At first I was planning on doing a Quick Collections post for this anthology, recently put out from Neon Hemlock (ed. dave ring). But a confluence of circumstances made me reconsider, and now I’m just going to be doing a full review of all 26 stories. Which...is A Lot. So I’m not going to be doing them all at once. Rather, I’m going to be breaking the anthology up into 4 parts, and reviewing them as I have convenient spots in my posting schedule. First up, the first seven stories! There’s a mix of lengths and elements, but the promise of queer stories about resilience in the face of the end of the world is front and center, delivered on beautifully. To see what I mean, let’s get right to the reviews!
A new month brings two new stories to Diabolical Plots, which run from fantasy to...kinda science fiction? Tonally and otherwise, the stories couldn't be much more different. The first is a rather wrenching, slightly gothic story of a person following through on a promise to themself. The second is a much more wry take on the idea of resurrection and mad science. But both are linked by featuring characters who have just lost someone important to them, and who are intensely lonely. Both want something they can't quite give full voice to at first, though for one of them that means reaching back for something they've lost and for the other it means walking forward toward something they've never had. The stories are very much worth checking out, though, and I'll get right to the reviews!
Two short stories and two poems open up Strange Horizons’ March content. The fiction shines with magic and with beings who are a bit different than humans, passing through a world where they are set apart by their passions and their hungers and their hurts. Looking for ways to find expression and acceptance. The pieces swirl around love and art, meaning and freedom, and the poetry adds some excellent layering to the themes, revealing people and feelings ripe with longing, uncertainty, and, as always, strangeness. To the reviews!
For me, this latest issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies is all about stories. About the stories that people tell about other people. About women in particular. The whispers and the myths that seem to crop up wherever there are women trying to live and thrive on their own. In the mountains or in the bakery, wherever it happens that they make their homes. And how these stories push them into keeping secrets. From the outside world, yes, but also from themselves. And how they struggle but ultimately come to terms with those secrets, and try to live honestly, at least to themselves, and in these cases how they mostly succeed to do that. These are some very dark stories, but they also give way to hope and maybe healing as well. So let’s get to the reviews!
It’s a special Zodiac-themed double issue of Apex Magazine this month, guest edited by Sheree Renée Thomas (who also just guest edited the SEUSA Strange Horizons special issue in late July). There’s A LOT of fiction and as with most of the Apex special issues, poetry is back! There’s actually six short stories and well as six poems in this issue, making it perhaps the biggest I’ve read from the publication. And it all swirls around the idea of the Zodiac, of divination, of astrology. Not always literally, though the actual signs and horoscopes make an appearance or two. Instead, the stories look very much at the stories that we tell. At the ways these stories then become everyone’s stories, our minds making them personal, intimate, and topical. Because our lives have a way of getting into the stories we tell and the stories we take in, and then we might mistake our pulling them out again like a bit of magic and mysticism. But there’s a lot of different takes on stories and truth to find in these SFF works, and I should just quit talking about reviewing them and get to reviewing them!
The two novelettes from the most recent Beneath Ceaseless Skies find characters looking for ways out of oppressive situations. People who have dealt with the loss of their parents and other family members, and who seek through building families of their own to try and find a place of safety in an unsafe world. Unfortunately, both main characters also discover that even just trying to be questions the foundation on which injustice is built, at least in their cases because of who they are. And so trouble comes looking for them, and both must decide if they will try to bend to the will of those with power or if they will embrace a power of their own, even if it leaves a trail of bodies in their wake. Let’s get to the reviews!
Both the stories in this issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies look at loss. At how people approach and react to it. At how people seek to undo it. And how, ultimately, they face the facts that what has been lost cannot be regained. That they must find a way forward or else wither and decay. And I love the roads that these stories pave for their main characters, both of which are hardened, wry people who think that they've finally reached their breaking point. Who think that they're set in their ways, done changing. And who find that they have some growing yet to do. They also mix a nice amount of ass-kicking action in with some heavier, emotional moments, both to good effect. So yeah, I'll stop yammering and get to reviewing!
