Quick Sips - The Dark #35

It’s March at The Dark Magazine and with spring comes two stories about women in isolation, surrounded by hunger and by darkness, and what they do to escape, to fall victim to it. Both stories find characters who are struggling with being on their own, either because their husband isn’t always around or because they don’t have one. The distance between them and other people becomes a place where dark things brew and ferment and begin to leak into their world, into their space. The characters must take action in an attempt to avoid the grasping hands of the dark, and yet not all actions will keep them safe. The stories explore the difference between waiting for the dark to come in and trying to get away from it. It makes for a tense, nail-biting issue, and I’ll get right to the reviews!

Art by Caro von Chaos

Quick Sips - Clarkesworld #136

January brings five original stories to Clarkesworld Magazine (3 short stories, 2 novelettes), and for me the issue seems to draw heavily on mysteries. At least, many of the stories involve characters dealing with either having been lied to, or finding that their understanding of the world is fundamentally flawed. Or, really, a combination. For most of the stories, the main characters are driven by a desire to figure out what exactly is going on around them—how they’re being manipulated, how they’re being used. For many, knowledge is kept away from them, and for many of them it’s kept away indefinitely. The few that manage to cut through the barriers between them and an understanding of what’s happening to them do seem to find a measure of healing in that, seem able to move on and forward. Those that can’t, who are kept from knowing the truth, fare less well, locked in someone else’s agenda, stripped of their ability to consent to their own lives. There’s a lot to explore, so let’s get to the reviews!

Art by Artur Sadlos