Quick Sips - Fireside Magazine #82

Art by Pao-ju Lin

The August issue of Fireside Magazine contains four short stories and a bunch of nonfiction (which I won’t be covering but do recommend you check out). The stories are all…far from easy things. There is a sense of confinement that runs through the issue, a sense of decline and suffocation. There are people literally imprisoned, either by a corrupt government in the past or a possibly dystopic government in the future. There are people finding their lives sinking, unable to pull back from their descent. There is loss. There is the prospect of more loss to come. The stories are, again, not easy, but they’re also rewarding and quite good, and I’ll get right to my reviews!

Quick Sips - Mithila Review #13 [part 3]

Art by John Glover

I’m back to finish off my look at the latest issue of Mithila Review. And the works are a mix of strange and devastating, haunting and interesting. The works look at damage, and the need for people to take control of their lives, their stories. The need for people to craft their own present, their own future. whether that means embracing the past or, more likely, rejecting it in order to do something fully new. There are two stories and three poems, and I definitely suggest people check out the reprint as well (which I have already reviewed on this blog), plus all the nonfiction. It’s a wonderful issue, and I’ll get right to my reviews!

Quick Sips - Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #44

Art by Rengin Tumer

There’s a new Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, and this issue brings three short stories (two just shy of novelettes) and two poems. Each of them explores a different world, even if those worlds are also kind of our own. They also deal a lot with religion, with faith in the face of prejudice and the threat of violence. The characters are caught at times between what they’ve been taught or are expected to believe and the reality that they observe. But as the publication promises, these are largely fantasy stories that deal with heroics, or perhaps anti-heroics, as people fight, love, and make sweet art amidst danger, intrigue, and betrayal. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #43

Art by Jereme Peabody

The latest from Heroic Fantasy Quarterly brings two short stories, a novelette, and two poems that celebrate fantasy. Now, that celebration is a bit...dark this issue, thanks to a focus on some grim themes of redemption, debts, and revenge. Each of the stories features characters trying to make up for events in their pasts, trying to seek something like atonement, even when they’ve done nothing wrong. Not all of them are exactly successful. But in looking at their struggles the stories reveal settings dipped in corruption and prejudice, full of hungry jaws waiting for a moment’s weakness. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Mithila Review #11 [part 1]

Art by Edward Hicks (1848)

It’s been a while since the last issue of Mithila Review, but issue 11 is out now! Now, things are a little different, in that the works aren’t being released all at once. Most of the content is live, but there are some more to come, and to cope I’m going to be taking the issue in two parts. In the first half there are three stories and four poems, and there will be again when I finish up my review next month. There’s a lot to experience, from a very very short piece to a full novelette, from a satire featuring zombies to a nightmarish look at a possible future where a border wall is being built. The poetry is great, the fiction dips into some rather dark wells, and the issue as a whole is a solid experience. So glad to see a new issue from this publication. Let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Fireside Magazine #63

Art by Galen Dara

There's some big goings-on at Fireside Magazine in 2018, and January kicks off with five original stories plus an original poem. The pieces can be rather short (the poem might be longer than a number of the stories), but that doesn't mean they pack less of a punch. The pieces range from deeply dark to lighter and so so cute, from epic and unexpected to unsettling and tense. The relationships that the pieces introduce, though, are complex and interesting and enlightening. From a father desperate to give his son a better life to a spouse unsure how to talk about what's happening to them without draining those they care about. The piece looks at impossible situations, or situations that seem impossible, and shows how people move forward regardless. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Q38

Art by Toe Keen

Four stories and three poems anchor a new issue of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly that seems to linger on feeling trapped. Because most of the pieces build up a situation where the characters are either physically confined or philosophically confined. Either they find themselves on a raft at see, or in a vault deep in a keep, and they must try to find their way out of a situation with ever-narrowing options, or else they are in a situation where change seems impossible, where disaster and war seem inevitable. The stories and poems all show people fighting back against the gravity of corruption and violence and greed and finding that often times there is no winning there. That the best they can hope for is to delay the final crushing blow. But fighting against that weight isn’t useless. Isn’t pointless. Sometimes, it’s all a person has. So yeah, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 11/05/2018, 11/12/2018, & more

Good news, everyone—Strange Horizons funded for 2019! The fund drive had been running for a while, complete with bonus fiction and poetry, so it’s a bit of a larger release than usual today, with three stories and five poems to look at. And there’s a lot of damage on display in these works. A lot of characters trapped by circumstance in situations where there really doesn’t seem like a good way out. Where their pain seems inevitable and unavoidable. And, often, pain is unavoidable. But the shape of that pain is often something that can be effected, and here we see how these characters seek to choose the pain they have to experience. And it’s just a wonderful collection of short SFF, really showing what Strange Horizons does as a publication, and I’ll get right to my reviews!

Quick Sips - Apex #111

It’s a special Zodiac-themed double issue of Apex Magazine this month, guest edited by Sheree Renée Thomas (who also just guest edited the SEUSA Strange Horizons special issue in late July). There’s A LOT of fiction and as with most of the Apex special issues, poetry is back! There’s actually six short stories and well as six poems in this issue, making it perhaps the biggest I’ve read from the publication. And it all swirls around the idea of the Zodiac, of divination, of astrology. Not always literally, though the actual signs and horoscopes make an appearance or two. Instead, the stories look very much at the stories that we tell. At the ways these stories then become everyone’s stories, our minds making them personal, intimate, and topical. Because our lives have a way of getting into the stories we tell and the stories we take in, and then we might mistake our pulling them out again like a bit of magic and mysticism. But there’s a lot of different takes on stories and truth to find in these SFF works, and I should just quit talking about reviewing them and get to reviewing them!

