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 - Lightspeed #90

The November issue of Lightspeed Magazine is full of twists and turns, adventures and magic, dark bargains and chance encounters. And, for me, the issue is all about connections. About strangers and family. The pieces as weave around the bonds made between people who might not be related by blood. Who are drawn to each other by care and by shared memory and by the mutual desire for something different. The story is about finding friends in odd places and having that bond, that friendship, become something transforming and affirming and amazing. The stories are not exactly romantic so much as they show how powerful human connections can be, how trust and love go beyond the romantic or sexual and unite people trying to create better worlds, even when it seems impossible. To the reviews!

Art by Galen Dara

Quick Sips - Tor dot com March 2017

First I guess I have to talk about Tor dot com's March project, Nevertheless, She Persisted, which features eleven pieces of flash fiction all centered around that idea, that quote. These are stories that hit and hit hard, some of them blisteringly defiant and some of them steeped in despair. The stories (and poem) show the many facets of the idea of persistence. The power of it and also the crushing nature of having to persist, and persist, and persist, ever and always. The stories run across a wide range of speculative genres and it's wonderful to see the authors taking this central idea and being inspired by it. Using it to say something new and interesting. Making a statement on our current situation and refusing to look away from the uncomfortable truths of it. So yes, it's a wonderful project and makes for a some surprising start to Tor's March.

That's not all that the publication got up to, though. Oh no. This would have been a full month even without the eleven flash stories, as there are also three short stories and two novelettes to look at. And wow. These are some gorgeous pieces that take on some deeply uncomfortable themes and manage to find glimmers of hope even in the most devastating of loss and corruption. They are stories of ghosts and magic, bodies and wars. And before I get too lost in describing them, why don't I just get to the reviews!

Art by Scott Bakal

Quick Sips - Tor dot com October 2016

October has been a surprisingly full month for Tor dot com, which saw the release of six original stories. It's also a nice mix of science fiction and fantasy and horror, each story reveling in worlds richly detailed and masterfully fleshed out. These are not often easy stories, with recurring themes of death and rebirth, but there is a strong vein of control here as well. Of being able to tell your own story. Of escaping the confines of the expected, the cage of the acceptable. These are stories about pushing boundaries and reclaiming identities, and I'm going to start the reviews…NOW! 

Art by Jasu Hu

Quick Sips - Uncanny #5 (August stuff)

Another month of Uncanny Magazine brings a mix of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. The stories are a bit extreme in that some are on the longer side of short and one is perhaps the shortest that I've reviewed on the site so far. But all of them deliver strong ideas and a nice vein of darkness that makes this month a little unsettling. In some ways the issue (or this half of it) seems to revolve around the idea of the hidden coming to light, or perhaps seeing something often ignored in a whole new way. It's a strong installment, and I should get to reviewing it!

Art by Antonio Javier Caparo