Quick Sips 12/31/2021

The slowdown continues, though at this point it’s much more about the holidays than about my other deadline, which has now passed. There’s good news associated with it, too, but I’m waiting on word on when I can actually share it. Until then, more reviews! I’m doing my best to hang in there and not fall too far behind, but there’s a bit of a mountain of works to get through this month and this is already the last post that will land in 2021. Still, I did get through Nightmare, The Dark, and GigaNotoSaurus for monthly content, and the quarterly Future Science Fiction Digest, as well as some weekly/biweekly issues from Beneath Ceaseless Skies and Strange Horizons. Lots more to do yet, but I think I can I think I can I think I can.

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 11/19/2021

So it’s another busy week of reviews, if not quite so full as the week before. But I’m done with October for the most part so it’s all November issues I’m looking at today. I start with Lightspeed and things get grim as I look at Nightmare, The Dark, and Apex one after the other. Things get a little brighter (though there’s perhaps a death theme moving through the field this month) with Uncanny and Fireside Magazine. There are all issues that send my review copies, which I super appreciate, and which means I can get to them a little earlier. Next week I’ll try to hit the latest Clarkesworld as well as catch up on Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, the Escape Artists, and more. Stay tuned!

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 10/08/2021

So I can actually kinda welcome October now, as this week finds my first October reviews, and I’ve front loaded the post with them, covering the triad of Fantasy, Nightmare, and Lightspeed. It’s spoopy season so both Fantasy and Nightmare get into the swing of things nicely, as both have a tendency to feature grim themes and content. Then I dip back into September content to catch up on Strange Horizons, Tor, Podcastle, GigaNotoSaurus, and Anathema. Some of those were pretty late editions to the month (Anathema dropped on the 30th), but some I just kinda forgot I hadn’t already covered (sorry GigaNotoSaurus). Luckily, no harm no foul. Onward!

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 09/17/2021

I swear I will catch up someday! Okay that’s probably not true, but at the very least I will make it through this year hopefully only a bit behind schedule. So I’m at least fully into September work this week, looking mostly at some monthly issues plus I managed to squeeze in the first Strange Horizons of the month. In full issues, I look at Lightspeed and Nightmare, which completes the triumvirate I started with Fantasy two weeks ago. I also look at Flash Fiction Online, The Dark, and the latest Uncanny Magazine, which features the single novella that was promised as part of last year’s funding campaign. So yeah, lots to get to!

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 08/13/2021

After the packed reading of last week, I’m taking things a little bit easier this week, looking at six publications that will close out July and get into August’s short SFF. It’s also rather light on poetry, but that happens. Mostly, it’s a chance to catch the few stragglers I had almost missed, whether it’s because I swear I had checked and Strange Horizons hadn’t had a poem the first time I looked, or because I could have sworn I reviewed Clarkesworld earlier in the month. Oops! I’m really hoping I haven’t forgotten anything else, because not going to lie my brain feels a little mushy these days. I’m still trying to try, but be gentle with me please.

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 07/09/2021

So turns out I’ve probably bitten off more than I can chew when it comes to reviews. Sigh. But given the fact that I’m just getting to July reviews now and given just how many I have to get to this month, it’s possible that I’ll have to make some adjustments in the future. Maybe not. It’s possible that some venues are closing, or will go off output for a while, but that’s always something of a gamble, and given all I want to cover…well, we’ll see. For now, I’ll do my best to keep up and just hope that I don’t fall apart too thoroughly. Like I said, this month is still a bit of June, with Tor and Strange Horizons, and then lots of July with F&SF (never sure when to count these as they release a month before the cover says?), Lightspeed, Nightmare, Fantasy, and the latest Beneath Ceaseless Skies. No rest for weary short SFF reviewers, I guess.

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 06/11/2021

Well May was certainly a month. I thought I was only going to have a few things to finish up, and then EVERYTHING RELEASED. So there’s still a whole lot of May content here, from Mermaids Monthly and Fusion Fragment (which I was expecting) to Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, and Cast of Wonders (who I should have suspected). I do manage to get into June, though, with looks at the trifecta of Lightspeed, Nightmare, and Fantasy. And I did it all around the Memorial Day weekend and my birthday. Weeeee! Of course, that means I’m behind in my X Marks the Story work (because I like to wait to read the entire month before finalizing things). So it goes? In other other news, June’s Flash Fiction Online is entirely reprints, so I won’t specifically be covering those, though I do recommend checking out the issue, which is very good. So yeah, onward!

