Quick Sips - Terraform May 2018

A novel excerpt and a short film keep Motherboard’s Terraform fiction lineup a little lean for May, but there’s still two pieces to look at that challenge what the future might look at. The stories are very much about loneliness and isolation and the injustice of systems. In both, people become trapped by the world as it is defined by money, by injustice, by misogyny. Moments of real human connection are sparse and, where present, precious. It’s perhaps not surprising that the publication features a brand new depiction of sexbots (a popular trope for Terraform), but I continue to be impressed by the nuance and care given to these stories. It’s not a piece that’s about sex, but rather the power of small moments of vulnerability and mutual comfort. Anyway, it’s a short but moving pair of stories and it’s time to review them!

Quick Sips - Tor dot com May 2018

It’s certainly an interesting mix of stories for May’s Tor dot com lineup. One novella, one novelette, and three short stories mean that there’s a lot to get to, and whatever your poison (contemporary fantasy, near-future science fiction, far-flung space soap opera, and more) there’s probably something that you’ll like. A lot of the stories are actually a lot to do with aging, too, though not all of them about the same kind of aging. But dealing with the particular trials and tribulations of a certain time in a person’s life (puberty, adolescence, early adulthood, middle age, and nearing retirement). The stories all show the baggage that the characters bring to these epochs, these events, and how that shapes them going forward. How they might be able to overcome isolation and fear and the changes happening to them, and how they might not be able to overcome. So yeah, to the reviews!

Art by Feifei Ruan

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 05/21/2018 & 05/28/2018

The end of May brings one story and two poems to Strange Horizons (as well as a bunch of nonfiction you should check out), and it’s an emotionally resonating bunch of SFF that centers difference, isolation, and joy. Here we find characters who don’t quite fit in, who are able to see something, to feel something, that they’re not really supposed to. For some, this puts them into the realm of monsters, deserving of pain and isolation. For others, it means being able to make lives easier for people, but being limited in how much you can do. For all of them, the point seems to be to reach for a place where they can be fulfilled and happy, even if perhaps that place doesn’t exist yet. It’s a great mix of fiction and poetry, so let’s get to the reviews!

Art by Gabriella Eriksson

Quick Sips - The Book Smugglers May 2018

The Awakenings season has begun at The Book Smugglers! The theme is perhaps the vaguest of their guiding ideas so far, but if this first story is anything to go by, it’s going to be another amazing year of short SFF. Because kicking things off is a story about magic and about portals. About escape and about bodies. And yes, about awakening, not to this secret world where everything is perfect, but rather to the knowledge that the world is complicated, and often corrupt, and magic and happiness are things that must be worked at, especially if you’re one of those who don’t want what the world wants for you. It’s a lovely and inspiring read, even as it doesn’t put much stock in escape fantasies. To the review!

Art by Emma Glaze

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #252

Competition can bring out the worst in people, but as this issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies proves, it can also bring out the best. Both stories this issue are about races, and magical ones at that, featuring women who find themselves squaring off against their lovers (former or current) for the chance to win a great prize. In both stories, though, the actual prize might not matter as much as the competition itself, as the thrill of the race. Because when these characters are faced with what they’d do if they won, the results are...interesting. It’s a wonderfully fun pair of stories, expertly paired, and I’ll stop yammering on in introduction and just get to the reviews!

Art by Jereme Peabody

Quick Sips - Lackington's #17 [Gothics]

It’s a huge issue of Lackington’s out this month, focusing on the Gothic. And from literal Ostrogoths to exquisite corpses, there’s a lot to see and a lot of amazing interpretations of the theme. There are eight original stories (and a reprint that you should definitely check out but that I’m not reviewing this time) and each of them feature themes and settings that embrace the Gothic aesthetic. Haunted houses, neglected estates, and isolated villages all make the stories ripe with shadows that just might swallow up the unwary traveler. These are pieces about facing the strange and the dangerous, the supernatural and the all-too-human. And, well, not always coming out the other side. There’s a great mood to these stories that really gets at the heart of the theme, and it’s a fantastic way to explore what is one of the oldest kinds of SFF stories. So let’s get to it!

