Quick Sips - Terraform November 2016

It's interesting in many ways to see where Terraform will go now that Trump is the president-elect. For quite some time a good number of the stories have dealt with possible outcomes from the election and now…well, and now that it's happened I wonder what line the publication will take. Certainly there aren't any quite so scathing as some of the stories that came out when Trump was only one Republican candidate of many. The stories this month offer much more…subtle critiques about what might be coming. Stories about the loss of the environment. About corruption. About hopelessness. They're quite appropriate stories, really, and certainly not the cheeriest bunch of SF tales. They're definitely stories worth spending time with though, and I plan on doing just that with some reviews! 

Quick Sips - Tor dot com November 2016

It's another full month from Tor dot com (partly because I missed one from the last day of October, but still), and if last year is a guide then things will probably slow down considerably going into the holidays. But for now there's lots to look at with four short stories, one tie-in short story, and one graphic story. The pieces range pretty far, from standard sci fi adventure to more surreal contemporary fantasy to much more raucous historical fantasy. And there are some real gems this month, even if a few of the pieces left me a bit conflicted as well. It's an interesting group of stories that I'm going to get to reviewing. 

Art by Kevin Hong

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 11/21/2016 & 11/28/2016

I'm looking at two weeks of Strange Horizons content today, which means two stories and two poems. I also recommend checking out the nonfiction, but because of time and inclination I'm not going to be discussing those here. The fiction in these two issues both imagine catastrophic journeys and different worlds. Now, one is a science fiction piece and one a fantasy, so those mean very different things, but both stories show characters falling into situations they can't control and having to adapt. Having to dance with their circumstances and their fears and their emotions. And the poetry is about lust and distance and darkness. And together it makes for a fascinating issue that I should just review already. Let's go! 

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #213

People looking for a happy, uplifting read, turn back now. This issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies might be the darkest and most horror-laced of all the issues I have read of the publication. These stories are well paired but fuck are they not entirely appropriate if what you want is to curl up in a warm sweater and enjoy life. These stories are pits of darkness taunting you to look inside. And if you do, if you answer to the voice calling out from the black, there is no real light at the end of the tunnel. Just a growing and gathering darkness that consumes and destroys, that twists and turns. That asks: in a place where justice is dead, what will grow from the rotting remains of its corpse. So yeah, with that warning in place, let us descend to the reviews! 

Art by Raphael Lacoste

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

Quick Sips - Omenana #8

There's a new issue of Omenana out and you should read it. The publication is going through some changes, moving to a more robust website, adding some new ventures (like reviews), and the fiction remains strong and brilliant. These are stories that look at magic and at tragedy, that show loss but also people gaining things. New abilities. New hopes. New understandings of the world they live in. These are not always easy stories—they are dense and they are occasionally uncomfortable—but they are resonating stories. Stories that inspire and complicate. And I should get to reviewing them! 

Art by Danial Inneil, Color by Sunny Efemena

Quick Sips - Fantastic Stories of the Imagination #237

Dear readers, prepare your comfiest of sweaters and get ready for a good cry, because this issue of Fantastic Stories of the Imagination really knows how to play with emotions. It's an effective one-two punch of heart breaking and heart warming and you should just know that going in because fuck, yeah, emotionally raw would be a good way to describe things at the moment. These are stories about loving someone and then losing them. In two very, very different ways. They are harrowing and they are inspiring and they have left me a bit wrung out. So yeah, without further warnings, to the reviews! 

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #212

The two stories in this issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies touch on the idea of oppression and resistance, ignorance and the beginning of understanding. Both feature characters in a dominant position. People who have others bound to them in some way, enslaved against their wills. But these characters don't full understand the situation, the true depth of it, until they take the time to listen, to explore, to question the status quo that they were comfortable with. Only once that happens, only once that step is taken, can healing begin. These are two very different stories, but they are nicely paired thematically, and I will just get to reviewing them! 

Art by Raphael Lacoste

Quick Sips - Mothership Zeta #5

Another issue of Mothership Zeta has landed and it features an actual, literal Mother Ship along with a full roster of excellent stories ranging from zany time travel science fiction to sincere and heartfelt contemporary fantasy. And more than anything else I'm struck by the framing techniques of the issue. There is a series of one sided emails and a detailed bill, a conversation of people remembering an event and a man preparing for a press conference. This alongside more traditional stories that nevertheless manage to present wry and witty narrators, earnest and yearning voices. It's an issue that flows nicely, kicking things off with a smile and a nudge and then slowly drawing to more serious topics and leaving me at least, with a quiet longing for more. For now, though, it's time to review! 

Art by Elizabeth Leggett

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 11/07/2016 & 11/14/2016

After a fund drive and special issue it's back to business as usual for Strange Horizons. Luckily that means providing moving, deep, and insightful fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. I'm looking at two weeks of content today which translates into two stories, two poems, and a single nonfiction work. The stories are full of salt water and loss, hope and recovery. The poems evoke folklore and transformations, discoveries and darkness. And the nonfiction takes a look at SFF publishing that is…well, a bracing read. It's a solid lineup of work that takes an unflinching look at some difficult truths. So let's get to the reviews! 

