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 - Diabolical Plots #50

Art by Joey Jordan

Two new short stories mark the fiftieth issue of Diabolical Plots, and the works seem very much to be concerned with generational shifts and issues. To me, at least, the stories focus on the ways that the past builds up systems designed to exploit rather than help younger people. That envision the past and present as castles that must be defended, as sacred objects that should not change or adapt because for the older people policing them, they are comfortable and safe. Only the story reveals how that’s often not even the case, and makes compelling strides to complicate and challenge those systems by showing just how much they tend to let everyone down. Let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Flash Fiction Online November 2016

With the latest issue of Flash Fiction Online the publication continues its trend of recent months of focusing on the relationship between mothers and daughters. All three stories orbit this central relationship and the many forms it can take. And there is an additional focus in these stories of distance. The distance between a mother and a child. And the stories approach that very differently. These are very complex pieces, and ones that strike me as a definitely-not-objective reader. At their best the stories are brilliant examinations of scale and hope, difference and distance. So yeah, time to review! 

Art by Dario Bijelac

Quick Sips - Flash Fiction Online March 2016

It's march and spring is sort of in the air. Not really here in Wisconsin, but in the latest issue of Flash Fiction Online there is a sense of the season, one of revolutions and rebirth. The stories this month are incredibly different, from far-off wars and atrocities on imagined planets to strange visions of the people stuck in their situations here on Earth, to the tenuous strands that link the two, that whispers that we are all made of stars, linked in a great chain that cannot be broken. It's not exactly a happy collection of stories, but there is a strength to them. To stand. To learn. To transform. And this is the season for it. So let's kick off March right with some reviews, shall we? 

Art by Dario Bijelac