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 05/14/2021

Welcome to May proper, at least here at QSR. Yes, the month is about half over, but with all that came out in April I might be a little behind. Eep! Anyway, Not too much incredibly new about today’s post, as I’m covering venues that I’ve covered previously, and most of the ones I take care of first every month. Most of these are monthly, though Apex is bimonthly, Beneath Ceaseless Skies is biweekly, and Strange Horizons is weekly. There’s a lot to get to, though, including a lot of short stories, a few poems, and a decent amount of novelettes. The works skew rather grim for a lot of these, too, though I feel that Apex in a bit of a twist has a few really hopeful stories that were fun. Anyway, onward!

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 04/09/2021

March is dead. Long live April! Or something like that. This week I am hoping to close out my March reads, at least (unless I have completely missed something, which happens). There was a bit of activity late in the month what with the release of a special issue from Strange Horizons, but mostly now I’m moving into stuff from April. Now that we’re entering into the second quarter of the year, it means that all the quarterly publications I’ve been following (many of them new to my coverage this year) will be putting out new issues. Luckily they seem spread out enough that I shouldn’t be too buried, but we’ll see how this goes. Yay. Anyway, I expect to stay busy, and I’m glad that I got to cover Baffling, because it’s fairly large and always amazing, and I can’t wait to see what the rest of the month is going to bring!

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 03/12/2021

Well the year isn’t really slowing down. Eff. But that’s mostly okay! I’m staying busy, at least. This week I’m moving through a bunch of publications, catching up on some that I’ve not exactly missed but needed to get yet from February. As a peek into my process, most of these are from places where I receive review copies, which helps me get to them promptly (F&SF and Apex, which I covered last week, are also in that boat). The rest are irregular/weekly releases that I try not to fall too far behind on. I try. Again, eff. I still have one or two review copies to get to, afterwards I’ll move to regular releases like Clarkesworld that are out in their entirety for free early in the month. Irregulars and issues that release a little at a time by necessity get moved back further in the month. So yeah!

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 02/05/2021

The year just keeps right on rolling! Up today is a told at eight different publications. Some are very short (just one poem in the latest Strange Horizons and just one story that I review from the latest Fireside Magazine) and some are a bit longer. Some are from January, some are from February, and the anthology is actually from last year (but ICYMI it’s very very good!). In general, I can say that I’m reading a lot more this year, and that the “a lot more” is coming generally in the form of short stories rather than novelettes and novellas. I’m going to have to figure out ways to try and mitigate that, but it’s an issue in that there are just way more short stories put out in a year than otherwise. Still, I’m really liking that I’m able to get to more things.

As a scheduling note, and along the note from above, these posts will cover recent stuff, but not always from the month noted in the title of the posts. Just because there’s a mix of stuff and I get some things early and some I have to wait for like the last day of the month to cover, so apologies if this is all something of a mess. But I’m trying! Anyway, to the reviews!

Quick Sips 01/15/2021

So here’s how this is going to go. First, I’ll do a little intro. As in, hi all! 2021 is certainly off to…a start. National and international politics aside, though, I’m here to reflect more on short SFF and so I’ve been seeking out whatever I can to read. I have queries in a few places about review copy but haven’t heard back. Otherwise, I’ve been mostly sticking to venues that I have already covered and that I could get my hands on full issues of. This week I’ll briefly touch on 8 publications, which will probably be more than normal but I quasi-skipped this update last week because I was still catching up so much on late 2020 reads.

Now, to be fully transparent, a number of those late reviews I did are also technically 2021 releases (the last Beneath Ceaseless Skies I reviewed and the last three months of Baffling Magazine reviews). And a bunch of stuff that I expect out into 2020 from Fireside I technically already covered because it was released in the Quarterly in 2020. Apologies if that’s all kinds of vague. Anyway, the year is off to…well, a bit of a grim start. Part of that is because of the return of Apex Magazine, which is focused on dark SFF. There’s also a big anniversary Nightmare Issue. But perhaps because of the tenseness of the rest of the world at large, the general fiction even from other publications seems a bit grim as well. So it goes?

