Quick Sips - Samovar 09/02/2019 & Strange Horizons 09/09/2019

September kicks off with a bang with a new issue of Samovar to enjoy before settling back into regular Strange Horizons content. The translated issue features two stories and a poem, while the "regular" issue has another short story and poem, so all told it's a rather full two weeks. It's also a rather difficult few pieces, dealing with colonization, identity loss, and some dense literary comparative theory. And for all that the fiction is strong and unsettling, chronicling people struggling and often succumbing to the violence and corruption of their systems, I also want to point specifically to the poetry in these issues, which is pretty amazing and worth checking out. So let's get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Apex #83

The April issue of Apex Magazine is out and with it come a number of stories and poem that, by and large, orbit around religion. Old gods and religious guilt and growing up with religion and really giving a lot of angles on a very interesting element of life and SFF. The two fiction pieces are incredibly well paired, looking at family and religion and space and loss. They're quite different, one a sci fi almost-Western and the other a contemporary weird fantasy, but they work hand in hand to examine how siblings are effected by religion, how they relate to each other through a faith (or are damaged by it). There's just so much to read and enjoy that I need to shut up and get to those reviews!

Art by Sarah Zar