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 - Fireside Fiction #38

November's issue marks the last of 2016 for Fireside Fiction and it closes the year with equal measures joy and sorrow. Rather a fitting end to a very conflicting year, certainly. The stories all evoke the past in different ways, whether by spinning a tale laced with an older-style adventure or settling into grief and loss looking back on life or fitting characters into a tradition that has been going on since there have been roads crossing. These are incredibly different stories, but they share certain links beyond that they appear in the same space. They all create complex characters concerned with family and with place. With tradition and complicating tradition, putting their own twist on what has come before. And, of course, they are all quite good. So yeah, to the reviews! 

Art by Galen Dara