Quick Sips - Nightmare #99

Art by Marko Stamatovic / Fotolia

I continue to be impressed with the way that Nightmare Magazine has been pairing original stories in their issues, as December brings two works dealing with the bonds of sisters. Bonds that are cut short. By tragedy. By loss. And that provoke the remaining sisters in some difficult, profound, and unsettling ways. The stories are grim and they are creeping, complicating relationships that the survivors form and have, pushing them into perhaps dangerous situations, and always bringing them back around to the loss they’ve suffered. It’s a strong and resonating issue that works even better than the sum of its parts. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Nightmare #98

Art by Alexandra Petruk / Adobe Stock Images

The two original stories in November’s Nightmare Magazine present the horrors of school. Both the horrors of being around other students who might be terrible and abusive, and of being under the power of a teacher or professor who might be preying on students in some chilling ways. In both, the focus is on the ways the the students are made powerless in their situations, subject to the corrupt power of either a popular student or a teacher. For one, the horror stops with the things a teacher can do, the ways they can make their lesson stick in the most disturbing of ways. For the other, the horror doesn’t reach its peak until the student being abused and bullied finds she has nothing left to lose. In both, schools make powerful settings for the horror that unfolds, at least in part because the vast majority of people know exactly how school can be a horrifying place. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Nightmare #97

Art by Andrey Kiselev / Adobe Stock Image

The October issue of Nightmare Magazine doesn’t really go full-on spooky, though that doesn’t mean it skimps on the horror. Rather, the horror here is...quiet. Slow. Careful. Methodical, even. And it looks at aspects of the human experience that can sort of sink into something grim and terrifying. Marriage, especially when it rots. Academia, especially when the pursuits turn out to be sinkholes, traps. The stories show people who are on the cusp of something shadowed and deep, something there’s no turning back from after a certain point. One of the characters thinks to try and escape. The other plunges right in. It makes for an interesting and well balanced issue. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Nightmare #96

Art by Melkor3D / Adobe Stock Image

The September Nightmare Magazine brings a pair of stories that show a quieter side of horror. Both feature settings as part of the cast, though their characters are very different—rural farm versus urban decay. Both very much focus on the violence found in these places, though, the ways that a person can be lost. One story, though, focuses on the monsters that live among us and the ways America shelters and shields them. The ways it allows them. Where the other story is much more about the tragedy of loss and the deep sense of haunting that comes from so many places, where the dead and their potential loom large, and possess a solid weight. Despite the slower pacing, both stories are intense and intimate, and it’s a great issue that I’ll get right to reviewing!

Quick Sips - Nightmare #95

Art by Zapatisthack / Adobe Stock

Both the stories in the August Nightmare Magazine deal with loss. With death. With torture. Feature narrators who have come to bad ends. To have been murdered. Who are awakened by mothers, grandmothers, told stories. Brought into cycles of violence and loss. Through that, the characters connect to family and to memory, having to parse which details are their own traumas and which have been handed down. They’re difficult, sharp reads, with touches of poetry amid the destruction and red. And I’ll get right to my reviews!

Quick Sips - Nightmare #94

Art by Chainat / Fotolio

The stories in the July Nightmare Magazine showcase very different kinds of horror. In one, a woman on the run reaches out to a ghost, the two linked by the ways they’ve been targeted, by the violence that they must share space with, that threatens to anchor them forever to one place. In the other, a group of friends deal with a strange and much more…arbitrary horror. The horror of erasure at the hands of a faceless, disembodied malevolence. One that runs on a kind of religious intolerance whose rules are mysterious and veiled but whose results are no less profound for it. The works explore people trying and not always succeeding at escaping the horror that’s chasing them, and before I give too much away, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Nightmare #93

Art by grandfailure/fotolia

The two stories in the most recent issue of Nightmare Magazine might not seem super similar at first glance. One is a slow building horror about punishment and guilt, about a story literally coming to life. The other is a story of strange people doing strange things, only for the frame to shift a bit and reveal that the real strange people might be those we consider normal. But in both we are faced with characters who care. And whose caring is starting to eat them up inside (and out, kinda). And both need to work through their fear and their insecurity, their doubt and their shame, to reach a point where they can care for themselves, and find some release and healing. It’s a great issue, and I’ll get right to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Nightmare #92

Art by Alexandra Petruk / Adobe Stock Images

There are two new speculative horror stories in this month's Nightmare Magazine, both of them in some ways dealing with rooms. It's the natures of the rooms that make them both interesting and terrifying, building off of traditions in horror that stretch far back into fable and myth. The pieces are visceral, revealing women who have been deeply hurt by intimate partner abuse, who have survived despite the crushing weight of it and the lack of support they've gotten, and they both move in very different directions around their themes. As an added bit of news from the publication, it sounds like an editorial shift is on the horizon, with Wendy Wagner taking over editorial duties in 2021 while John Joseph Adams So yeah, let's get right to the reviews!