Quick Sips - Lightspeed #96

The May issue of Lightpseed Magazine speaks to me of desires thwarted. Of childhood dreams dashed. Of adult desires frustrated. The stories focus on people who are not satisfied. Who are both hurt and a bit arrogant. Who want to push back against what they see as the injustices in their lives, though in rather different ways. Because some people take their hurt and use it to hurt others, which some people take that hurt and try to heal, try to inspire, try to protect others from those same hurts. It’s an issue that gets a little cloudy wrt consent at times, and is perhaps a bit bleak in a few places. But that, by and large, features characters wanting to change their lives and finding that maybe the change they thought they wanted isn’t really what’s for the best. To the reviews!

Art by Galen Dara

Quick Sips - Shimmer #38 [July stuff]

It’s a bit of a strange month at Shimmer Magazine, with two original stories that full embrace the weird. Whether that means imagining a world where mutant zombie-lizard-people face some Western-tinged gunslinging or a world something like 1920’s France where people are deconstructing themselves in the face of war, these are pieces that embrace SFF’s ability to be different. And they are stories of characters in turmoil, in pain, trying to make sense out of a world that doesn’t really make a lot of sense. These are story with action and with something distinct and rather undefinable about them and lacking the language to describe them in broad strokes, I’ll try to get to specifics in the reviews!

Art by Sandro Castelli

Quick Sips - Fireside Fiction May 2017

It's another fairly full month from Fireside Fiction, with about 16,000 words of fiction that moves from fantasy to science fiction with a fluid grace. These are stories that largely explore trauma and the looming threat of violence. There is an added focus on children here and the ways that their worlds are arrayed against them and the various ways they seek to protect themselves, not always successfully. The stories show characters moving around great and personal dangers and being unsure how to proceed, being made to make the decision of what to do when it's a very difficult decision to make. Some of the pieces are fun and some are decidedly dark and all of them are worth sitting down with so let's just get to the reviews!

Art by Galen Dara

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #210

The stories in the latest issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies are not exactly for the faint of heart. They are violent stories, and in some ways they are about the triumph of violence over peace. But they take very different meanings and paths when dealing with that idea. Because in the first peace is something artificial and corrupt, hiding a violence that is ongoing, and ending the peace means allowing that old and infested wound to perhaps heal. And in the second, peace is something that seems impossible, that seems naïve and stupid, and through the actions of the story peace is something that seems to be put out of reach, the wound only further infected and festering. Side by side they make an interesting contrast, and I'm just going to get to the reviews! 

Art by Raphael Lacoste