Quick Sips - Tor dot com November 2020

Art by Red Nose Studio

November brings two short stories and a novelette to Tor, and a sense that each is playing with history in some interesting ways. The first is historical fantasy, looking at a past where vampires not only exist, but must police their own in the face of certain corruptions. Another looks at a world touched by the strange and otherworldly, a history turned familial when one character learns of their own connections to the sea, and to the beyond. And the final story deals with alternative history, with increasingly drastic attempts to change something that seems so small and simple, except that nothing is small or simple, everything large in the lens of humans lives. So yeah, to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Uncanny #31 [November stuff]

Art by John Picacio

I’d say that it’s a short month from Uncanny Magazine, but despite there being only two stories and two poems, one of the stories is a whopper of a novella, so wordcount-wise it’s a very robust issue. And the novella is certainly a story that captures some of the feeling of the uncanny, strange and mixing science and magic, focusing on a girl tossed back in time, struggling with her own desire not to screw up the timeline and her desire to prevent a tragedy from happening. And the story doesn’t re-tred old ground in providing a wonderful murder mystery time travel adventure, full of shadows intense and unsettling. The rest of the stories and poems round out a strange but rather lovely and haunting feel that for me personally fits with the time of year, with the first tendrils of winter digging in, and the sudden shortening of days and deepening of night. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Uncanny #28 [June stuff]

Art by Galen Dara

June's Uncanny Magazine brings a bit of heartbreak, a bit of horror, but also a bit of romance. At least, two of the stories feature some rich romantic themes, and develop characters reaching out in compassion even as the world around them seems to descend into some very dark waters. The works explore worlds dominated in many ways by cruelty, and seek to find compassion and empathy, sometimes rather forcibly. Throw in a pair of poems taking on some different meta-fictional lenses, and it's an issue that will make you think even as it entertains. So let's get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Tor dot com February 2019

Art by Soufiane Mengad

Four works (three short stories and one novelette I kinda missed from the end of January) make for another full month of fiction from Tor dot com. Further, all the stories are science fiction and most focused on the strength and fragility of relationships. They feature characters who are lonely, and who fear being alone, who are struggling against a culture that often doesn't care about them or their happiness, that wants them to bend to its desires and the fabricated needs of its demands. The pieces explore darkness, self destruction, and what peace looks like in a world that might not be full of war but is full of violence all the same, just a kind that is a bit more socially acceptable. And these are difficult, beautiful works that explore futures (and maybe a near-alt-historical past) that are broken, but not without hope. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Uncanny #20 [January stuff]

Kicking off the new year with three original short stories and three original poems, Uncanny Magazine structures a lot of its pieces this month around hurt and love and obsession. From a knight who falls in love with a dragon only to be burned to a woman who wants more than anything to add one crowning piece to a collection that gets her into a dangerous situation, the focus is often on how people are drawn to situations and people who aren’t necessarily safe. And how, deeper than that, safety isn’t an option, because of the world they live in, because they themselves don’t fit, aren’t welcome. The mood of the pieces is fitting for winter—the desire for warmth, the dangers of finding yourself locked out in the cold, losing feeling. It’s a difficult bunch of short SFF, but also a beautiful and rewarding bunch. To the reviews!

Art by Tran Nguyen

Quick Thoughts - My Favorite Longer Reads of 2015

So I've been loving running the Sippys. Want to know my favorite stories of 2015? Check out the Sippys (which sadly end tomorrow with the fifth and final category). But what about longer works? Novels and graphic novels and poetry chapbooks and…uh…other things? I figured today I would go through my favorite reads of 2015, which is to say my five-star rated reads that made it to my Goodreads (if you want to see all my 2015 reads, feel free).

DISCLAIMER! These are not things that necessarily came out in 2015. Some of these are older but new-to-me. Keeping up on new releases while also catching up on the near-infinite number of books I haven't read is a delicate game, and one that's a bit fraught thanks to ideas of canon and all. But I have a fair balance this year of things that are brand new and things that are contemporary but not new and things that are definitely not new. Anyway anyway, to the list!

MAUS (volume 1) by ART SPIEGELMAN
I actually feel rather bad I hadn't read this one sooner, because I had intended to any number of times but…well, never did. And what the fuck was I thinking, because it is amazing. Deep and intense and troubling and this look at both a period of time in general but more than that the story of family and people and the relationship between father and son and between both men with the conspicuously absent mother/wife. And yeah, so glad that I've read this and definitely looking forward to tracking down the second volume.

RADIANCE by CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
I love the structure of this novel, the way that it's not linear and is basically a collection of texts. It's constructed with such care and mystery and power and the setting is amazing, a taste of a solar system from the dreams of the past, where each world is an unspoiled land for humans to exploit—I mean explore. The voices shine here and the different texts combine and complicate each other in an amazing and delightful fashion. One of the many books out in 2015 that I absolutely loved.

