Quick Sips - Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #37

August brings a new Heroic Fantasy Quarterly into my greedy hands, with four stories (one novelette and three short stories) plus three poems, all diving into myth and magic, war and longing. The pieces have a bit more of a battle focus in this issue, moving from battlefield to battlefield and finding knights, giants, dragons, and necromancers aplenty. The stories do more than just provide an action-packed fantasy read (though they do that, too). They dive into the realities and horrors of battle, and the reasons people have for entering into them anyway. It’s a varied and resonating issue, and before I give too much away, I’ll get to the reviews!

Art by Jereme Peabody

Quick Sips - Apex #82

This issue of Apex Magazine definitely takes some chances. From a story about leaning heavily on Philip K. Dick to a prose poem about a woman rising from the ground to a dark science fiction piece about death and memory, the issue is filled with pieces that carry with them a certain pervasive strangeness, and darkness. And while most of them I think pay off, with so many ambitious steps it was perhaps inevitable that there was...one, really, that I personally didn't much care for. Still, this is an issue that goes bold, and so I will attempt to be equally bold in reviewing it!

Art by Vincent Sammy