Quick Sips - Lightspeed #92

It’s officially 2018! Yes, I know that might be a little late, technically, but I’m kicking off the year with a look at Lightspeed Magazine, with four stories that explore, well, exploration. That look at place and the roles that people play. In most, these roles are pushed onto characters against their wills. Expectations or absences that the characters struggle to make sense of, even as they also have to find ways to stay true to themselves. It’s also something of a strange month of stories, with sentient cities, post-disaster flood plains, a plethora of reincarnated memories, and a magic word that solves problems, as long as they’re the right problems. I’m changing my reviewing format up a bit, too, so my apologies on any adjustment oddness. Please bear with me and let’s get to the reviews!

Art by Alan Bao

Quick Sips - The Book Smugglers August 2017

I’m very sad that the Gods & Monsters short story season is over at The Book Smugglers with these two short stories. It has been an excellent run and the pieces have consistently been among my favorite every month they’ve been out. But even good things must come to an end. At least for this year. To close things out there are two new stories exploring youth and education, love and responsibility. The stories aren’t that similar on the surface, but digging deeper finds narratives that are very concerned with consent and with fostering an environment where young people can explore who they are and how they want to live. They mix humor and magic, emotion and stress and frustration. But they also imagine characters taking control of their situations, negotiating their ways past the forces trying to crush them. So yeah, to the reviews!

Art by Ira Gladkova

THE SIPPY AWARDS 2016! The "There's Something in My Eye" Sippy for Excellent Making Me Ugly-Cry in Short SFF

Welcome back to the Second Annual Sippy Awards! The short SFF awards that no one asked for is here again because I said so, dammit! I've shipped my favorite SFF relationships. I've kept the lights on for my favorite SFF horror. So now it's time to examine yet another dimension of SFF short fiction.

Okay so yes, as a reviewer I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve. Part of the joy of engaging with stories is being effected by them. Is following where they lead, intellectually and emotionally. So for me stories that can move to tears are incredibly valuable. They hit and they hit hard. They draw blood.

They also inspire. Each of these stories can be a lesson in empathy. In really trying to understand what the characters are going through. Their grief and their loss and, through it all, their hope. More than anything else, it's the hope that gets me, that moves me, that breaks me and put me back together again. There is despair, yes, and pain. Sometimes far too much pain. Some of these stories are bleak. But none of them are without hope. And so while they all make me a large puddle of feels, when I solidify again I am the stronger for it. And that's why I love these stories, and why I can say without shame that these are the stories that made me cry the most in 2016. Yes, it's time for…

The "There's Something in My Eye" Sippy 

for Excellent Making Me Ugly-Cry in Short SFF

Quick Sips - Fantastic Stories of the Imagination #236

The two fiction works in this issue of Fantastic Stories of the Imagination are solidly urban fantasy, exploring how the creatures of myth and legend live among "normal" humans. These are, to me, stories about abuse and about struggling to overcome abuse, to stop it where it is or at least try to stop being a part of it. The worlds presented are mirrors to our own, where the magical elements are hidden but for those who know to see, and it mirrors the way that abuse in our world is often invisible, lurking. Both stories do an amazing job of creating compelling plots and characters and complicating the traditional folklore. It's an excellent issue that I should just shut up and review! 

Quick Sip - Fantastic Stories of the Imagination #235

I almost thought that Fantastic Stories of the Imagination wouldn't manage to get this issue out in July, but here we are at the end of the month with a pair of stories about absences and choice. About the distance between people and how, sometimes, there is no closing that distance. About taking control and about seeking happiness and about the ways that we get trapped by relationships. In unhappiness. And the stories show different glimpses of people realizing that they do have a choice. That they do have a recourse. That they don't have to live in a stifling relationship just because their partners want them to. The stories complement each other quite well, and I'm going to get to reviewing them! 