KAREN MEMORY by ELIZABETH BEAR
Speaking of 2015 books that I loved, this one came out fairly early in the year and it is amazingly fun, a bit of steam western with characters that feel real and alive and a setting that breathes a history that was and wasn't. It's great because it blends fantasy and research and it's quite surprising to find out which elements from the story are fabricated and which are pulled relatively whole from the actual past. And the plot is tight and the action amazing and it all just works.

LINE AND ORBIT by SUNNY MORAINE and LISA SOEM
I've been meaning to read this for a while and oh my GLOB! I was not disappointed. I'm a sucker for m/m romantic plots and this books weaves one into an epic science fiction with expert skill. The two leads are complex and the setting is amazing. The plot is sufficiently huge and brings up eugenics and diasporas and reconciliation and war and the supporting characters are great, too, the whole package a brilliant mix of science fiction action with character-driven moral and romantic complications. So good. I can't wait to get to the other books in the series (hopefully later this year).

THE DISPOSSESSED by URSULA K. LE GUIN
This book is amazing and the setting and the complexity and fuck I just want to read this over and over again. The way that it plays with how language shapes culture and perception and how language can be used to try and be better is just great. And yes, there are still problems but that idea that being better is a process that's never over but that things can get better, can be more just and fair, is just yes, all the yes. The story touches on politics and sexuality and a sort of socialism and I just sort of love this book for the hope inside it, and also the sense of continual revolution and resistance.

THE SUMMER PRINCE by ALAYA DAWN JOHNSON
Post apocalyptic dystopia with kickass bisexual characters sex in Brazil? Yes please! I don't think it's a surprise that some of the books on this list are typically lumped into YA, because YA is actually amazing at showing that dissatisfaction with the way things are, with being content with imperfect systems. And this novel is all about resistance and art and voice and age. It's about love and about sex and about growing up. And I love it with an unashamed passion. The setting is vibrant and the characters are great and I CRIED SO MUCH!!! Ahem. Sorry. Yes, definitely read this one.

SHADOWSHAPER by DANIEL JOSÉ OLDER
So I liked Half-Resurrection Blues but I LOVED this book. It is amazing and comes out swinging and is basically a huge middle fiction to appropriation wrapped up in a bow of generational change and just basically everything that makes YA such fun and so valuable. There's just so many amazing characters and the magic flows into the setting into the art into everything and it's a great read, combining heritage and superheroics and magic and music and art and does it all with style.

And there you have it! Most of these I have actually reviewed (sometimes multiple times) and you can find my reviews by clicking on the author's tag either on the side bar or at the bottom of this post (added bonus is you can see my reviews of their other words that I've read recently as well). Anyway, there you have it, my favorite reads of 2015! Thanks for reading!

All the best,

Charles Payseur

Quick Sips - Uncanny #7 (November Stuff)

November continues right along with a pair each of stories, poems, and nonfiction pieces from Uncanny Magazine. The Fiction is a bit on the long side but quite good, exploring faith and age and balancing self-care with doing the right thing. The poetry is dark and tinged with fairy tale, with a feeling of decay and loss and devastation. And the nonfiction shows off a nice range with one article on cover art in SFF (and seriously, Julie Dillon is everywhere this month, which is great!) and one critical essay on some sad Whelkfins. All in all, a fine month. To the reviews!

Art by Julie Dillon

Quick Sips - Uncanny Magazine (June Stuff)

Today I'm looking at the June content for Uncanny Magazine. For a relatively new publication, it still knows how to bring in the talent, and the stories and poems here are indicative of a zine that knows how to deliver. Now that time is passing there does seem to be something close to a core emerging from the stories, a common theme that makes this publication a bit more connected. And it's that idea of the uncanny, of something that can't quite be explained. In these stories it takes the form of a magic library and a song that might be able to tap into a power no one knew existed. But for both there is a great sense that not quite everything is explained. We (the readers) are simply presented with these vision and asked to accept or reject them. And I find accepting them much more rewarding. To the reviews!

Art by Tran Nguyen

Quick Links - 02/22/2015

I've managed to mostly catch myself up with what I've been reading recently in regards to reviews. And hey, they're pretty solidly positive! Woo!

Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear (Goodreads, my score 5/5) - Wow, this one was good. The more I think about it, the more I like it. This is actually my second review of this. The first was:

Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear (Nerds of a Feather, my score 8/10) - because the scale is a bit more strict at NoaF, this is a little lower than my Goodreads rating. Still, a very good book.

Half-Resurrection Blues by Daniel José Older (Goodreads, my score 4/5) - another great book but with some elements toward the end that pushed me out a bit. Still, after reading "Kia and Gio,"  I have very high hopes for the next book in the series.

Kaleidoscope ed. Alina Krasnostein and Julia Rios (Goodreads, my score 4/5) - some amazing stories in this one and only a few that I didn't really like. That makes for a good collection in my book, especially with the focus on diversity. 

Traitor's Moon by Lynn Flewelling (Goodreads, my score 4/5) - oh my god I like this series. It's not the deepest of stories, not really the most challenging, but I love the relationship of Alec and Seregil (they finally do it in this book! FINALLY!) and this one features more Beka, so what's not to like?

And there you have it, a handful of books that I quite enjoyed. Maybe go check them out yourself!