The Monthly Round - November 2017

The Monthly Round is up now at Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together. Go check out my favorite short SFF stories of the month and see what kind of adult beverage I think they pair well with. There's tasting notes and reviews, too. Just the list is included below. Cheers!

Tasting Flight - November 2017

“The Summer Mask” by Karin Lowachee (Nightmare)
“The Sound of His Voice Like the Colour of Salt” by L Chan (The Dark)
“Hungry Demigods” by Andrea Tang (GigaNotoSaurus)
“A Pestilence Come for Old Ma Salt” by Dayna K. Smith (Lackington’s)
“An Unexpected Boon” by S.B. Divya (Apex)
“Making Us Monsters” by Sam J. Miller & Lara Elena Donnelly (Uncanny)

Quick Sips - Tor dot com November 2017

November is another short one for Tor dot com, with a pair of new SFF novelettes. The two stories couldn't be much different if they tried, with one a near-future sci fi with a YA flare and the other...just...weird. The stories deal with themes of deceit and discovery, exploration and growing, but in some starkly contrasting ways. I'm not gonna lie, the first story is a lot easier to parse than the second, but that doesn't mean that both don't have interesting depths to mine. The world building in each is stunning and the character work compelling with flashes of fun. So let's get to the reviews!

Art by Armando Veve

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 11/20/2017 & 11/27/2017

It's another two weeks of content from Strange Horizons, featuring a stunning horror novelette and two poems that explore art, voice, and freedom. The pieces weave together quite well, crafting narratives and experiences that deal very strongly with pain, expression, and community. They feature characters often dealing with the disconnect between rich inner lives and an external world that doesn't allow them to be at peace, where abuse is rampant and where true freedom can seem impossible. Instead they focus on the ways they can at least partially escape their oppressions, ways that they can still look for beauty and release and relief. These are some wonderful explorations of SFF and possibility, and I'm going to jump right into reviewing them!

Art by Tihomir Tikulin

Quick Sips - Fireside Fiction November 2017

The content continues to pour out from Fireside Fiction, with three flash fiction pieces, a short story, and two more chapters of the serial novella they've been releasing. It's a lot to take in, from pieces that feature a lot of fun but sneak in some incredibly profound and stilling moments as well. These are stories that capture a feeling of people struggling against injustices, against the limitations of their realities, against forces that want to keep people still and controlled. And it's about rebellion and the cost of rebellion. But the reward as well. Some of the pieces feature characters able to fight back, to win openly against injustice. Others must accept a more measured gain, a more incremental victory. And others still find that their victory is tenuous and might be taken from them, leaving them voiceless and abandoned. It's a neat mix of SFF stories, so let's get to the reviews!

Art by Max Cole-Takanikos

Quick Sips - Terraform November 2017

There are two new short stories from Terraform this month and they both offer very chilling glimpses of the future. These are stories that reveal incredibly suffocating settings, where people struggle to get even the freedom to breathe. Everything here has progressed technologically, but the stories ask what good technology is when legislation does not keep up to protect people against exploitation, against abuse from the systems of industry and government. The result is stories about people ground under the wheels of corporation and bureaucracy, forced to endure what they can't and then pushed further, into a realm where there is no safety, and no way out. To the reviews!

YEAR OF GARAK, part 11: The Crimson Shadow by Una McCormack

We are one step closer to the end of the Year of Garak and I'm actually really sad about that. Because I have loved every moment of thinking and discussing everyone's favorite plain, simple tailor. Garak is a character that grows a lot during his time on the original show, and yet it's not until after the show ends that I think we find the most interesting stories about him. That deal with his fated return to Cardassia and what it has become. It's something we've explored a great deal already but coming into the home stretch we're looking at two incredible books by Una McCormack. First up of those is The Crimson Shadow, which finds Picard and the Enterprise dealing with a messy situation on Cardassia Prime. Do please, if you haven't, also check out the Year of Garak so far, because there might be some spoilers. You can find all the posts here: January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October.

I'm also briefly joined again today by Nicasio Andres Reed, so please welcome him back. If you're unfamiliar with his work (first off, how dare you?), here's a reminder:

Nicasio Andres Reed is a Filipino-American writer and poet whose work has appeared in Queers Destroy Science Fiction, Uncanny Magazine, Strange Horizons, Shimmer, Liminality, Inkscrawl, and Beyond: The Queer Sci-Fi and Fantasy Comics Anthology. Nico currently lives in Madison, WI. Find him on Twitter @NicasioSilang.

