Quick Sips - Flash Fiction Online December 2018

It’s a month of literary original stories at Flash Fiction Online, focusing on family and more specifically on dysfunction and the breaking of familial roles. Because, as the stories show, those roles can become prisons. They can become suffocating with how little seems possible, how little the future offers for them. And yet when people try to push outside they face the specter of violence, of coming up against the expectations and investments of parents who rely on their children at times to give meaning to their own lives. Which is difficult and real and well handled in these stories. So yeah, to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Orthogonal SF "The War at Home"

A new publications has appeared! Orthogonal SF is a new speculative fiction venue (despite the name, these are not all science fiction, which I like FWIW) formed a bit out of spite. And anger. And that does come through a bit in this first issue, which is fairly dark but also nicely balanced. The stories are moving and do have a strong vein of anger to them, as well as the claustrophobic feel of being trapped and trying to get out, with a bit about anonymity and archetypes thrown in for good measure. It's an interesting mix of stories, and I'm just going to get to the reviews, shall I?