Art by Richard Wagner

Quick Sips - Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Q36

The second issue of the year has dropped at Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, featuring three stories (2 shorts and 1 novelette) and three poems. And it’s an issue that definitely walks a fine line between darkness and hope, between violence and justice. The stories feature characters who are struggling with their choices, their paths. For many of them, they want to reach a place beyond the corruption that is holding them down, that is hurting them and those around them. For some of them, this means taking arms against a sea of trouble, and for others it means striving to consume and become that sea of trouble. But whether trying to break down or co-opt corruption and injustice, the stories show how close the two can be, and what might tip people toward one or the other. It’s a very strong issue of fantasy short stories and poetry, and it’s time to get to the reviews!

Art by Jereme Peabody

Quick Sips - Uncanny #22 [June stuff]

The May fiction and poetry from Uncanny Magazine has something of a yearning quality to me. The pieces deal with desire, and with longing, and with reaching both backwards in time and forward. Memory and comfort, lust and power all mix and mingle here with characters who want to find something that seems to be missing in their lives, some vital spark that can’t seem to light in the environment they find themselves in. So they must move, or seek aid, or change their environments to better suit their needs. The stories are on the short side, the poetry very concerned with myth and women, and the issue as a whole is a wonderful way to usher in the arrival of warmer weather. Let’s get to the reviews!

Art by Julie Dillon

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #251

It’s a rather quick issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, with two stories linked in a way by their length (neither of them over 2500 words, which is unusual for the publication). But it lends both stories a sort of impact, and a feeling of anticipation. In the first, that means having to wait for the results of a very important test. In the second, that means having to wait for the results of a very important confrontation. In both, there are certain indications that might guide readers otwards guessing what happens next, but both times it’s left up in the air what _actually_ transpires after the final stories end. What it is certain is that both look at characters struggling to solve tricky problems, ones where they have been made culpable of a misstep and are desperate to find a way forward. So yeah, to the reviews!

Art by Jereme Peabody

Quick Sips - Shimmer #43 [May stuff]

It’s a rather dark May for Shimmer Magazine, with two original stories that explore the idea of home, sacrifice, pain, and death. Of course, for those similarities, the stories themselves are very different, the first a contemporary fantasy with Norse gods, sex, and cycles of abuse while the second is a science fiction story about distance, longing, and the annihilation of self when confronted with the alien. Both feature people reaching to reconnect with something that seems to have changed in their absence. When, really, what’s changed is them, and the nostalgic vision of their homes that have got them through so much ends up being not enough when it’s finally reached. These are two beautiful stories, so let’s get right to the reviews!

Art by Sandro Castelli

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 05/07/2018 & 05/14/2018

Strange Horizons launches into May with two stories and three poems (hey, bonus poem!) that deal with myth and pain and narratives. That trace the ways that people struggle and push back against the weight of inertia and tradition. The way that people need to struggle and push back against the ways in which abuses and harms are accepted and passed down. Because without standing up to them, without fighting to make things better, the world slides into a very dark, very violent place. The stories find characters trying to change things, trying to invent new ways of thinking and acting in order to face the increasingly dire state of things. It’s a strong collection of works, and I’ll get right to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Clarkesworld #140

May finds Clarkesworld back down to four original releases, though the word count still tops out around 40k of new work. Two short stories, a novelette, and a novella make for a weighty issue, which to me swirls around fate, injustice, time, and struggle. In each, characters push against the frustrations of a world that doesn’t really live up to their expectations. They are let down, hurt, perhaps even nearly destroyed, and in the face of that it might be easy to embrace bitterness, despair, and violence. And yet the characters here mostly just want to be happy, to find ways to survive and maybe work to fill the holes inside themselves. It’s a wrenching, often difficult issue, and I’m going to get right to the reviews!

