Quick Sips - Lackington's #21 [Cocktails]

Art by P. Emerson Williams

There’s a new issue of Lackington’s out and the theme is just my thing--cocktails! There are seven stories that explore the different ways people can mix drinks and mix drugs and mix all kinds of things, up to and including people. The stories are strange and moving, complicated and a wee bit haunting (and okay, sometimes more than a wee bit), so it’s an issue well in keeping with the reputation Lackington’s has earned for itself over the years. These are pieces that delight and confound, that beckon and tease, and that ultimately deliver sever different great takes on the themes. There’s a nice mix of genres, from fantasy to science fiction to horror, and lots of worlds to see and tastes to enjoy. To sit back and let this issue mix you up something memorable. 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 - Flash Fiction Online April 2020

The latest issue of Flash Fiction Online is a nice mix of fun and kinda devastating. But the sad is sandwiched between two stories that make it easy to smile, and there’s plenty of charming humor to make up for the more disturbing and violent themes of the middle piece. So it’s a nicely balanced issue that moves well and focuses a bit on science fiction rather than spreading it about with regards to genre, but they’re three very different science fiction stories, and that’s great. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Diabolical Plots #58

Art by Joey Jordan

Two stories round out the SFF offerings from Diabolical Plots this month, and they cover some interesting speculative ground. Both pieces establish themselves in a rather clear literary tradition. The first looks at the idea of utopia through a statistical lens, tracing the ways “good intentions” might curve into some decidedly unjust shapes. The second takes a more noir approach, using a speculative flourish to flesh out a situation involving a domestic dispute, aliens, and rapid aging. And both offer interesting takes on these more classic elements, building two solid worlds readers can sink their teeth into. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 03/05/2018 & 03/12/2018

Strange is indeed part of the name of Strange Horizons, so it should be no surprise that early March brings a bounty of weird stories and poems to the publication. From people living split lives between night and day, between genders, between husbands and wives, to a collector of moons, to a poem that’s also a game, to the boredom of immortals, the SFF on display in these two issues all take the familiar and give it a healthy twist. And yet in these strange takes on the world as we know it there’s a sort of carnival funhouse glimpse at humanity seen through new and interesting angles. Angles that might give us better insights into what it means to love and to yearn for. What it means to be alive, and be human, and struggle against all the ways we might fail, and dissolve. It’s a lovely collection of pieces that I’m going to get right to reviewing!

Art by Youheum Son

Quick Sips - Terraform October 2017

Just in time for Halloween, the October Terraform story are a bit spooky. They explore what it means to be human, and especially what it means to be human in a time when technology and abuses both personal and societal are accepted and normalized. It visits people and robots and ghosts and stranger beings still who must grapple what is to live with the inheritance of humanity, or by changing themselves who try to avoid it. It's about reinvention and learning, about compassion and movement and evolution. And the stories are beautiful and just a bit eerie, which makes them perfect for the season. So let's get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #69

This month's Lightspeed Magazine comes hot out the gate and doesn't really let up. The four stories are on the slim side for a typical month of the publication but it gives them a faster feel, a breath of energy and life. The stories are not, by and large, the happiest of things, but they have an energy and a punch to them, an electricity that sizzles and a power that lasts well after the last word is read. A nice mix of science fiction and fantasy, these stories are mirrors to our own world, showing things that are not always comfortable but that need to be examined. Now, to the reviews!
 

Art by Reiko Murakami