Quick Sips - Terraform October 2020

Oops! It has been a while since the last original story from Terraform, so when one dropped at the very end of October, I missed covering it. Well, I’m making up for it now. And while Halloween might be come and gone, this story definitely keeps the blood-chilling atmosphere of the season alive and well. Looking at contagion, at bodies in revolt, and at the failure of humans to regulate and moderate themselves, to deadly and disastrous effect. It’s grim, and it’s rather terrifying, and I’ll get right to my review!

Quick Sips - Terraform October 2019

I thought for a minute there that there wouldn't really be much out at Terraform this month, but a few later-month releases mean that there's still some rather sharp SF visions of the future to enjoy. In one, the world is ending and the people looking down the barrel of that possible, even likely extinction have to decide how to meet the end, and how they might leave something that will outlast them. In another, a character enters a novel kind of sleep study and end up realizing that his own biases going in can have very real outcomes coming out, in a nice look at the problems with scientific studies that rely on people to describe their own results. Not exactly the spookiest content, but full of shadows all the same, and well worth checking out. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Terraform October 2018

Thanks to a novel excerpt that I’m not looking at, the October Terraform stories from Motherboard are a little light this month. Three flash fictions, though, deal with some rather heavy themes. Appropriate, given the goal of the publication to put out topical science fiction. Because most of what’s topical right now is the nightmare that world and domestic politics has become. From international war to exploitation and death on a mining colony in space to the much more intimate hurts that family can inflict on each other, these works aren’t exactly a cheery bunch. They reveal characters wanting to find something better, though in very different ways. So let’s get to the reviews! 

*UPDATE: They sneaked in a Halloween novelette on me, so some of the above isn’t accurate.

Quick Sips - Terraform October 2017

Just in time for Halloween, the October Terraform story are a bit spooky. They explore what it means to be human, and especially what it means to be human in a time when technology and abuses both personal and societal are accepted and normalized. It visits people and robots and ghosts and stranger beings still who must grapple what is to live with the inheritance of humanity, or by changing themselves who try to avoid it. It's about reinvention and learning, about compassion and movement and evolution. And the stories are beautiful and just a bit eerie, which makes them perfect for the season. So let's get to the reviews!