Quick Sips - Terraform June 2016

This month's Terraform shakes things up a bit with a return of graphic fiction as well as three stories that use form and voice to very good effect. These are stories about travel and about reaching. In each of the fiction stories there is a feel of people wanting an escape. From a place they can't relate to, from overcrowding and colonial guilt, and from the constant threat of violence and death. The stories confront the reader with how these various situations effect family, effect ambition, and effect life, prompting the reader to examine how the characters respond and how it's possible to respond. Is reconciliation possible, or escape, or even life? These are serious stories that still manage to hold onto moments of humor and comedy. And without talking them to death, I'm going to get to reviewing! 

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 06/06/2016, 06/13/2016, & 06/20/2016

Today I'm looking at three weeks of content from Strange Horizons, and there is certainly a lot to see. Three original stories, three poems, and two nonfiction pieces anchor what has been a very strong, and very wide-ranging array of pieces. The fiction, though, is pretty heavily contemporary fantasy, stories that mix magic with very different life experiences. Characters of different classes, races, genders, and sexualities all confront magic in their own ways, from ghosts to art to traditions. The poems take readers to far off worlds and plunge into the heart of myths. And the nonfiction looks at history and awards and place. There's a lot to enjoy, so I'm just going to get to the reviews! 

Art by Sandro Castelli

Quick Sips - Fantastic Stories of the Imagination July/August 2015

Back with their new publishing schedule, Fantastic Stories of the Imagination provides two new stories this month. One flash and one short story, and both interesting. There is definitely a tendency for the publication to spotlight a bit darker of stories in their original works, which is A-okay for me. The stories are short but typically revolve around a kernel of emotion, of loss or tragedy. This month the stories both feature death and communication with the other side, but in two completely different ways. Thematically the stories build on one another, one a more humorous take on speaking with the dead and the other a more wrenching tale, but both focus on communication, or perhaps a failure to communicate, with the dead. Good stuff, so let's get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Fantastic Stories of the Imagination February 2015

Today I'm looking at the latest from Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, home of the longest email address for sending story submissions (honestly, it is storysubmissions@fantasticstoriesoftheimagination.com for all you writers out there). But the new focus on shorter stories means there are once again two original pieces for me to look at today. So let's jump right in!

Stories:

"Weight of the World" by José Pablo Iriarte (1553 words)

This one is definitely an emotional wallop for being so short. A family from off-world (did I miss where? Mars? Someplace with lower gravity at least) are returning to Earth for treatment for their son's treatment. The stay is tough on them, in part because the increased gravity makes moving difficult. The father stubbornly refuses to take assistance, and puts himself through the pain of walking around in what seems to be an advanced bargaining mode. If he can survive, he seems to ask the universe, surely his son can. Only his posturing is slightly worrisome because his son's survival really isn't up to him. Isn't up to anyone. It's not based on how much his son wants to live or how tough he is. And so the parents worry that they are setting their son up for failure, that they might make their son feel like he's failing them by dying. And that's the interesting thing, because there are layers of trying to be strong, and the story plays around with what is strong and what is weak. Because when the news comes and the father finally lets himself be weak, or let's the world see his weakness. Like acknowledging it before would have ruined something. It's an interesting story that circles around masculinity but seems more about trying to be strong in the face of tragedy. Solid work.

"She Opened Her Arms" by Amanda C. Davis (982 words)

Another interesting story about family. In this one, the young sister of an even younger disabled brother is told by a strange woman that her brother's condition is due to the fact that her "real" brother was stolen and replaced, that the brother she was supposed to have can be returned. Thinking that she wants the brother she "should" have had, a more normal, handsome brother, she tries to reclaim him. She interrupts a procession of Fae in order to get him back but in the midst of it she realizes that if she succeeds she won't just gain a brother who she doesn't know, but will lose the brother she loves. Disgusted, she breaks the ritual and returns home. It's a nice story with a powerful message, that people with mental or physical disabilities are not broken. They are not lesser for their differences. And in choosing the brother she knew, the brother she cared about, instead of the prettier one she might have had, she affirms her brother's right to be himself. She affirms her love for him, not for what he might have been. A lovely read.