Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 03/02/2020 & 03/09/2020

Art by DAPENHA

Strange Horizons kicks March off with two issues featuring the normal story and poem apiece (on top of some excellent nonfiction). And the works play in an interesting way with tropes and with reflecting back on older literary works and traditions. One twists the old Frog and Toad Are Friends in a wonderful and queer way, while drawing in some deep hurts and systemic injustices. Another deals with the gothic tradition set in post-war France, and also looks at the hidden shadows lurking everywhere, the rots that haven't yet been brought to light. The poetry is strong, too, and looks at bodies and perceptions and time. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Fireside Magazine #73

Art of Reiko Murakami

Well there's a lot to be thankful for in the November issue of Fireside Magazine, with four short stories and one poem rounding out a rather interesting mix of short SFF. From inner battles with doubt and fear and demons to an examination of superstition in times of trouble and scarcity to a heartbreaking look a prejudice and employment, the works here are meant to move and provoke. There are glimpses of futures that might be, and ruminations on realities that are, all tinged with hope, magic, and family. Before I give anything away, though, I'll get right to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Fireside Magazine #58

August brings two short stories and two very short flash fictions to Fireside Magazine, each of them circling around memory and difference, hurt and acceptance. In each of the stories, a character is dealing with being put into a hostile situation, where they aren't wholly sure of the rules. For some, this means they try to define those rules, to give them shape when it seems there isn't any. For others, though, it means deciding to act regardless of what rules they might be breaking, and forging their own ways forward despite the danger and oppression. It's a rather wrenching month of stories that have a definite fantasy lean, and a fantasy where magic is pushing in on the "real world" to varied results. So let's get to the reviews!

Art by Kevin Tong

X Marks the Story - March 2018

The latest X Marks the Story is live at The Book Smugglers!

Here's the list!

“The Emotionless, In Love”, Jason Sanford (published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies #246, March 2018)

“The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington”, Phenderson Djèlí Clark (published at Fireside Magazine, February 2018)

“Five Tangibles and One”, D.A. Xiaolin Spires (published at Terraform SF, February 2018)

“Traces of Us”, Vanessa Fogg (published at GigaNotoSaurus, March 2018)

“Of Warps and Wefts”, Innocent Chizaram Ilo (published at Strange Horizons, March 2018)

“From the Womb of the Land, Our Bones Entwined”, AJ Fitzwater (published in Pacific Monsters, Fox Spirit Books, November 2017)

Plus there's more X-plorations to be found. Cheers!

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Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 03/05/2018 & 03/12/2018

Strange is indeed part of the name of Strange Horizons, so it should be no surprise that early March brings a bounty of weird stories and poems to the publication. From people living split lives between night and day, between genders, between husbands and wives, to a collector of moons, to a poem that’s also a game, to the boredom of immortals, the SFF on display in these two issues all take the familiar and give it a healthy twist. And yet in these strange takes on the world as we know it there’s a sort of carnival funhouse glimpse at humanity seen through new and interesting angles. Angles that might give us better insights into what it means to love and to yearn for. What it means to be alive, and be human, and struggle against all the ways we might fail, and dissolve. It’s a lovely collection of pieces that I’m going to get right to reviewing!

Art by Youheum Son

Quick Sips - Fireside Fiction October 2017

October's Fireside Fiction offers up five short stories (four of them flash fiction) and two more chapters of the ongoing Fisher of Bones novella. The fiction is definitely fitting for the season, dealing with monsters and with children, with harm and with ghosts. The stories circle around the idea of victims and how those victims seek to find voice and power. And how, occasionally, that power isn't enough, and the flow of power and history is too much to fight against. The stories carry with them a darkness and a creepiness, but one that is offset by hope, and by people helping people. Sometimes the help isn't quite enough, but often it is, and in any event it makes for some very compelling reads. To the reviews!

Art by Galen Dara