Quick Sips - Tor dot com November 2020

Art by Red Nose Studio

November brings two short stories and a novelette to Tor, and a sense that each is playing with history in some interesting ways. The first is historical fantasy, looking at a past where vampires not only exist, but must police their own in the face of certain corruptions. Another looks at a world touched by the strange and otherworldly, a history turned familial when one character learns of their own connections to the sea, and to the beyond. And the final story deals with alternative history, with increasingly drastic attempts to change something that seems so small and simple, except that nothing is small or simple, everything large in the lens of humans lives. So yeah, to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Uncanny #36 [October stuff]

Art by Christopher Jones

October doesn’t really bring a great deal of spooky material to Uncanny Magazine, but it does bring some stories that are very aware of isolation, of oppression, and of transformation. Of characters caught under the weight of their trauma, their wounds, their fears and hurts. Seeking ways to escape, to slip free, to get out from under the crush of historical abuses and more contemporary and intimate ones. Finding the power of moving in unexpected ways, of reaching for affirmation and comfort in the midst of conflict, war, and strife. It’s a difficult month of fiction and poetry, but it’s also a lovely selection of works that flow wonderfully together. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #314

Art by Vladimir Manyukhin

The two stories in the latest Beneath Ceaseless Skies feature gods and people just sort of trying to get by despite them. The characters in both stories are searching for answers to questions they don’t quite know how to ask yet. Concerning pasts they can’t remember, and futures they hope to reach. They feature strange partnerships and large casts of memorable characters. And there are discussions in both stories about the nature of gods, and magic, and how it all works together. So yeah, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Clarkesworld #168

Art by Rodion Shaldo

September’s Clarkesworld Magazine is big. Four short stories (1 translated) and three novelettes remind me that this is the longest publication that I cover. And in some ways it’s an almost strange month for the publication, featuring stories that dip more into the fantasy side of things, though with plenty of science or at least mechanical elements that mean that the focus still isn’t really on magic, exactly. The pieces run from historical weird to far future colonization, from intimate stories unfolding in the human mind to conflicts that span countries and beyond. There’s a lot to get to in this issue, so I won’t waste any more time. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Tor dot com November 2019

Art by Red Nose Studio

I was actually anticipating Tor to start to slow down, given their tendency to take most of the end of the year off of new releases, but November actually saw three original stories from the publication. The stories mix a sense of almost child-like wonder with some grim realities. In each the main character is sheltered in some key way, locked away, and is waiting for their moment to escape. Some of them don't know it yet, are convinced of the completeness of their isolation, their prison, but as time goes on they all find reason to see that their lives are only being partly lived, kept back from exploring the universe and all its secrets and magic. And what they do about that defines their arcs and their stories. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 02/18/2019 & 02/25/2019

Art by Grace Fong

Well, say what you will about the fact that Strange Horizons publishes all varieties of SFF, because what it always delivers on is right in its name…a h*ckin’ strange experience. A prime example is the short story from the second half of February, which combines an almost dreamlike, nightmarelike feel with a quest for apples in a ruined landscape prowled by twisted doctors. It’s as creepy as the poetry here is at turns fun and devastating. The pieces here show that SFF isn’t just one thing, isn’t defined by plot or world-building elements, but can shine by the strength of their weirdness. Their lovely strange horizons. So let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Apex #116

Art by Tangmo Cecchini

January might not bring a fan-appreciation issue like in the last few years, but it doesn't mean that there isn't a lot to read, with three short stories and a novelette that definitely bring the strange and luminous to Apex Magazine's usual run of dark SFF. The pieces all deal with memories, and with something strange and almost magical brushing against the more "mundane" realities of the worlds they reveal. Our world, in some cases, but not always. And it's certainly a mix of interesting and delicately-imagined settings, ripe with injustice, hurt, and longing, and before I spoil too much, let's get right to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Clarkesworld #148

Art by Pascal Blanché

January brings a slew of new science fiction to Clarkesworld Magazine, which probably isn’t much of a surprise, given the venue’s track record. What is something of a surprise to me is that the publication is taking a month off from translations, as there are five originals all in original English here. But these stories have more in common than just rough genre. They are all stories of planets, of movement. That find characters travelling across great distances to find new worlds and new homes. To be confronted by the lessons of the gods or experience a moment of peace and hope. The stories are all touched by darkness but much more about near-misses, about how situations might devolve into chaos and death but...don’t. Where something brighter manages to hold on and win the day. So without further delay, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Clarkesworld #142

Freedom and artificial intelligences make the July issue of Clarkesworld full of some difficult and thorny philosophical questions. In large part, these questions circle around freedom and survival. Mainly, is the human race worth surviving, and is there a moral way to do so? Is it worth it to fight against injustice and push for freedom, if it means making humanity less likely to survive in a hostile universe? It’s a difficult bunch of stories, and few of them entirely pleasant, but they introduce a lot of ideas that are well worth exploring. So yeah, to the reviews!

Art by Luis Carlos Barragán

Quick Sips - Tor dot com May 2018

It’s certainly an interesting mix of stories for May’s Tor dot com lineup. One novella, one novelette, and three short stories mean that there’s a lot to get to, and whatever your poison (contemporary fantasy, near-future science fiction, far-flung space soap opera, and more) there’s probably something that you’ll like. A lot of the stories are actually a lot to do with aging, too, though not all of them about the same kind of aging. But dealing with the particular trials and tribulations of a certain time in a person’s life (puberty, adolescence, early adulthood, middle age, and nearing retirement). The stories all show the baggage that the characters bring to these epochs, these events, and how that shapes them going forward. How they might be able to overcome isolation and fear and the changes happening to them, and how they might not be able to overcome. So yeah, to the reviews!

