Quick Sips - Translunar Travelers Lounge #2 [Fruit and Cheese Platter]

Translunar Travelers Lounge is back with A Lot of new fiction. Like with last time, I’m breaking the issue out into three parts, based on the publication’s own tasting menu. First up this issue is the Fruit and Cheese Platter, which promises works that are juicy and quirky. And the stories certainly deliver there, offering up five pieces that are at turns funny and action-packed, full of magic, day jobs, and demons. And characters who have had enough of forcing themselves to be small, to be convenient. They are ready to break out of their cages and take on the world—sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally. The issue oozes charm, and is lots of fun, while still making some deep points. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Augur #2.3

Art by Lorna Antoniazzi

A new Augur is out! And while I would normally break up the issue into two parts to spread out my reviews, I don’t want to push off 2019 reviews deeper into 2020. So I’m just looking at the whole thing today (and then taking tomorrow off)! And it is a dense and at times harrowing read, full of hurt and hope, beauty and pain. It features people trying to make sense of grief, and loss, trying to figure out where they went wrong, even when there was no way they could have done better. The stories loop around relationships, around characters trying to connect to one another and finding that at times an impossible task. But sometimes managing it all the same. It’s a wonderful issue, and a great way to cap off my 2019 reviews, so let’s get right to it!

Quick Sips - Clarkesworld #159

Art by Derek Stenning

The December Clarkesworld closes out the year with some rather long short SFF (the shortest piece being over 6500 words). And the stories are rather melancholy, are rather full of longing and loss. Not that there aren’t moments of joy, moments of victory over despair and oppression. But that the moods of the story are decidedly dense, thick, at times like walking through a fog of difficulty. It’s a fitting feel for where I live, where the month is already cold and snowy and heavy. And there’s a glimmer of something like hope to reach for, however dim it might seem. Some future where maybe things won’t be as harsh, even if it’s a future that requires a lot of work to get to. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Flash Fiction Online November 2019

November’s Flash Fiction Online brings an interesting perspective on different kinds of magic and ownership. In one, both come down to a ritual, to an encircling. In another, they are tied up with memory and relationship, where items following the dissolution of a relationship go to those with more of a connection to them. And one, the ownership is of narratives, of images, and it has everything to do with the violent magic of colonialism. In all the pieces, characters are trying to reach for something, and all are dealing with corruption and power. Some are fighting against it, though, and some are rushing to embrace it. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Flash Fiction Online May 2019

May brings a slew of mother-themed stories at Flash Fiction Online, only one of them speculative but all of them wonderful in their own way. The mothers in the stories aren’t always the main characters. They don’t always have all the answers. But they are largely defined by their willingness to treat their children as people, regardless of what age they are. And that’s something deeply moving to see, definitely worthy of celebrating in this well-paired issue of flash fiction. To the reviews!