Quick Sips 12/24/2021

For those keeping score, yes, I’m still on my slowdown. And, given the next two weeks will have holidays and etc, it might continue to be slow for a while. But I’m still going. And I even have an early holiday present, because I’m covering Baffling Magazine a little bit early! Adding to that is my looks at the December Lightspeed and Fantasy, which means that numbers-wise I’m about where I have been recently. More than that, I’m starting to tick off more magazines that I’ve been covering forever that I won’t be covering in the same way anymore. Which makes me a little sad, even as it’s extremely necessary. Anyway, onward!

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 11/19/2021

So it’s another busy week of reviews, if not quite so full as the week before. But I’m done with October for the most part so it’s all November issues I’m looking at today. I start with Lightspeed and things get grim as I look at Nightmare, The Dark, and Apex one after the other. Things get a little brighter (though there’s perhaps a death theme moving through the field this month) with Uncanny and Fireside Magazine. There are all issues that send my review copies, which I super appreciate, and which means I can get to them a little earlier. Next week I’ll try to hit the latest Clarkesworld as well as catch up on Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, the Escape Artists, and more. Stay tuned!

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 10/08/2021

So I can actually kinda welcome October now, as this week finds my first October reviews, and I’ve front loaded the post with them, covering the triad of Fantasy, Nightmare, and Lightspeed. It’s spoopy season so both Fantasy and Nightmare get into the swing of things nicely, as both have a tendency to feature grim themes and content. Then I dip back into September content to catch up on Strange Horizons, Tor, Podcastle, GigaNotoSaurus, and Anathema. Some of those were pretty late editions to the month (Anathema dropped on the 30th), but some I just kinda forgot I hadn’t already covered (sorry GigaNotoSaurus). Luckily, no harm no foul. Onward!

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 09/17/2021

I swear I will catch up someday! Okay that’s probably not true, but at the very least I will make it through this year hopefully only a bit behind schedule. So I’m at least fully into September work this week, looking mostly at some monthly issues plus I managed to squeeze in the first Strange Horizons of the month. In full issues, I look at Lightspeed and Nightmare, which completes the triumvirate I started with Fantasy two weeks ago. I also look at Flash Fiction Online, The Dark, and the latest Uncanny Magazine, which features the single novella that was promised as part of last year’s funding campaign. So yeah, lots to get to!

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 08/13/2021

After the packed reading of last week, I’m taking things a little bit easier this week, looking at six publications that will close out July and get into August’s short SFF. It’s also rather light on poetry, but that happens. Mostly, it’s a chance to catch the few stragglers I had almost missed, whether it’s because I swear I had checked and Strange Horizons hadn’t had a poem the first time I looked, or because I could have sworn I reviewed Clarkesworld earlier in the month. Oops! I’m really hoping I haven’t forgotten anything else, because not going to lie my brain feels a little mushy these days. I’m still trying to try, but be gentle with me please.

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 07/09/2021

So turns out I’ve probably bitten off more than I can chew when it comes to reviews. Sigh. But given the fact that I’m just getting to July reviews now and given just how many I have to get to this month, it’s possible that I’ll have to make some adjustments in the future. Maybe not. It’s possible that some venues are closing, or will go off output for a while, but that’s always something of a gamble, and given all I want to cover…well, we’ll see. For now, I’ll do my best to keep up and just hope that I don’t fall apart too thoroughly. Like I said, this month is still a bit of June, with Tor and Strange Horizons, and then lots of July with F&SF (never sure when to count these as they release a month before the cover says?), Lightspeed, Nightmare, Fantasy, and the latest Beneath Ceaseless Skies. No rest for weary short SFF reviewers, I guess.

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 06/11/2021

Well May was certainly a month. I thought I was only going to have a few things to finish up, and then EVERYTHING RELEASED. So there’s still a whole lot of May content here, from Mermaids Monthly and Fusion Fragment (which I was expecting) to Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, and Cast of Wonders (who I should have suspected). I do manage to get into June, though, with looks at the trifecta of Lightspeed, Nightmare, and Fantasy. And I did it all around the Memorial Day weekend and my birthday. Weeeee! Of course, that means I’m behind in my X Marks the Story work (because I like to wait to read the entire month before finalizing things). So it goes? In other other news, June’s Flash Fiction Online is entirely reprints, so I won’t specifically be covering those, though I do recommend checking out the issue, which is very good. So yeah, onward!

