Quick Sips - Translunar Travelers Lounge #2 [Dessert Tray]

After the main courses in the second issue of Translunar Travelers Lounge, it’s time to get to dessert! The final four stories of the issue promise a bit of sweetness and they certainly don’t disappoint, with themes that linger on family, on magic, and on growing up. All of the stories feature characters who are still relatively young. Some are still in high school, while others have just or are just reaching some level of independence. And they all have to find ways to protect themselves and their hopes in situations that sometimes seem hopeless. But with a bit of luck, a bit of magic, and a little help from their friends, they just might find the courage to take a chance, to defy conventions, and to chart their courses forward. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Lackington's #11 Possessions

Just ahead of the release of their next issue, Lackinton's has dropped the paywall on their Possessions issue and it's a great collection of rather dark stories. Perhaps rising from the complex nature of possessions, from how people can own things, how people can own people, how things can own people, how entities can inhabit people, how people can own ideas and stories…there are a lot of ways that these tales circle around what it is to have possessions, and what it is to be possessed. Most of the pieces are solidly fantasy, the magic alive and well and further complicating the theme but also giving it a wild fire that casts some wicked shadows. There's a lot here to enjoy, so I'm going to get to the reviews! 

Art by P. Emerson Williams

Quick Sips - Urban Fantasy #9

This month's Urban Fantasy Magazine is all about guilt and the weight of actions. In the first story, the weight comes in the form of a child, half-mer, who is never really allowed to be her own person. In the second the weight comes from a dead friend, one who is never really allowed to pass on. Both are interesting and sad and do a good job at showing how actions can lead to these weights, how people construct mental walls that keep them alone and suffering, and both give small hints at how those walls might come crumbling down. So let's get to it!

Quick Sips - Plasma Frequency #16 - Anti-Apocalypse

So this is my first time reviewing Plasma Frequency here, though I've read the publication and featured a story from an issue late last year on the Monthly Round. There certainly are quite a few stories. And there's a theme! Anti-Apocalypse. The goal is to escape the grim and gritty apocalypses that seem a dime a dozen these days. And for the most part the issue succeeds at showing some more uplighting and hopeful stories. Some funny ones. It's a big issue, and I'm skipping the reprint that begins the issue and the installment that wraps it up, focusing on everything else. So yeah, let's get to it!

Art by Jon Orr