Art by Stacey Robinson

Quick Sips - Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Q35

The first issue of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly has landed and brought with a trio if fantasy novelettes and a trio of poems. The stories are a mix of historical fantasy (with a new Carvajal story and what could be the beginning of a series of Victorian-era investigations) and second-world fun. The poetry is rather narrative, revealing battlefields of various sorts, whether literal or more symbolic. There’s dragons, monsters, demons, and usurpers to deal with, and the pieces as a whole show characters trying to make things right, trying to lead and to follow their own hearts. It’s a nice mix of pieces, and before I give too much away, let’s get to the reviews!

Art by Jereme Peabody

Quick Sips - Apex #104

Apex Magazine kicks off the new year with a continuing tradition—treating readers to an extra big issue as thanks for the success of last year’s subscription drive. Which means six original stories (including a fantastic translation) and the return of poetry (for this issue only)! The prose runs the gamut of what Apex puts out, giving people an excellent sampler platter of dark SFF that leans a bit sci fi but still has an eye for the strange and magical. The stories range from hopeful to abyssally bleak, but even when the stories lack hope, they tend to reveal something compelling and devastating. Gladly most of the works _are_ hopeful, pulling progress and healing from the jaws of predation. There’s a whole lot to experience in this issue, from monsters in the Wild West to twins in the farthest reaches of space. So without further delay, to the reviews!

Art by Daniele Serra

Quick Sips - Mithila Review #9 [poetry]

People, there’s a whole lot of SFF poetry in the most recent issue of Mithila Review. Twelve poems from nine different poets means there’s a hell of a lot to experience. The pieces swirl around a lot of themes, but some major ones are growth and imagination. Not surprising, perhaps, given that SFF is about wonder and imagination, about chasing those visions and dreams that are often called foolish or childish. Here we find the value of keeping something of a child’s view of the universe, without borders or limitations. There are other works that look at what happens when we let those borders constrict too much, and how sometimes we might struggle against the injustice of complacency. There’s a lot to get to, though, so I’ll jump right into the reviews!

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 04/17/2017 & 04/24/2017

There's another two weeks of content from Strange Horizons and it's...actually rather manageable. One new story (and a flash fiction at that) and two new poems make for a fairly quick read, but the content is still in keeping with the high quality expected from the publication. The fiction is heavy with the weight of tragedy and hope and scarcity and hunger, and the poetry is reaching toward different worlds, toward things that seem and perhaps are out of reach. These are pieces about the distance between pain and numbness, between hope and despair, and the pieces all explore how people can keep going despite bitter circumstances. So let's get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #31

With the giant novella-length epic poem done with, this latest issue of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly brings things back to basics with four original stories and two poems (of much more modest length). The stories build up worlds filled with magic and darkness, where there are things lurking at the periphery, at the edges of the world, in the blank space of maps. The stories look at characters who are seeking something. Themselves or a much-deserved rest or gold or even escape from certain death. And none of the characters find the situation easy. The stories embrace their magic and their mayhem as the character work against the monsters and circumstances arrayed against them and attempt to wrestle some sort of victory from the jaws of defeat. These are fun, sometimes thrilling pieces that build very different world, especially once the poetry gets added in, but it's also a strong issue that does a lot right. So yeah, to the reviews! 

Art by Jereme Peabody

Quick Sips - Apex #87

August has arrive and with it the approach of autumn, which means at Apex Magazine it's a month for stories about death, beauty, and the vastness of space. There's three fiction pieces and four poems in this issue and a solid theme of complicity, murder, freedom, and dissolution. These are stories that examine the morality of killing and the morality of letting others kill. The burden of living chained and the desire for freedom. The small ways that beauty grows and flourishes even in the darkness. It's an issue full of blood and hope, and I'm just going to get to those reviews! 

Art by Marcela Bolivar

Quick Sips - Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #28

I'm adding a new publication to my review pile this month with the twenty-eighth issue of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly. It's a publication that I've admired from afar for a while and provides both fantasy fiction and poetry. This issue is a bit of a difficult one to approach, though, as two of the pieces are continuations of stories that began in the last issue. And one of those is technically the second half of the third story in a series of stories. So, without the context to feel fully comfortable jumping into it, I'm not going to be looking at "." but I certainly encourage to check it out and see what they think. Because I'm skipping that one, though, I will be looking at the entirety of the other 2-parter. Confused yet? I swear next issue will hopefully be hiccup-free. As for this issue, it presents a nice mix of fantasy tales, from fairy tales to fantasy horrors to near-grimdark military pieces. But each piece captures or complicates the idea of the title, the idea of heroic fantasy. To the reivews! 

Art by Jereme Peabody

Quick Sips - Apex #75

Breaking a bit from the light July, the August Apex Magazine is rather full, having four original short stories and four poems. That's...quite a lot to get through, but the good news is that the issue is filled with great talent and great stories, fine pieces that capture a sinking darkness with a pinprick of light to be found, to be grasped like a brass ring, to be used to pierce the darkness and emerge from the other side. The stories are about identity, about pain and difference, and about finding a way to find comfort in that difference. It's a fine issue, and I'm going to review it...now!

Art by Billy Norrby