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 05/14/2021

Welcome to May proper, at least here at QSR. Yes, the month is about half over, but with all that came out in April I might be a little behind. Eep! Anyway, Not too much incredibly new about today’s post, as I’m covering venues that I’ve covered previously, and most of the ones I take care of first every month. Most of these are monthly, though Apex is bimonthly, Beneath Ceaseless Skies is biweekly, and Strange Horizons is weekly. There’s a lot to get to, though, including a lot of short stories, a few poems, and a decent amount of novelettes. The works skew rather grim for a lot of these, too, though I feel that Apex in a bit of a twist has a few really hopeful stories that were fun. Anyway, onward!

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 04/09/2021

March is dead. Long live April! Or something like that. This week I am hoping to close out my March reads, at least (unless I have completely missed something, which happens). There was a bit of activity late in the month what with the release of a special issue from Strange Horizons, but mostly now I’m moving into stuff from April. Now that we’re entering into the second quarter of the year, it means that all the quarterly publications I’ve been following (many of them new to my coverage this year) will be putting out new issues. Luckily they seem spread out enough that I shouldn’t be too buried, but we’ll see how this goes. Yay. Anyway, I expect to stay busy, and I’m glad that I got to cover Baffling, because it’s fairly large and always amazing, and I can’t wait to see what the rest of the month is going to bring!

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 03/12/2021

Well the year isn’t really slowing down. Eff. But that’s mostly okay! I’m staying busy, at least. This week I’m moving through a bunch of publications, catching up on some that I’ve not exactly missed but needed to get yet from February. As a peek into my process, most of these are from places where I receive review copies, which helps me get to them promptly (F&SF and Apex, which I covered last week, are also in that boat). The rest are irregular/weekly releases that I try not to fall too far behind on. I try. Again, eff. I still have one or two review copies to get to, afterwards I’ll move to regular releases like Clarkesworld that are out in their entirety for free early in the month. Irregulars and issues that release a little at a time by necessity get moved back further in the month. So yeah!

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 02/05/2021

The year just keeps right on rolling! Up today is a told at eight different publications. Some are very short (just one poem in the latest Strange Horizons and just one story that I review from the latest Fireside Magazine) and some are a bit longer. Some are from January, some are from February, and the anthology is actually from last year (but ICYMI it’s very very good!). In general, I can say that I’m reading a lot more this year, and that the “a lot more” is coming generally in the form of short stories rather than novelettes and novellas. I’m going to have to figure out ways to try and mitigate that, but it’s an issue in that there are just way more short stories put out in a year than otherwise. Still, I’m really liking that I’m able to get to more things.

As a scheduling note, and along the note from above, these posts will cover recent stuff, but not always from the month noted in the title of the posts. Just because there’s a mix of stuff and I get some things early and some I have to wait for like the last day of the month to cover, so apologies if this is all something of a mess. But I’m trying! Anyway, to the reviews!

Quick Sips 01/15/2021

So here’s how this is going to go. First, I’ll do a little intro. As in, hi all! 2021 is certainly off to…a start. National and international politics aside, though, I’m here to reflect more on short SFF and so I’ve been seeking out whatever I can to read. I have queries in a few places about review copy but haven’t heard back. Otherwise, I’ve been mostly sticking to venues that I have already covered and that I could get my hands on full issues of. This week I’ll briefly touch on 8 publications, which will probably be more than normal but I quasi-skipped this update last week because I was still catching up so much on late 2020 reads.

Now, to be fully transparent, a number of those late reviews I did are also technically 2021 releases (the last Beneath Ceaseless Skies I reviewed and the last three months of Baffling Magazine reviews). And a bunch of stuff that I expect out into 2020 from Fireside I technically already covered because it was released in the Quarterly in 2020. Apologies if that’s all kinds of vague. Anyway, the year is off to…well, a bit of a grim start. Part of that is because of the return of Apex Magazine, which is focused on dark SFF. There’s also a big anniversary Nightmare Issue. But perhaps because of the tenseness of the rest of the world at large, the general fiction even from other publications seems a bit grim as well. So it goes?

