Quick Sips - Uncanny #37 [November stuff]

Art by Julie Dillon

The November Uncanny Magazine brings three short stories and three poems to make for a full issue full of advanced technology, ancient incest, and some monsters for good measure. The fiction leans heavily into science fiction, providing three tales of super science and the very quiet, mundane, intimate things that go into big, dramatic, shattering breakthroughs in physics and AI. These are wrenching stories of people struggling and sometimes failing to reach for what they know is right, and the aftermaths that come when the decisions have been made and people have to live with what comes next. It’s an emotional and wonderfully imagined set of stories and poems, and I’ll get right to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 07/16/2018 & 07/23/2018

There’s two poems and a short story across these two issues of Strange Horizons. And really, these pieces are very much about revisiting the past. They feature characters and narrators who find themselves revisiting stories and ideas, traditions and actions, in order to find new ways to live and move forward. Because for each of them, retreating into the past and the possible comforts there doesn’t really work. The comforts are hollow, or don’t fit, or can’t be reached. And so they are pushed to make their way forward, into a situation they might not feel ready for. And they meet these challenges with various levels of eagerness, from grim resolve to sad acceptance. So let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 05/07/2018 & 05/14/2018

Strange Horizons launches into May with two stories and three poems (hey, bonus poem!) that deal with myth and pain and narratives. That trace the ways that people struggle and push back against the weight of inertia and tradition. The way that people need to struggle and push back against the ways in which abuses and harms are accepted and passed down. Because without standing up to them, without fighting to make things better, the world slides into a very dark, very violent place. The stories find characters trying to change things, trying to invent new ways of thinking and acting in order to face the increasingly dire state of things. It’s a strong collection of works, and I’ll get right to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 09/21/2015 and 09/28/2015

So I was not really expecting there to be so much out from Strange Horizons these last two weeks. Normally, there's only a piece of fiction, a poem, and maybe a nonfiction per week. Towards the end of the month, like now, there tends to be even less. But there is a fund drive going on. So first, maybe go and check that out. Then realize with growing apprehension that there are three pieces of fiction to look at, five poems, and two pieces of nonfiction. That's a busy two weeks. Luckily it's all quite good, rather dark, and incredibly helpful as far as the nonfiction is concerned. If this is the content that Strange Horizons keeps offering up, then I definitely want to make sure they keep up and running, and I'm sure I'll donate again this year. Plus, there are prize drawings. Amazing, amazing prize drawings. So yeah, get on that while I get to these reviews.