Quick Sips - Uncanny #19 [December stuff]

The holidays come a bit early this year with an extra-big issue of Uncanny Magazine, stuffed with four short stories and four poems. Of course, perhaps because we are finally in winter’s talons, the work has a decidedly complex and not-exactly-happy feel to it, the pieces confronting some very heavy issues and finding characters not always able to escape the harsh realities of their situations. From new gods born from misery and exploitation to an android finding their future grim indeed, from a young girl dealing with trauma and stress to a hero who knows that heroes are anything but always heroic, the stories are tinted windows into humanity, revealing us not always through contemporary humans but through our stories, our creations, and our works. It’s not the brightest of pictures, but it does create for some captivating and compelling short fiction, with a whole slew of poetry that ranges from sweet to brash and back again. To the reviews!

Art by Julie Dillon

Quick Sips - Uncanny #12 (October Stuff)

This month's offerings from Uncanny Magazine bring a bit of everything. Two original fiction pieces, two poems, and two works of nonfiction covering fairy tales and AI insurrections and ghosts and desires and distorted realities and lineages of SFF. The fiction is gripping and challenging, difficult and unflinching. The poetry is moving and all about desire and nostalgia and looking back. And the nonfiction is about perception and how it can be changed, either in the brain or by those around you, and how that can effect the inroads to SFF. It's a full month and a nice balance of the strange, the heartbreaking, and the affirming. So yeah, time to review! 

Art by Kirbi Fagan

Quick Sips - Uncanny #6 (September Stuff)

So I might have nearly bitten off more than I could chew when I made the decision to review the latest from Uncanny for my second review of the month. There's a lot here! Two stories (both novelettes), two poems, and some nonfiction to chew and no joke this is a packed month of the issue. Almost like they're running a Kickstarter (nudge nudge, maybe go check that out!). It also is a very powerful month, featuring a pair of stories that show just how varied SFF can be. Dark historical fantasy and middle grade science fiction meet but don't clash here, and the issue as a whole does a nice job of showing just what Uncanny is good at: bringing together voices from all over the genres dedicated to telling good stories. Here's to another year! Oh, and I guess some reviews...

Art by Matthew Dow Smith

Quick Sips - Lackington's #6 - Seas

Today I'm looking at the latest from Lackington's. There's even a theme this issue, Seas. And each story does do a nice job of capturing the feel of the sea, even when the sea is not water, as in "Spider Moves the World" and "Excerpt from UNLANGUAGE." Most of the stories use the literal seas, the watery kind, and there's a lot to draw up from the depths. As is usual with the publication, the stories are a bit strange, focusing on form and style perhaps more than plot and action. Not that there's not action. "The Selkie" has quite a bit of tense action, Nazi ships exploding and all. But the stories are a bit more layered than that, some a bit hard to pull apart but all of them beautiful in their own way and worth pouring over. So to the reviews!

Art by Tomasz Wieja