed, and has to figure out where to go from there. The other story looks a different kind of random horror, though not the kind that stalks or targets its victims specifically. This one lies in wait for a person to pass along and open themselves unknowingly to…something. It’s an interesting one-two punch, and I’ll get right to the reviews!

THE SIPPY AWARDS 2017! The "I'm Sleeping with the Lights On" Sippy for Excellent Horror in Short SFF

Welcome back to the 2017 Sippy Awards! For those just tuning in, the Sippys are the coveted awards no one knows about, celebrating short SFF across five categories grouped by theme. Last week I revealed my favorite relationships in short SFF, and this week I’m going in a much darker, direction. So make sure your night light is working, tell yourself that noise you hear is probably just the cats, and get ready for...

The “I’m Sleeping with the Lights On” Sippy Award 

for Excellent Horror in Short SFF

Now horror to me has to do a lot with feeling. About fear, particularly. And stories, especially SFF stories, can approach fear in many different ways. They can get us to look at the mundane differently by treating with teh supernatural. They can remind us of the terror of the unknown, and the unknowable. They can present us with a situation and setting where the rules as we know them don’t apply. Where anything might happen. 2017 was, perhaps aptly, a great year for SFF horror. The world has done a thorough job of showing us all just what a dark and forbidding place it can be, and a bit of that can be seen reflected in the horrors crafted in these tales. But for most of them the stories don’t stop at the revelation of horror. They keep going, reaching past that horror and to a place where ghosts are put to rest, hungers are fed, and we can all live in a better place. So please join me is celebrating this year’s winners!

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 11/20/2017 & 11/27/2017

It's another two weeks of content from Strange Horizons, featuring a stunning horror novelette and two poems that explore art, voice, and freedom. The pieces weave together quite well, crafting narratives and experiences that deal very strongly with pain, expression, and community. They feature characters often dealing with the disconnect between rich inner lives and an external world that doesn't allow them to be at peace, where abuse is rampant and where true freedom can seem impossible. Instead they focus on the ways they can at least partially escape their oppressions, ways that they can still look for beauty and release and relief. These are some wonderful explorations of SFF and possibility, and I'm going to jump right into reviewing them!

Art by Tihomir Tikulin

Quick Sips - The Dark #22

The two stories from The Dark Magazine's March issue offer up some blood and gore, yes, but also something a bit deeper than that. To me at least, the stories examine the power and limitations of belief, especially to create a world bent to an ideology. For society at large, how we frame our world has very real consequences, can trap people in tropes and stereotypes, can push us to blame victims for the violence done to them. Believe can create a break from reality, a place that is stuck in the cycles of rot and decay, violence and erasure. These stories take very different approaches to the core idea of belief, but both seek to shatter the hold that conviction in harmful ideals can create. These are some nicely visceral stories, and I'm going to jump right into my reviews!

Art by breakermaximus

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #79

Hey, it's one of my favorite moments this month at Lightspeed—I have made less work for myself by actually selling a story, so instead of the full slate of four pieces I'm only looking at those not written by me. It's not exactly a happy issue. The pieces all deal with a stifling darkness. With an oppressive violence and threat. With a situation that is bad and might just get worse, except for the power of people choosing to change. Or, at least, to change their actions. To change the story. To shift it away from being about war, about corruption, and about victimization. These stories all offer uncomfortable and striking looks into love and hate and the sea in between the two. So yeah, time to review! 

Art by Lovely Creatures Studio

Quick Sips - Mothership Zeta #2

The second issue of Mothership Zeta has landed and once again it proves to be a well balanced and mostly-enjoyable mix of genres with an eye on fun. Humor is a very difficult thing, at times, and fun perhaps just as elusive and varied from person-to-person. What Mothership Zeta proves itself capable of, though, is providing a wide range of options arranged in a way that flows nicely from piece to piece. The issue doesn't really bog down, and there's a momentum behind it that makes it difficult to put down once its been started. And this issue also shows how genres can be bent, broken, stitched back together, and reanimated to some great results, the stories excelling at not being limited to anything other than "fun." So yeah, time to get to those reviews!

Art by Elizabeth Leggett

THE SIPPY AWARDS - The "I'd Ship That" Sippy for Excellent Relationships in Short SFF

The Sippy Awards are upon us! Know ye excellent short fiction and despair...er, wait, no...rejoice! Yes, that's the ticket. Rejoice, for the hour of the award that no one asked for has come. I mentioned a while ago that I'd be running these, and here is the first. The format will be the same for each award. There will be five total awards, and five stories will be featured, with one "Big Sip" and four regular-sized Sippy Awards. First up is--

The "I'd Ship That" Sippy 

for Excellent Relationships in Short SFF

That's right, it's all about relationships today. I'm a sucker for a good love story, but not all of the stories below are happily-ever-afters. Indeed, a good relationship is one that's messy, that's complex. That's alive. These are stories with relationships at their hearts, and that do a damn fine job of showing people trying to find in each other a great many things: forgiveness, escape, redemption, acceptance. And these are the stories that I picked out as containing my favorite relationships.

