Quick Sips - Nightmare #99

Art by Marko Stamatovic / Fotolia

I continue to be impressed with the way that Nightmare Magazine has been pairing original stories in their issues, as December brings two works dealing with the bonds of sisters. Bonds that are cut short. By tragedy. By loss. And that provoke the remaining sisters in some difficult, profound, and unsettling ways. The stories are grim and they are creeping, complicating relationships that the survivors form and have, pushing them into perhaps dangerous situations, and always bringing them back around to the loss they’ve suffered. It’s a strong and resonating issue that works even better than the sum of its parts. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #109

Art by Grandfailure / Fotolia

It’s a rather weighty issue of Lightspeed Magazine this June, with four stories all over 5000 words. The pieces are eclectic, following far future bureaucracies and fables full of gods and jinn. All the stories feature women dealing with situations they didn’t really chose, though. Systems that are not exactly built for justice. The worlds they grow in are touched in profound ways by darkness and corruption, and yet they all seek in different ways to bring in some light, some hope that people can do better, and find happiness. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Nightmare #70

The pair of stories from Nightmare’s July issue focus on people trapped in situations where they don’t have a lot of power, mostly because of their age. They weigh in on opposite sides of the specrtum, though, one character made vulnerable because of his old age, put in a home where he might be preyed upon at any moment and aware always of his own approaching death. The other piece focuses on a young person in a stifling household, living with rules that aren’t designed to protect him so much as to make his parent’s life easier. In both situations, the toxicity of the environment manifests in ways great and small (and sometimes furred) and forces the characters to choose if they’ll stay and try to face them or try to escape from a power they might not be able to defeat head on. Let’s get to the reviews!

Art by Chorazin / Fotolia

Quick Sips - Nightmare #58

The July stories from Nightmare Magazine seem to me to be all about consent and victims. About the ways in which people seek their own gratification, their own wishes, without pausing to think about what they’re doing. Or, when they do stop, they still privilege their own wants over the safety of others. These are some complex stories that look at the ways that relationships fall apart and people can turn on each other, hurt each other, by not asking the right questions, by losing sight of those around them in their pursuit of what they want. These are some rather uncomfortable and violent stories, and yet the violence is pointed and impacting, revealing the systems in place that reward ignorance and punish empathy. It’s definitely a matter of degrees, though, and the stories show different kinds of hope in moving forward, in reaching for a world without these cycles of violence and abuse. So yeah, to the reviews!

Art by grandfailure / Adobe Stock Art

Quick Sips - Nightmare #39

Mans, Nightmare Magazine is reminding me why it's consistently one of my favorite reads. Two stories, as always, that explore the darkness that lurks at the edge of our vision, at the periphery of our world. Not necessarily just monsters waiting in the dark but the darkness of human abuse and pain, neglect and dependence. The stories here explore monsters of various sorts, but mostly how evil perpetuates itself, how it abuses and twists the mind of those it touches. These are stories of victims and escape, standing up and giving in. And both are quite good.

Art by Kerem Beyit

Quick Sips - Nightmare #30

Today I'm looking at the latest from Nightmare Magazine. As always, two new stories, which means a relatively light load for reviewing, but I can really understand why this magazine puts out less than its sister pub, Lightspeed. These are dark stories. Stories that have a bit more impact when let a little more room to breath. So take a deep breathe, and let's get started!

Art by Robert Emerson