And now, to the discussion!

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #239

The latest issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies brings an eye toward fable and parable, as well as interesting takes on nobility. In one, nobility is embodied by a couple trying in the face of great loss to operate within the bounds of their morals while still pursuing their business interests. It finds them relying on each other and discovering what their devotion has allowed to bloom. In the other, nobility is something someone is born into and that one exploits, kills, and betrays to maintain. It features wealth without consideration of wisdom, and it offers a brilliant counter to the other piece. It’s a dizzying one-two punch when it comes to looking at what nobility can mean, and what it can conceal. So yeah, review time!

Art by Veli Nyström

Quick Sips - Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Q34

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly closes out its 2017 offerings with a new issue full of fiction and poetry that explores magic and mystery, darkness and the light of hope. With three stories and three poems, it’s a nicely balanced issue, closing the mega-narrative it began with the last issue and offering yet more worlds to explore. The pieces range from strange and disturbing to more joyous and tongue-in-cheek, and in general the pieces do a great job of evoking a sort of classic feel while remaining wholly original and fun. So let’s get to the reviews!

Art by Jereme Peabody

Quick Sips - Shimmer #40 [November 2017]

Shimmer Magazine brings two stories to its November offerings full of science and family, hurt and regret. Both piece feature characters who are driven to study, to document, to create. They let this desire drive them on and on, not quite seeing in time that their drive is taking them very much away from those that they care about, and away from the peace they can have with themselves. These are situations where they are touching great power and learning how to harness it, and any question of should is ignored and forgotten, sacrificed at the feet of necessity, or desire. The stories are ornate and moving, strange and wonderful, and present two very different ways of showing how scientific drive can be a double-edged sword. Now, to the reviews!

Art by Sandro Castelli

Quick Sips - Apex #102

November brings a pair of rather interesting and wrenching stories to Apex Magazine. Stories that are touched by darkness but that, ultimately, give way to joy and healing and the hope for better days. These are stories that focus on unlikely pairs and unexpected meetings. That show that sometimes the characters that seem most strange can see more clearly in instances where the system fails. Where hope fails. Where there seems to be no way forward. Because they can see in different ways, it makes them guides, even when they are younger, and seen as a bit odd. These are stories about friendships, about connections, and about finding ways to understand and be understood. They are very different pieces, but make for a wonderful issue, so let’s get to the reviews!

Art by Max Mitenkov

Quick Sips - Uncanny #19 [November stuff]

It’s an extra helping of SFF poetry for November’s Uncanny Magazine, with three original stories and four original poems, all exploring love and resistance, history and harm. The stories range quite widely, from a wrenching historical fantasy to a strange alt present to a love story from an artificial to a human. They interrogate art and love, design and trajectories. They feature characters wondering what to do next, fleeing violence and abuse, reaching out for kindness and trust. The poetry is rich and reveals a sense of place and family and the need to come together and work toward a better world, to rewrite the accepted past in order to find justice and identity and a space to be. It’s a full month of content and an excellent crop of short SFF, so I’ll get right to the reviews!

Art by Julie Dillon

Quick Sips - Nightmare #62

It’s November at Nightmare Magazine and the month has brought a definite feel of impending winter. Of a chill that sinks into the bones. The stories actually take on different aspects of beauty and art. The first looks at the beauty of murder, the art of the killer, imagining a future where anything is possible, and the form of being a serial killer has been spread out among the stars. The second looks at beauty and disfigurement, ugliness and sacrifice. It shows a very different sort of artist, a more conventional kind of artist, seeking to find the magic of beauty, and to give himself to that magic. Both stories are dark and difficult and rather unsettling, but it makes for a great descent into these colder months. To the reviews!

Art by Psychoshadow / Fotolia

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 11/06/2017 & 11/13/2017

Strange Horizons brings a pair of stories and a pair of poems to its early November offerings—pieces that swirl around growing up, danger, and being trapped. These stories feature women trying to navigate waters where they're not really protected from abuse or damage, where they are expected to act as lifeguards of their own bodies but are also essentially stripped of any ability or power to act when bad things happen. A lifeguard without the ability to swim or a floatation device isn't so much a lifeguard any more so much as a witness to drowning. The pieces show how abuse and vulnerability is passed down while keeping a taste of magic alive, in all its beauty and darkness, in all its complexity and tension. It's a lovely two weeks of content, and it's time to get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Lackington's #15 [Diseases]

Lackington’s is back with a new issue, and this one’s all about diseases. Ick. And yet for an issue devoted to sickness and corruptions of various sorts, the stories are as beautiful as I’ve come to expect from the publication, with prose that sings and stories that provide some complicated and lovely views of disease and those effected by disease. As much as the stories are about sicknesses, too, they are also about conventions, about the ways that we are taught to treat disease, and how effective (or not) those treatments can be. Often times, the stories show that diseases are but symptoms themselves of deeper maladies, ones that cannot be easily excised, that must be confronted and dragged into the light, dissected and examined and exorcised. My diagnosis? Review time!

