There’s lots of news in this March issue of Clarkesworld Magazine, plus six new stories (five short stories and one novelette). Mainly, the publication will be adding more translations to its offerings, replacing reprints with new translations of Korean SFF. I trust this doesn’t mean that the Chinese translations will stop, though the current issue again doesn’t have a translation. What is here are some stories that deal very poignantly and viscerally with grief, with oppression, and with people reaching out to other people. That finds people dealing with loss in very profound ways but working through those losses to try and find community, or joy, or love, or purpose. The stories feature moments great and small of people starting something, taking a chance and sparking change. And life. And hope. So without further delay, let’s get to the reviews!
The second issue of the year has dropped at Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, featuring three stories (2 shorts and 1 novelette) and three poems. And it’s an issue that definitely walks a fine line between darkness and hope, between violence and justice. The stories feature characters who are struggling with their choices, their paths. For many of them, they want to reach a place beyond the corruption that is holding them down, that is hurting them and those around them. For some of them, this means taking arms against a sea of trouble, and for others it means striving to consume and become that sea of trouble. But whether trying to break down or co-opt corruption and injustice, the stories show how close the two can be, and what might tip people toward one or the other. It’s a very strong issue of fantasy short stories and poetry, and it’s time to get to the reviews!
August has arrive and with it the approach of autumn, which means at Apex Magazine it's a month for stories about death, beauty, and the vastness of space. There's three fiction pieces and four poems in this issue and a solid theme of complicity, murder, freedom, and dissolution. These are stories that examine the morality of killing and the morality of letting others kill. The burden of living chained and the desire for freedom. The small ways that beauty grows and flourishes even in the darkness. It's an issue full of blood and hope, and I'm just going to get to those reviews!
