Quick Sips - Tor dot com October 2018

Art by Mary Haasdyk

It was a fairly light month from Tor dot com, with only two stories (one short story, one novelette), and one of those coming from the shared Wild Cards setting. For that, there's an interesting focus on ethics and morality. The pressure to act, and the ways that moral action can be muddied by a number of factors. At their cores, though, the stories are about conversations, and about understanding. About overcoming prejudice in order to see that someone's seemingly strange or wrong view of a situation actually makes a lot of sense, and give them a valuable (if often inconvenient) perspective on what's going on. So yeah, to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Tor dot com October 2017

It's another rather light month from Tor dot com, with one short story and one novella, though the two pieces deliver powerful messages of art and fear and the way that a toxic culture can lead to people falling victim to demons internal and external. Both look at characters being pushed to participate in systems that are...not exactly healthy. One is a model influenced by financial reasons and a pursuit of "the art" who nearly helps to usher in a true nightmare. The other focuses on a young man pressured by his own insecurities, fears, and weaknesses toward self-destruction and endless anger. Both stories show a sort of abuse that is insidious and deep, and how characters can begin to push back against it. To the reviews!

Art by Goñi Montes

Quick Sips - Tor dot com March 2017

First I guess I have to talk about Tor dot com's March project, Nevertheless, She Persisted, which features eleven pieces of flash fiction all centered around that idea, that quote. These are stories that hit and hit hard, some of them blisteringly defiant and some of them steeped in despair. The stories (and poem) show the many facets of the idea of persistence. The power of it and also the crushing nature of having to persist, and persist, and persist, ever and always. The stories run across a wide range of speculative genres and it's wonderful to see the authors taking this central idea and being inspired by it. Using it to say something new and interesting. Making a statement on our current situation and refusing to look away from the uncomfortable truths of it. So yes, it's a wonderful project and makes for a some surprising start to Tor's March.

That's not all that the publication got up to, though. Oh no. This would have been a full month even without the eleven flash stories, as there are also three short stories and two novelettes to look at. And wow. These are some gorgeous pieces that take on some deeply uncomfortable themes and manage to find glimmers of hope even in the most devastating of loss and corruption. They are stories of ghosts and magic, bodies and wars. And before I get too lost in describing them, why don't I just get to the reviews!

Art by Scott Bakal

Quick Sips - Uncanny #9 (April Stuff)

Spring might be in the air but Uncanny Magazine is keeping things in April rather fucking dark. In the best of ways. These are stories that hit and hit hard. Some of them very hard, with characters that shine but situations that are a bit outside their control. Where tragedy seems like that rolling boulder in Indiana Jones and the characters are quite fast enough to...well, the stories and the poetry mix tragedy and happiness, love with loss. It's a challenging issue but also a very good one, with exciting worlds to explore and emotions to feel. So time to review!

Art by Katy Shuttleworth

Quick Sips - Uncanny #8 (January Stuff)

Today I'm looking at the latest from Uncanny Magazine, which kicks off it's second full year. It's once more brought a strong mix of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, looking at the things that bring us together, the things that keep us apart. The fiction revels in the strange and magical, the poetry is dark as shadow, and the nonfiction is sporting a pocket protector and a letter jacket. It's a nice mix of elements, nothing really dominating thematically but each piece strong, honed, and giving each space to succeed on their own. So time to get to some reviews!

Art by Priscilla H. Kim