Art by Gregory St. John

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #238

I will continue to say that Beneath Ceaseless Skies impresses me nearly every issue with how well it puts together stories that amplify each other. That resonate. That enrich each other. And here I find a pair of stories very much about pageantry and theater, about masks and masquerades. About playing different parts, and about theft, and about freedom. About people finding places to belong and people to belong with. And fuck is it a joyful, beautiful issue that makes me want to cry for how amazing it is. I know, I’m known as something of a positive reviewer, but if all stories were as fun as these, all issues as healing and hopeful as these, then I think any reviewer would be hard pressed to be negative. So let’s get to the reviews!

Art by Veli Nyström

Quick Sips - GigaNotoSaurus November 2017

November brings a rather kickass novelette to GigaNotoSaurus, filled with magic, cooking, and family complications. I love pieces that look at food and how it’s used in speculative situations, and this is a wonderful spread of tastes and smells and spells. It moves quickly, part mystery and part action, an urban fantasy that adds a dash of romance and a heaping helping of fun. And it features characters dealing with the weight of what their parents want from them, walking the difficult path toward a future where they can be happy and themselves. It’s a path made easier, and safer, when not walked alone. So yeah, before I give too much away, let’s get to the review!

Quick Sips - Clarkesworld #134

November seems a rather experimental month for Clarkesworld, with five stories that are all a bit weird in some ways. They are five very different stories, about progress and about loss and about wonder. They feature settings deep in space or on Earth’s very different from the one we know. And really, for me, what binds them together is memory. The stories all deal with characters looking back on events, trying to form a picture of what’s happened and being confronted with the story that time has told. For some, it’s a way of moving on from the past and reaching toward the future. For some it’s about mapping a present that’s a closed loop, where progress is impossible. For some, it’s about tracing the paths of harm and hope to try and make sense of a present that is uncertain. But these are stories of time and memory, and I’ll get right to the reviews!

Art by Jonas De Ro

Quick Sips - Flash Fiction Online November 2017

The November issue of Flash Fiction Online takes on the theme of being thankful with three original stories that all revolve around ideas of finding kindness in the heart of struggle and hardship. In each of the stories the main characters find themselves in a bad situation, faced with being a witness, participant, and victim of pervasive conflict and loss. In the face of this, they all face questions of what to do, whether to turn away from the struggle and try to find an easier road for themselves, or to face the larger issue and resist it. The stories show characters finding small ways to push back, even when it seems hopeless, even when it seems useless. It reveals the power of hope, and how helping even one person makes a difference. So yeah, to the reviews!

Art by Dario Bijelac

Quick Sips - The Dark #30

The Dark Magazine brings a pair of original stories to their November issue that have a lot to do with hunger and with death. With souls and with moving on. In each the main characters face settings that are characters in themselves, places that define the rules of their lives—and the rules are as corrupt as the surroundings are fetid and worn. Survival isn’t the only dilemma, though, and in many ways it’s the least worry, almost an impulse. The real conflict is finding ways to try and make things better, to try and thrive despite the oppressive nature of the setting, and the cruelty of the other people living (or dying) around them. These are stories that balance tragedy and hope and try to reach for some way for the characters to remake themselves, and in doing so remake a bit of their world. To the reviews!

Art by Tomislav Tikulin

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #90

The November issue of Lightspeed Magazine is full of twists and turns, adventures and magic, dark bargains and chance encounters. And, for me, the issue is all about connections. About strangers and family. The pieces as weave around the bonds made between people who might not be related by blood. Who are drawn to each other by care and by shared memory and by the mutual desire for something different. The story is about finding friends in odd places and having that bond, that friendship, become something transforming and affirming and amazing. The stories are not exactly romantic so much as they show how powerful human connections can be, how trust and love go beyond the romantic or sexual and unite people trying to create better worlds, even when it seems impossible. To the reviews!

Art by Galen Dara