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #127

Art by Grandeduc / Adobe Stock Image

So this issue of Lightspeed Magazine begins my December coverage here at Quick Sip Reviews. As 2021 is bringing changes to the way I review, this is the final issue of Lightspeed that I will be reviewing with this amount of depth. I will still be reading the issues and engaging with the works, reflecting on them and my readings. But it’s still a somewhat emotional moment for me, after six years of continuous full coverage of the original stories, to reach this moment. Luckily, it’s a powerful issue to close on, looking at the nature of dreams and reality, stories and lies, and the truth in all of the above. The works are interesting and present a range of worlds where people are struggling against violence, corruption, and the threat of being consumed. These aren’t by and large happy stories, but they are provocative and rich in meaning and artistry. So, without further delay, my last (for now at least) full review of an issue of Lightspeed Magazine!

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #126

Art by Roman3d / Adobe Stock Image

Lightspeed is here and for November things are a little bit different. Instead of the usual two science fiction and two fantasy stories, there’s one longer sci fi novelette and two fantasy stories. So not a huge difference, really (and one the publication has done plenty of times before), but a change all the same. What hasn’t changed is that the fiction is at turns sharp and charming and wrenching, the character work solid, the world building epic, and that it all comes together to form a rather awesome issue of short SFF. There are spacial anomalies that defy the laws of physics, magic that is caught in the tears of a cosmic mourner, and a cat who isn’t about to let anything threaten the World Tree. The stories are very different, and not very linked thematically, but they provide a great range, and a little something for everyone. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #125

Art by Grandeduc / Adobe Stock Image

Three short stories and a novelette round out the original content in October’s Lightspeed Magazine. And it’s not exactly a spooky month of offerings, though there is a vampire for those interested. Rather, the stories deal a lot with stories. Stories people tell that help to define the world they move through. Of good and evil. Of hero and monsters. And the stories end up dealing with the ways those stories can be affirming and healing, and the ways those stories can be cages, devices of erasure, pain, and destruction. And the works cover a lot of ground, from post-disaster Chicago to a romance far far away, from a small village in Hungary to an online reality that can be more real than real. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #124

Art by Grandeduc / Adobe Stock Image

The September Lightspeed Magazine brings out three short stories and one novelette, many of them tinged with a level of meta-commentary, whether through an author literally self-inserting into the text or through a fictional author confronting themselves through a series of revision notes. There’s a blurring of form, of reality and fantasy (or science fiction), and the result is a selection of stories that provoke and challenge. That aren’t always a joy to read, but that question narrative structure, time, and do a lot of interesting things. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #123

Art by grandfailure / Adobe Stock

Lightspeed comes out swinging in August with there short stories and a novelette that, as usual, cover both science fiction and fantasy. More than that, though, the works move from quasi-religious science fiction to far future generation ship dystopian science fiction, from twisted mythic fantasy to historical fantasy that bleeds into horror. Through it all, the thematic link that binds them is storytelling itself, each piece in part looking at the power of narrative to shape perception and reality, to sway hearts and either reinforce corrupt systems, or bring them crashing down, opening the doors for healing and peace. It’s an interesting and varied issue, and I’ll get right to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #122

Art by Galen Dara

I’m starting my July reviews with a look at the latest Lightspeed Magazine, which lands with four short stories (the lack of novelettes is cut by the fact that three of the four stories are over 6000 words, though, so there’s still a lot of original fiction). The works themselves show a wide range of speculative visions, from a very interesting kind of alien visitation to new takes on Baba Yaga and the Peter Pan story. The works recontextualize all these things through the lens of now, reshaping science fiction and fantasy alike by challenging the tropes and traditions of the genres. The result is often delightful, occasionally devastating, and very much worth checking out. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #121

Art by Reiko Murakami

I kick off my coverage of June short SFF with a look at the latest issue of Lightspeed, which contains three short stories and one novelette. And the stories seem to circle around isolation, finding characters who out of choice or circumstance are living largely on their own on in a small group. And who find, in that isolation, that the rules of the world seem to bend a bit. That stories become incredibly important, because of how they define the world, how they give shape to its nebulous shadows. And how they order and organize forces that don't have a great explanation, but through the lens of those stories have meaning. It's a great variety on display this month, and I'll get right to my reviews!

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #110

Art by Galen Dara

I kick off my May reviews with this look at Lightspeed, where again it's all short stories. And it marks a return to a few ongoing projects, both in the form of a new work set in the same universe as Ada Hoffmann's The Outside, as well as a new excerpt from Alex Weinstein's Lost Travelers' Tour Guide. Throw in a pair of wholly original stories that deal with romance and love amidst fear, uncertainty, and shame, and it makes for a very interesting issue, one grounded very much in love and communication, and the fragile lines between people. There are some stunning visuals and deep character moments, and if you don't believe me yet let's get to the reviews!