Quick Sips - PodCastle #654

Sneaking in before the ending of the month, PodCastle released a single new original in November. And it’s a delightful dive into retro video games, into the fates of two monsters who start out life as a random encounter, expected to flare briefly in the player’s grind to higher levels. Instead, they end up leveling up themselves, and finding that they want more than just the tile they were assigned. The piece is interesting and deep, looking at games, at relationships, at fandom, and at stories. And I’ll get right to my review!

Quick Sips - Tor dot com November 2020

Art by Red Nose Studio

November brings two short stories and a novelette to Tor, and a sense that each is playing with history in some interesting ways. The first is historical fantasy, looking at a past where vampires not only exist, but must police their own in the face of certain corruptions. Another looks at a world touched by the strange and otherworldly, a history turned familial when one character learns of their own connections to the sea, and to the beyond. And the final story deals with alternative history, with increasingly drastic attempts to change something that seems so small and simple, except that nothing is small or simple, everything large in the lens of humans lives. So yeah, to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Lackington's #22

Art by Kat Weaver

The latest issue of Lackington’s is out now and the theme for the issue is Archives. Now, like all themes at Lackington’s, things are often straightforward. Yes, some of the stories feature literal archives and collections. Museums and academic centers. Tomes and texts and all the things you might expect to find on dusty shelves preserved in time. But there are archives here that go beyond those, that jump out of the neglected shelves. Archives of people, of languages both living and dead, of refuges from hungry gods, of whole worlds and people finding ways to catalog and preserve themselves through time and space. The works are often deep and heavy, touched by poetry and more than a bit of tragedy. But there is hope to be found as well, and occasionally a spot of fun. The works cover an array of genres and styles, framing devices and voices, and they themselves represent an archive. An archive of archives, in a meta turn as only this publication can give. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Fireside Magazine #85

The November issue of Fireside Magazine is out and…well, contains three short stories and two essays, plus now a number of apologies and announcements coming on the heels of the decision of the publication to have a white man record the audio for the entire issue which included, among others, the personal essay of a Black woman that was in part about her specific lens as a Black woman, and which…was not handled well. And this has opened up a larger conversation about audio recordings, racism, and editorial responsibility which has resulted, among other things, in the stepping down of the editor-in-chief at Fireside. All that said, and not to diminish the harm done, the fiction in this issue is amazing, and I’ll get right to my reviews!

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 11/16/2020 & 11/23/2020

The latest two issues of Strange Horizons bring one short story and two poems out for our reading enjoyment. The story is heavy, and mind the content warnings on this one, but it’s also a lovely mix of mystery and horror as a young woman looks for clues about her brother’s disappearance. The poetry brings…not exactly a lighter mood to the issues, as it’s some challenging and sometimes grim work. But it does tie into the themes of hope in the story, hard as they might be to reach for. That while many wounds cannot be erased, the situations can be revised, the outcomes turned away from solely tragedy and given new life. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Baffling Magazine November 2020

November brings three early stories to the Baffling Magazine Patreon, examines family and loss. Death and the way people have to process it, have to face it, given the worlds they live in, the relationships they have. The characters are all dealing with complicated relationships. Two of the stories focus on people who haven’t really gotten along with parental figures. For one, it’s the parents of his boyfriend. For the other, it’s their own father. The third story deals not with a strained relationship but an absent one, a person bereft because of the violence of an empire taking up the cause of their dead lover and finding strength in poetry. And all told it’s a wonderful mix of stories, featuring fantasy, science fiction, and touches of horror. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #317

Art by Avant Choi

The two stories in the latest Beneath Ceaseless Skies are united by (aside from the fact that they’re both novelettes) the undimmable enthusiasm of their protagonists. Both main characters are driven, are artists, and they paint on large canvases. They are, in part at least, confidence men, there to sell something. They’re not exactly frauds, though, as each of them is selling something that people want. Good health. Good food. And an experience that will leave them feeling good about it. For both, though, something rears up that threatens their art, their profession, and their lives, and they have to stay sharp and depend on the people around them to come through...if not unscathed, then at least alive, and eager to get back on the road. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Apex Magazine Promo 2020

Art by Justin Stewart

Apex is back! And okay, you probably already knew that. And yes, the actual launch date for the revamped Apex Magazine is actually in January. That doesn’t mean, though, that the editors could hold back, and so we get a special bonus sneak peek issue as an added gift this holiday season. It’s filled with heartwarming and--wait a second, I think I must have forgotten Apex’s specialty. It’s filled with two difficult and unsettling stories that look at the messy ways people live, love, and hurt each other. The stories reveal worlds that are reflections of our own, and the sights are rather grim. But grim stories can show us how to approach hard times, given the world we’re living in, perhaps we should take whatever instruction we can get. 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 - Diabolical Plots #69

Art by Joey Jordan

The stories of Diabolical Plots’ November issue are…rather weird. Haunting. Featuring characters to have lost, who are faced with the prospect of a world different from the one they know. Absent the people who have given structure to their lives. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the characters are truly worse off, though. Because these losses, these changes, provoke the characters to introspect, to make changes, to better understand their own needs. And they find that independence is something they need, even if they’ve always been treated like independence would be impossible, or painful, or wrong. It’s an interesting issue and I’ll get right to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #46