Quick Sips - The Book Smugglers December 2015

So December sees the third and final installment of the Spindle City Mysteries from The Book Smugglers (for now, at least) and manages to bring to a satisfying conclusion a series that I have absolutely loved. With all three-part stories, there is some question as to how things are going to go. Will the story bring the characters through the storm of pain and problems that have been plaguing them throughout, or will there be a more tragic end in store for Jimmy and the gang? With a whole lot of happily ever after baggage to unpack, this series continues to impress, and I will just get to reviewing it already!

Art by Melanie Cook

Quick Sips - The Book Smugglers November 2015

This month The Books Smugglers offer up a double-helping of fairy tales mixed with noir mysteries. And the stories are delightful! I'm not incredibly into noir stories most of the time because they tend to be rather full of some...not-that-great tropes and cliches, but these stories subvert in the best of ways while providing fast action and excellent world-building. 

Art by Melanie Cook

 

Quick Links - 11/22/2015

Oh Glob I'm behind on this. Bad me! Post more! Anyway, I have had a few reviews up in the last month. They are linked below.

The League of Unexceptional Children by Gitty Daneshvari (Kidsreads) - A kind of cute story that plays on the spy kids tropes, but here the kids' greatest asset is being invisible. Which introduces some problems into the mix.

The League of Unexceptional Children by Gitty Daneshvari (Goodreads, my score 3/5) - And here is my personal review of the book.

Scarlett: A Star on the Run by Jon Buller and Susan Schade (Kidsreads) - This book is weird and I didn't know the authors did Ten Thousand Baseball Cards Under the Sea, which I think was the first book I ever read completely on my own. This one involves genetically modified pets.

Scarlett: A Star on the Run by Jon Buller and Susan Schade (Goodreads, my score 3/5) - I will reiterate that this book was weird. Like, rather mundane except for the genetic experimenting and dumpsters full of dead cats and dogs. 

The Entropy of Bones by Ayize Jama-Everett (Nerds of a Feather, my score 7/10) - This was a solid action book with some big concepts that probably would have worked a bit better having read the first two books in the series. Still, a fine read.

The Entropy of Bones by Ayize Jama-Everett (Goodreads, my score 4/5) - And here again. I swear, this is my last double. I loved the voice of this book, and the violence, and the weird characters. It reads like a Kung Fu movie.

Pluto Vol. 7 by Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki (Goodreads, my score 4/5) - Finally I got back to this series after having gotten the final volumes some time ago. And though it doesn't offer up too many surprises at this point, the plot is tight enough that it doesn't need to. It's a very good series, and the push to the end is something to see.

Pluto Vol. 8 by Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki (Goodreads, my score 4/5) - Things get a little transparent in this final volume, with some of the metaphors becoming...well, a bit obvious and a little simpler. But mostly this volume is about kicking ass and learning how to be human instead of wanting to lord over humans. It's about war and forgiveness and love. I really enjoyed the series as a whole.

Un Lun Dun by China Miéville (Goodreads, my score 4/5) - My first Miéville and one that's a bit middlegrade but as I read a lot of that it works. I loved the idea of the UnChosen One, and the UnGun, and all of it. The characters were great and the story line compelling. A lot of fun, this one.

Eden: It's an Endless World Vol. 10 by Hiroki Endo (Goodreads, my score 4/5) - This series continues to be rather conflicting to me. On the one hand, it's still exploring doing good in a fallen world. And the bits with the Closure Virus transforming into the Disclosure Virus are promising. But it is an ugly read at times and I do not like how most of the women are around basically for violence to happen to them. It's making a point, but still... 

The Case of the Little Bloody Slipper by Carlie St. George (Nerds of a Feather, my score 8/10) - And finally a review of a novelette that was a lot of fun. Not sure if I'll do these longer reviews for all three stories in the series but otherwise the reviews will be on this site direct soon enough. Indeed.

And there you have it. Obviously a lot of these books here graphic in nature (manga or graphic novels), which means it's nearing the end of the year and I'm picking up things I think I can clear out of my TBR stack quickly. There's some novels in there, though, and there will be more. Hopefully I'll manage to post another link post before the end of the year. Otherwise, thanks for reading!

Quick Sips - Unlikely Story #11.5 - The Journal of Unlikely Coulrophobia

This month's Unlikely Story is the disturbingly named Journal of Unlikely Coulrophobia (fear of clowns). It is...interesting. When I first heard about the project I was assuming there were going to be some strange stories, and this mini-issue does not disappoint. Collected are five clown stories that run the gamut from creepy to rather heartwarming. Also, for fans of the issue, Unlikely Story is running a Kickstarter for a whole collection of clown stories. So check that out. First, though, let's send in the clowns!

Art by Linda Saboe