Art by Susie Oh

Quick Sips - Shimmer #34 (November Stuff)

The stories in the November half of the latest issue of Shimmer Magazine both deal with temptation. With the promise of relief and ease. With the growing knowledge that the promise is false. Whether facing down the devil or your own personal Hitler, the stories show that sometimes there are no shortcuts, no ways around having to face the harm and the evil. That you can't just wave your hand or fire a gun through a time hole and solve all your problems. That sometimes what you need to do is just face what's happened, what is happening, and find ways to move forward, to find a future worth living in. So without further delay, to the reviews! 

Art by Sandro Castelli

Quick Sips - Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Q30

Another issue of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly is about and it's full of works that look at tricks and cheats. At attempts to cut corners and find magical ways to avoid hard decisions. Hard situations. The stories by and large take a look at the morality of violence and trickery when it comes to conflicts both large and small, national and personal. The stories show characters seeking to bargain their ways through situations. To save themselves. To save those things they care about. It…doesn't often work out, but these works show the many ways people can hope to cheat fate and circumstance, to use power to make up for misfortune. Time to review! 

Art by Jerome Peabody

Quick Sips - Clarkesworld #122

It's another packed month at Clarkesworld with six original stories, including a rather charming novelette in translation. And it's another month that is entirely science fiction, with a splash of science-fantasy thrown in for flavor. These are tales that show visions of the future, conflicts playing out for the soul of humanity and for the fate of planets. Many of the stories take their focus off of Earth to show what humanity is capable of, the way that it can move from place to place, leaving a trail of destruction behind it. There's hope, though, too, and the stories also show the power that humanity can hold to create and to change and to love. So yeah, review time! 

Art by Joseph Biwald

Quick Sips - Uncanny #13 (November Stuff)

The November content from Uncanny Magazine does a lovely job of showing the power of stories. Of narratives. Of how the ownership of those stories is importance and empowering. How, when the narrative begins to slip away, it can be used to isolate people. To exploit people. To erase people. And only when people can control their own stories, can have their own agency, can there be justice. Can there be hope. Can there be the recognition that people are all people and that the roles they think are absolute might only be a narrowing of their perspective, and when the blinders are pulled away their world suddenly becomes larger, richer, and more rewarding. These are not all easy works of fiction or poetry or nonfiction, but they are all powerful in their own ways, and I'm going to get to reviewing them. 

Art by Julie Dillon

Quick Sips - GigaNotoSaurus November 2016

The lovely thing about the larger word counts and focus on a single story that GigaNotoSaurus provides is that it gives some space to really dig into a piece. To really explore the boundaries of the settings and the characters and find something moving and unsettling and wonderful there. In that, the story this month is extremely suited to the publication, offering up a richly complex world and a set of characters that are engaging and deep. There are moments of action and magic and moments of quietude and friendship and at the end it’s a story about control and limitations and freedom and I will get right to reviewing it! 

Quick Sips - Apex #90

The November issue of Apex Magazine brings the focus directly to the fiction. Most months feature one or two original stories, but this one features four, and they are all shades of dark and disturbing and good. Which, who knows, maybe the publication is trying to make a case for supporting their subscription drive. Which is going on. Right now. If so, then for me they have definitely succeeded. The stories are strange and they are dark, disturbing, and deep. They look at the twisted side of human art and human civilization, and ask some very difficult questions. There’s also two reprint poems that I decided to look at as well, and all told the issue is quite strong and kinda messed up. To the reviews! 

Art by Ania Tomicka

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #78

The November issue of Lightspeed Magazine certainly brings the dark. At least for three of the four original stories, the atmosphere is steeped with violence and loss and the gravity of conflict. Human against human. Sibling against sibling. These are mostly stories that are difficult and disturbing, with a weight that is impossible to ignore. And while there are some lighter notes to close out the issue, the lingering flavor is still of blood and ice. There's hope, here, too, but a rather bleak sort, nearly nihilistic, and it makes for an interesting and complex and not-incredibly-happy read. So yeah, to the reviews! 

Art by Reiko Murakami

Quick Sips - Nightmare #50

The stories of this issue of Nightmare Magazine explore the uncertain boundaries of horror and the mundane. The violence and the darkness lurking under the most basic of actions. These stories look at characters lost in their own battles and maybe in their own heads but struggling against the role they play in suffering and death, or maybe just not willing to see how far they've fallen, how much the darkness has reached through them, and how much they might like it. These are difficult stories and with a touch of unreliability to them, as if the realities they describe might not be quite solid, quite certain. It's a nice paired set of stories and I'm going to get to those reviews! 

Art by Max Shevchenko

Quick Sips - The Dark #18

The original fiction from November's The Dark Magazine focus on willful ignorance. On disbelief. In both stories the main characters are trapped in situations because they are not believed, because they are coded as women. They are stripped of their agency, convinced that what is happening to them is just and right and their own feelings of dread, pain, and despair are somehow unwarranted and wrong. These are stories that look at how women are ignored, silenced, and abused, and how institutions reinforce this, legitimize this, even at the expense of the people they are supposed to protect. It's a disturbing pair of stories with a heady atmosphere of violence and death and it makes for a compelling issue that I'm about to review!

Art by Vincent Chong