Quick Sips - Tor dot com September 2020

Art by Audrey Benjaminsen

It’s another full month of original fiction at Tor dot com, with four short stories and a novelette. As the seasons change into autumn (here in the U.S. at least), the fiction seems to be shifting as well. The stories are getting a bit more grim, a bit spookier. The works are tending toward horror tropes and elements with vampires, ghosts, monsters, gods, and apocalypses. The works find characters who are trying to get their lives on track following loss, following disappointment, following…life happening. And their attempts run into shadows, into the strange and dangerous mysteries of the world. And if, and how, they come out of those shadows will determine a lot if they can start to recover and heal from what’s happened to them. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Nightmare #93

Art by grandfailure/fotolia

The two stories in the most recent issue of Nightmare Magazine might not seem super similar at first glance. One is a slow building horror about punishment and guilt, about a story literally coming to life. The other is a story of strange people doing strange things, only for the frame to shift a bit and reveal that the real strange people might be those we consider normal. But in both we are faced with characters who care. And whose caring is starting to eat them up inside (and out, kinda). And both need to work through their fear and their insecurity, their doubt and their shame, to reach a point where they can care for themselves, and find some release and healing. It’s a great issue, and I’ll get right to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #109

Art by Grandfailure / Fotolia

It’s a rather weighty issue of Lightspeed Magazine this June, with four stories all over 5000 words. The pieces are eclectic, following far future bureaucracies and fables full of gods and jinn. All the stories feature women dealing with situations they didn’t really chose, though. Systems that are not exactly built for justice. The worlds they grow in are touched in profound ways by darkness and corruption, and yet they all seek in different ways to bring in some light, some hope that people can do better, and find happiness. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Nightmare #71

The August issue of Nightmare Magazine offers an effective one-two punch of dark SFF focused on family, weight, and the (sometimes) futile efforts to escape from a bad situation. Both situations feature characters who have suffered, and who are dealing with that. Who are holding onto someone else in the hopes of overcoming the darkness swirling around them. But who, ultimately, learn to make the bargains they can to save who they can, even if it means losing themselves to the dark. These are two rather unsettling and moody stories, full of longing and fragility that cannot withstand the knee-jerk force of the quick pull of the noose or the terrible chaos of a car crash. But even there, the stories find beauty, and meaning, and something even more terrible. To the reviews!

Art by Itskatjas / Fotolia

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #98

It’s a rather dark collection of SFF stories in this July’s Lightspeed Magazine, with four short stories that flit between exploitation, extinction, war, and guilt. In most of the stories there’s a focus on a relationship amidst the harsh realities of the world (or possible worlds). In most, a character must face the pain of being at the mercy of others—being considered not a full person, or judged guilty be virtue of species, or conscripted into a war full of horrors. They must navigate the pain and death around them and try to find a way toward something better. Whether or not they succeed depends on the character and the story, but each is an interesting exploration of people stuck in awful circumstances. To the reviews!

Art by Saleha Chowdhury

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 12/05/2016 & 12/12/2016

These two weeks of content from Strange Horizons are a little light on nonfiction, but definitely plenty heavy when it comes to stories and poems with depth, grace, and stunning SFF elements. From self-destructing sentient starships that die across fields of stars to quieter pieces about love, loss, and transformation, these pieces definitely had me on the brink of tears more than once. These are pieces that show the heart of SFF, and the loneliness of it as well, the vast spaces between worlds that mirrors the vast spaces between people, everyone reaching out and only a precious few finding some connection to withstand the forces of creation and destruction. So let's get to the reviews! 

Art by Mahendra Singh