Quick Sips - Nightmare #97

Art by Andrey Kiselev / Adobe Stock Image

The October issue of Nightmare Magazine doesn’t really go full-on spooky, though that doesn’t mean it skimps on the horror. Rather, the horror here is...quiet. Slow. Careful. Methodical, even. And it looks at aspects of the human experience that can sort of sink into something grim and terrifying. Marriage, especially when it rots. Academia, especially when the pursuits turn out to be sinkholes, traps. The stories show people who are on the cusp of something shadowed and deep, something there’s no turning back from after a certain point. One of the characters thinks to try and escape. The other plunges right in. It makes for an interesting and well balanced issue. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - The Dark #42

Art by Laura Sava

The stories in the November issue of The Dark look at distance. The distance between people and their societies. Between people and their families. For some, the distance is the result of strife, and difference. For some it’s the result of violations that leave scars that cannot be wholly healed. And for some it’s the result of a refusal to really struggle with and face the beasts of their unconscious. The beasts of hate and anger and violence and guilt. And that in trying to deny and avoid that confrontation, tragedy ensues. So yeah, to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Nightmare #45

The great thing about speculative horror that Nightmare Magazine always showcases is how wide a field it is. From contemporary fantasy to off-world science fiction to historical fantasy to basically any speculative genre, horror can be added. This month's issue sees a pair of stories that at first blush seem vaguely similar. But one is a military contemporary fantasy and the other a near-future science fiction and both are creepy in their own ways, filled with strange sights and a darkness lurking, ready to consume. These are stories about place, about darkness stepping out from where it had been confined and into a whole new world. So to the reviews! 

Art by Jeffrey Collingwood

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #189

The pair of stories that anchor this issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies are rather steeped in blood. Both follow the paths of a killer, one a professional assassin, one a trained duelist. Both find themselves drawn into a difficult situation, and both have a lot of dead bodies to create in their quest to get what they want. The stories pair well, though they fall a bit heavily toward the masculine-uberkiller tropes. The stories are more action-oriented, stripping the plots down for easy consumption. So let's get to reviewing!

Art by Xiao Ran

Quick Sips - Urban Fantasy Magazine V2, #1

Two pieces of fiction round out the November issue of Urban Fantasy Magazine, though sadly only one of them is original. In order to make more of a review of this issue, I'm looking at both stories, and I don't think you could really ask for more different tales, though at their heart I see two stories about a deep dissatisfaction with "the way things are." In both stories there are characters faced with reality and their own unhappiness, and in both those characters chose to make a change, chose to drop the security of their own misery and try something new. It's an interesting contrast to look at them together, but worth doing. Time to do just that!