Quick Sips - Uncanny #28 [May stuff]

Art by Galen Dara

Given that May contains Mothers’ Day, it’s perhaps rather fitting that a lot of the most recent Uncanny Magazine features mothers in SFF. At the very least, the issue takes a keen look at parenting, loss, trauma, and what healing can look like. The stories show characters dealing with their feelings about their parents, about their mothers, their fathers, their sons. About what to risk, and how to put those relationships in context with a larger identity and world. And it’s a dazzling collection of works, at turns heartbreaking and terrifying and fun, and always gorgeously rendered. There’s quite a bit to get to, though, so I’ll get right to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Glittership Spring 2018

There’s a new issue of Glittership out!!! Cue the queer dance party! The issue is dated spring on the cover but the pieces inside are definitely more appropriate for autumn. At least, there is a strong theme of death and hurt that grounds the stories and poems in rather dark territory. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t hope, but rather that the works recognize the dangers waiting for those who are different, who are queer. The violence lurking, ready to pounce. The promise and power of community when isolation often means abuse and exploitation. For all that, there are moments of tenderness, defiance, and freedom to be found here as well, though not easily won or without scars. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Nightmare #67

Horror comes with a second person perspective in the April offerings from Nightmare Magazine. And, like a lot of great SFF horror, these stories are largely about fear. In one, how a being that strikes fear into almost everyone that they come across is made to feel a bit of themself. In the other, how a person who has felt fear for most of their life finds themself in a position where all that training is paying off in the face of something huge and terrifying. It’s a nice one-two punch when it comes to stories, the first a bit more meandering and slow, the second immediate and intense. And both do a nice job of examining fear and how we experience it. To the reviews!

Art by Sean Gladwell / Fotolia