Art by Feifei Ruan

The Monthly Round - October 2017

The Monthly Round turns 3 today over at Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together. Go check it out. For those just interested in knowing my favorite short SFF reads of the month, the list is below. Cheers!

Tasting Flight - October 2017

“Fandom for Robots” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad (Uncanny)
“Barbara in the Frame” by Emmalia Harrington (Fiyah)
“To Us May Grace Be Given” by L.S. Johnson (GigaNotoSaurus)
“My Struggle” by Lavie Tidhar (Apex)
“Claire Weinraub’s Top Five Sea Monster Stories (For Allie)” by Evan Berkow (Flash Fiction Online)
“The Whalebone Parrot” by Darcie Little Badger (The Dark)

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Quick Sips - Apex #101

October has arrived at Apex Magazine and I have to admit, I keep expecting the month to be a bit…spookier than it’s shaping out to be. Which isn’t really a complaint, because what I’m getting instead are much subtler dark stories, full of atmosphere and a sort of suffocating oppression that sinks into every nook and cranny of these stories. We find a piece reimagining the fate of Hitler in powerful fashion, a story of performance and pain and destruction, a story of yearning and possibility and potential, and every a flash fiction with some suspect Salisbury Steak. So it’s a rather large issue of Apex, all told, and one that brings many different flavors of dark SFF. Some tinged with hope and others more heavily laced with despair and crushing need. So yeah, to the reviews!

Art by Rubén Castro

Quick Sips - Tor dot com February 2017

February is often a month devoted to love but Tor dot com has chosen instead to focus on duty and organizations and the role of a single operative in a larger mechanism. These stories cross genres, from high fantasy to space opera to near future science fiction. And yet they all involve people who are dedicated to a cause, who are part of a larger group. Whether attached to a government ministry, a military, a clandestine organization, or a religious empire, these characters are all parts of something larger than themselves. And many of the stories explore that size difference, showing how important, or unimportant, or importantly unimportant, some people can be. The stories are mostly thrilling, too, about assassinations and attempted coups and spies and in that they have a pace and a momentum to them that is captivating. They are not always the easiest of reads but many of them are quite fun, and all of them are quite interesting, and I should just stop yammering on and get to the reviews! 

Art by Micah Epstein

Quick Sips - Apex #91

All of the fiction in this issue of Apex Magazine turns back the clock to reveal historical takes on horror. Most of them are fantasy, as well, and look at the magic that might have existed in the past, the magic that always pales in its darkness next to the actual history of the times visited. What is a monster next to the way that people with mental health issues and developmental disorders were treated in the past? What is the grainy pulp of a noir detective next to the loss of millions of lives? These stories build worlds that might have been but that also reveal very real horrors that were and are visited on people. The horrors of societies that don't value certain people, that allow them to become victims, that even push them along that path. It's an uncomfortable month, and a dark one, which means that the publication is doing something right. To the reviews! 

Art by Billy Nuñez

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 09/19/2016 & 09/26/2016

The Strange Horizons Fund Drive continues with two more weeks of excellent content, featuring two stories, two poems, and a nonfiction piece. There are also nice previews of some of the initiatives that Strange Horizons will be running or hopes to be running that are worth checking out but that I won't get into here. The pieces from these weeks, though, seems to deal heavily with both history and heroes. Looking at the myths we tell, about the way in which history and narratives mix and mingle. There is a strong Greek mythology vein that is explored in a number of the works, and larger than that they all explore old wounds and newer efforts to heal and make right the injustices of the past. And the pieces are touching and interesting, complex and heavy. It's a great collection of works that I'm going to get to reviewing! 

Quick Sips - Tor dot com April 2016 Part 1

Okay well when I said last time that maybe Tor dot com was slowing down to normal levels of output (like one story a week), I wasn't aware just how wrong I was. The first week of April alone saw three stories release, so I'm splitting up the content again, looking at the first four stories released so far. Two of the stories are extensions of settings and series that have appeared elsewhere, which offer teases and glimpses into deep worlds while maintaining a light-hearted sense of adventure and fantasy. The remaining stories dive into darker waters, revealed different takes on our own world, one through a fantastical lens and another with an eye to the future. Both show people dealing with growing older, seeing the world with different eyes, and yearning for something undefined. It's a very powerful batch of stories, and I'll get to those reviews! 

Art by Richie Pope

Quick Sips - Apex #82

This issue of Apex Magazine definitely takes some chances. From a story about leaning heavily on Philip K. Dick to a prose poem about a woman rising from the ground to a dark science fiction piece about death and memory, the issue is filled with pieces that carry with them a certain pervasive strangeness, and darkness. And while most of them I think pay off, with so many ambitious steps it was perhaps inevitable that there was...one, really, that I personally didn't much care for. Still, this is an issue that goes bold, and so I will attempt to be equally bold in reviewing it!

Art by Vincent Sammy

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 01/04/2016 and 01/11/2016

Today I'm looking at two weeks of Strange Horizons material, which normally means a bit of everything except that I don't feel quite qualified to talk about the nonfiction (though it is quite interesting and I recommend checking it out). The fiction, though, is strange and fantastic, two stories that approach history and faith and journeys for meaning. And the poetry features departures and ghosts, of people lost and of the children we used to be. Everything works quite well and it's time to review!

Quick Sips - Shimmer #26

The two stories that make up the July offerings from Shimmer Magazine are very well paired. Both are stories of girls growing into women, and the relationship they share with their grandmothers. In each there is a sense of magic, a sense that the grandmother is the guardian of some old secret, some old practice that is leaving the world, but that the granddaughter can and does keep alive, a candle to honor what has passed, to celebrate a woman who was indomitable, who was beautiful and kind and captured something that was vital for the women becoming who they are. It's a great pair of stories, and I should just get to the reviews already.

Art by Sandro Castelli