Quick Sips - Uncanny #26 [February stuff]

Art by Julie Dillon

It’s a full February at Uncanny Magazine, with two poems, two short stories, and a novelette to round out this shortest month of the year. The fiction is broken situations. People who have been abused and are looking for a place to belong. And yet finding that place isn’t always easy—often what might seem safe could be a new abuse in disguise, a sort of pitcher plant designed to lure in the desperate. For those who can avoid the traps, though, the pieces also focus on the joy that can be found in finding a place, and a people, who make you feel at home. With a purpose that rings true and the ability to live, even if it will always be tempered by the ways the world is broken or corrupt. So let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 07/30/2018 Special SEUSA Issue

It’s a special issue of Strange Horizons to help close out July, which focuses on SFF from the Southeastern USA. The stories range quite a bit in style and location, but they are linked by their connections to the American South as well as to magic. Of the six short stories, all of them land on the fantasy side of things, focusing on gods and ghosts most of all. And perhaps that’s not surprising, because the story looks at power, and systems, and the ways that South is built on injustice, on suffering. On how it can be such an oppressive place, but also a place of power for the oppressed. Because they have connections there, a well of pain and resolve and survival that they can draw on to keep them moving foward. It’s a wonderful bunch of stories and poetry, so let’s get to the reviews!

Art by Geneva Benton