Quick Sips - Tor dot com February 2020

Art by Eli Minaya

I keep on expecting Tor to decrease their short fiction offerings after a very busy January, but the hits just keep on coming with three new short stories and a novelette. The themes and the genres vary rather widely, from historical fairy tale to far future and far flung science fiction to a weird piece about a weird manuscript...and aliens. The works take on some wonderful settings and some fascinating characters, all while dealing with themes of loss and relationships. And there's plenty of fun and action to balance out the heavier emotional beats, so it's really a strong month of fiction. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Tor dot com May 2019

Art by Gregory Manchess

Well what started as a large month at Tor.com sort of tapered off quickly, with only one short story and one novelette in May. Both works are linked by being part of larger series, though, the first one of the Mongolian Wizard cycle starring Ritter and Freki, the other one a new work in the Wild Cards universe. Both do interesting things with the settings and characters, featuring people on missions that…aren’t quite what they seem. If that means a journalist who ends up uncovering a story he wasn’t prepared for or a detective solving a crime that never happened, the pieces are all about the unexpected. My role in all of this isn’t, though, so as usual, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #105

Art by Grandfailure / Fotolia

The February issue of Lightspeed Magazine runs a little long with two novelettes and two short stories that look at confinement in a lot of different ways. That look at freedom and what happens when people’s freedoms are taken away, by an outside force, by nature, or by fate. Each piece finds people struggling with systems that limit them. That might mean man-made systems of criminal justice, or social convention, or something a bit more divine, like fate or death itself. The stories show how characters either try and fight back against these systems (where they are corrupt) or learn how to accept or embrace them (where they are just). It’s an interesting bunch of stories with a slower, more ponderous feel to the issue, and I’ll get right to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Nightmare #75

Art by Chainat / Fotolia

The stories in Nightmare’s final issue of 2018 is focused very tightly on violation. On women who are targets and who have been hurt. Who have been put into a situation where they don’t really have many choices left. They can fight or they can submit, and often that choice is rather loaded because there’s so rarely an expectation of victory. And loss can be so terrible. But the stories both take on this idea in very different ways, one of them featuring a woman fighting against the pressures to give in and the other…not doing that. Which makes for two stories that could almost not be any more different, but that provide an interesting contrast. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #100 [part 1 - science fiction]

Lightspeed Magazine has reached issue #100 and is celebrating with an issue stuffed to the gills with short fiction. And, well, because ten stories (many of them novelettes) would be a bit much to fit in a single review, I’ve decided to split the offerings up into two posts. The first will cover the science fiction (that’s this one) and the second (tomorrow’s) will cover the fantasy. Not that there isn’t a bit of a fantasy touch to some of the science fiction on display, with a few stories playing with history and at least one with a strangeness that could almost be magic. These stories are about how humans interact with the universe, though. How we make stories, how we form communities, how we accept and exclude from those groups. It’s an issue that really does get at some big ideas but never loses sight of the character who anchor the narratives. So yeah, there’s a lot to get to, so let’s tackle these reviews!

Art by Galen Dara

Quick Sips - Tor dot com February 2018

February brought something of a return to Tor dot com, which has been going through a rather sporadic publishing schedule since November. Three novelettes and a long short story makes for a lot of words of fiction to get to, and the pieces move from post-disaster SF to horror to SF-Horror to contemporary fantasy. The stories carry with them a lot of darkness, too, from a world where doctors are struggling to stay neutral in the face of a change in everything to a war with an unknown enemy from the sea. All of the stories stay rooted on Earth in these pieces, but that doesn't mean that they lack for weird and imaginative takes on what Earth can look like and contain. So yeah, let's jump right into the reviews!

Art by Jon Foster

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #223

The stories in this issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies both have an almost video game appeal to me. In one, the conventions of gaming and fantasy are definitely in full swing, revealing a world where Fate is capitalized and an adventuring party are nearly at the end of their mission. In the second, a person travels a blasted landscape killing gods with a special weapon. From these beginnings, though, the stories branch into newer territory to tell stories of people made into victims and reacting to that. Finding that they are unwilling to stay down and accept what’s happening. In both there is a sense of community and broken promises, and in both there is a moment when the main character has to face a sudden revelation. The pair is nicely matched and creates a moving, magical experience. So to the reviews!

Art by Ward Lindhout

Quick Sips - Nightmare #52

The first 2017 issue of Nightmare Magazine explores the border between the human and the monstrous. In these two tales of fantasy horror, we find monsters who seem nearly human and humans who might just be a little bit monster. These are story that delve deep into the dark corners of the mind but never quite lose their spark, stories that understand cycles of tragedy but also hold out some spark to keep going all the same. These are stories about fear. The fear of being alone, or of letting down those you care about. The fear of the unknown, and the slow creep of mortality. They're some interesting pieces of SFF horror, and I'm ready to review!

Art by annamei / Adobe Stock

Quick Sips - Tor dot com December 2016

The offerings from Tor dot com this December all hover around the long short story/short novelette line in terms of length, and start in the distant fantastical past before drawing closer and closer to the fantastical present. Things kick off in ancient China with a judge and a unicorn (well, a kind of unicorn) and a personal crisis, then move to the Manifest Destiny of American colonialism, then finally end in a New York much like our own…but with some superpowers involved. These are story that are at turns fun and fast and brooding and dark. There's a lot to see and feel, though, and as the stories draw nearer to the present they seem to me to grow a bit more hopeful about the new year approaching. So yeah, to the reviews!

Art by Ashley Mackenzie

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #71

It's the first full month of spring and at Lightspeed Magazine it means a mix of superheroes and dragons, half-alien births and knobby giraffes. The issue is filled with new beginnings and happy endings, or at least the hope of happy endings. The stories have a fair amount of darkness but also a rising brightness, a sort of defiant laughter against the lingering feelings of winter. The results are a bit of a mixed bag for me personally, but there's still a lot here to like and certainly a lot of ambition in tackling some big issues and ideas. So get ready for some reviews! 

Art by Sam Schechter

Quick Sips - Tor.com March 2016 Part 2

After a breakneck pace during the first two months of the year, March slows things down only marginally for Tor.com, which still released five original fiction stories. The second half of the month has been dominated by clever twists on genre classics and a sense of loss and hope. In each of the stories there has been great pain, great loss, both personal and more sweeping. Wars and catastrophes and paradigm shifts. But there is something that remains, something aching and human and hopeful, something that stares into the heart and feels empathy, a bond that cannot be broken. It makes for a rather sad but beautiful set of stories that I should just review already.

Art by Yuko Shimizu

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #62

So three stories this month from Lightspeed, but all of them on the longer side, with two novelettes and one short story that almost qualifies as well. I like the way the stories build off each other, how they each take very different routes when building setting. There are no second world stories this time, all the action taking place on Earth, but there is a historical fantasy set shortly after American Independence and a historical science fiction set during Prohibition. Seeing how those stories build up the past is fascinating, and then to see how the third story moves things to the future, taking no less care in setting the scene, makes for an issue that satisfies and challenges and provides some great reading. To the reviews!

Art by Euclase

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #169

I'm looking at the latest from Beneath Ceaseless Skies today. The two stories pair fairly nicely, but much more in contrast than in compliment. Both are about risk and choices, about taking chances and whether those chances are worth taking. They present very different glimpses into how people approach the question of if action is worth taking. Together they leave it more to the reader to chose which they prefer. So let's see!

Art by Takeshi Oga