Art by Arthur Haas

Quick Sips - Nightmare #68

May brings a pair of original stories to Nightmare Magazine that look at families and different kinds of hauntings. That feature situations that might seem terrifying at first, but mostly only at the surface. That, once you really dig down into them, the horror and the violence seems to bleed away, and something like compassion, like joy, like love begins to shine through. These are stories that feature some definite abuses, that feature characters lashing out at times, but they also feature a reaching toward something better. A healing of wounds. A justice snatched from the hands of corruption. And though they are not exactly easy reads, they are definitely beautiful reads very much worth checking out. To the reviews!

Art by Grandfailure / Fotolia

Quick Sips - Apex #108

It’s a pretty big May for Apex Magazine, at least in terms of number of stories (with four originals). Which means there’s a lot more worlds to see and experience and get made uncomfortable by. Apex specializes in dark fiction, and these four stories do a nice job of showing how differently darkness can manifest in short SFF. From trauma and war to injustice and defeat to death and undeath to panic and fear, the stories all have different takes on what makes our skin crawl and our stomachs sink. So let’s dive right in to the reviews!

Art by Anna Dittmann

Quick Sips - GigaNotoSaurus May 2018

May brings a science fiction novelette to GigaNotoSaurus, and one concerned with isolation, social interactions, and human ingenuity. Literature is full of stories of human survivors—people stranded on islands or in remote locations, hoping for rescue. Here that idea is twisted nicely, showing that for all the joy that humans can achieve in their battle against loneliness, there’s plenty of pain and darkness they can create as well. Before I give too much away, though, let’s get to the review!

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #250 (part 2)

The second half of Beneath Ceaseless Skies’ special 250th anniversary issue is out, and it’s definitely got a mystery feel to it. Which is great, because I’m a particular fan of mysteries, and these two take very strange situations and place them into second worlds full of magic and danger, intrigue and trauma. These are stories of people trying to find ways to live with their pasts, to live with the weight of who they are and what they want to become. They are fun but not without their shadows, and not without the presence of death. But they are also about justice, and finding solutions to problems that would otherwise be much worth. So let’s dig in! [as a side note, the final story of the issue marks my 3000th individual review on Quick Sip Reviews, so cheers to that!]

Art by Jereme Peabody

Quick Sips - Flash Fiction Online May 2018

The three original stories of Flash Fiction Online’s May issue deal with art and with encounters, with culture and family and compassion. For the narrators of these stories (which all are told in first person), there are Things Happening that are rather uncomfortable to deal with. Things that push them outside of their comfort zones. And they each have to decide how to deal with that—by hiding away or stepping back or by embracing the unknown, the uncertainty, and the nebulous. And the characters all end up being drawn toward compassion and acceptance first of themselves, leaving their futures open for possible presence of others. It’s a quiet but powerful bunch of stories, and it’s time to review them!

Art by Dario Bijelac

Quick Sips - The Dark #36

The Dark Magazine gets, well, really fucking dark for its May original releases. Examining death and horror as ideas, as characters, and as modes of telling stories, the pieces look at situations made possible because of cruelty and pain. In both, powerful characters play with their victims, trying to learn from them, to perhaps hone their craft through their victims. And yet there is a sense that what might be happening is just more of the same, different in setting and style but still, at its core, the same as ever. Still, sadly, very human. And it’s a fascinating and difficult issue that I’ll just get to reviewing!

Art by Abigail Larson

Quick Sips - Glittership Autumn 2017/Winter 2018 (part 4/4)

I’m closing out my look of Glittership’s Autumn 2017/Winter 2018 issue today with reviews of an original story, two reprints, and an original poem. And…and I think for these stories there’s a general weirdness that pervades. They’re queer not only in the identities of the characters involved, but in the way they bend genres and expectations. From a vampire dating story to gay space cowboys and beyond, the pieces have a way of being original and very memorable. They also carry with them some heavy darkness. From loss, from fear, from the various systems that have let the characters down, and that they are determined to fight back against. And ultimately the stories mix tragedy and hope, survival and joy, and make for a great way to close out what has been a great issue for the publication. To the reviews!

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