Art by Jereme Peabody

November brings a new issue of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, with one short story, two novelettes, and one poem. The pieces are well in line with the publication’s title, featuring fantastical daring do, adventures of the magical variety, and a touch of grimness to keep things from getting too boisterous. The works look at people trying to avoid violence by and large, all pulled in all the same, to cycles of death and revenge, all trying to end up on the winning side, many having to be content with a sort of balancing act. There’s a lot of worlds to discover and characters to follow, so without further delay, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - GigaNotoSaurus November 2020

November brings an interesting piece of historical fiction to GigaNotoSaurus. And I say historical fiction but it’s probably in the ways the story diverges from history that it meets its speculative element. Whatever the case, it finds a man sent to judge a situation, and to diffuse it. And those things aren’t always so close together, can’t always go hand in hand. Sometimes to keep the peace, the judgment has to sort of take a back seat, or at least has to fit itself to the moment. To the needs of a moment when there’s a lot more at stake than who might be paying a fine or going to prison. To the review!

Quick Sips - Uncanny #37 [November stuff]

Art by Julie Dillon

The November Uncanny Magazine brings three short stories and three poems to make for a full issue full of advanced technology, ancient incest, and some monsters for good measure. The fiction leans heavily into science fiction, providing three tales of super science and the very quiet, mundane, intimate things that go into big, dramatic, shattering breakthroughs in physics and AI. These are wrenching stories of people struggling and sometimes failing to reach for what they know is right, and the aftermaths that come when the decisions have been made and people have to live with what comes next. It’s an emotional and wonderfully imagined set of stories and poems, and I’ll get right to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 11/02/2020 & 11/09/2020

November opens with two short stories and two poems at Strange Horizons. For the fiction, the sense of apocalypse is strong, as is the focus on relationships. That even as the world is dying, people still hold to each other, to those who give them comfort, even if that comfort is…complicated. The works mix the heavy approach of destruction with the warmth of people reaching out in that space for love, for understanding, whatever else follows. The poetry is also amazing, and together it provides a fabulous one-two punch of SFF goodness. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Clarkesworld #170

Art by Arjun Amky

Seven new stories from Clarkesworld weave a lot around sentience. Intelligence. Beings who are not human. Or not quite. Robots, AI, stars, even altered humans--the stories explore how these beings relate to the people who created them, or imprisoned them, or both. Some find ways to break free. Some find ways to cooperation. Some find ways to domination. Whatever the case, the issue hits on these ideas again and again, building up a rather thematically tight issue that looks at what it means to be alive and sentient, and explores how humans treat those they might not want to recognize as fully “people.” To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #316

Art by Vladimir Manyukhin

The two stories in the latest Beneath Ceaseless Skies deal with order, with bargains. With rules. And each presents a situation where rules have been made into a kind of weapon used to try and control people. In very different ways. But one story features an agent of the rules, of the status quo, going to “solve” a violation, only to discover that what he’s upholding might be very distant from justice, and the other involves one man standing up against a set of unjust rules and showing people that obedience and death are not the only options. It’s an action-filled issue, with some gripping scenes and satisfying endings, and I’ll get right to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Flash Fiction Online November 2020

The November issue of Flash Fiction Online brings a bit of news, namely that long-time editor-in-chief Suzanne Vincent will be stepping down at the end of the year, being succeeded by Wendy Nikel. I wish all the luck to both as they move into new roles! Otherwise, the issue itself in a mix of genres, most of them not speculative. But they’re still interesting and powerful looks at characters dealing with expectations. Navigating how their hopes and dreams and aspirations meet the harsh reality of the world. The pieces explore how they cope, and how they overcome, the dangers, setbacks, and pressures to give up on themselves. So yeah, to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Fantasy #61

Art by Alexandra Petruk/Adobe Stock Image

It’s been a while since there’s been a regular Fantasy Magazine. After combining with Lightspeed (and retaining that name), the publication has only returned for special Destroy issues (of which I reviewed the ones that came out in 2015 & 2016), but hasn’t been ongoing. That changes with this issue. Now, things are a bit different now, as the publication will be putting out flash fiction and poetry on top of the regular-length fiction, but like Lightspeed, Fantasy will be releasing content for free online slowly throughout the month (though you can always buy an issue to get it all right away). And the first issue seems to me like a statement of intent. A way of showing what fantasy as a genre has to offer, and what Fantasy the publication might be focusing on. Stories that combine magic and resilience. Poems that mix hope and joy. A whole experience that is challenging, provocative, and entertaining as h*ck. Let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - The Dark #66

Art by chainat

November brings two stories of homes and roommates to The Dark Magazine. Not roommates you’d want, though. Mold and insects. Depression and anxiety. The pieces find characters who are dealing with trauma, with burn out, with the pressure to somehow just get over it, just be better. And not being able to. And finding that there is no help and no way to stop or even slow their accelerating descent into a dark place. It’s a visceral and difficult issue, but one with some absolutely stunning stories, and before I give too much away, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #126

Art by Roman3d / Adobe Stock Image

Lightspeed is here and for November things are a little bit different. Instead of the usual two science fiction and two fantasy stories, there’s one longer sci fi novelette and two fantasy stories. So not a huge difference, really (and one the publication has done plenty of times before), but a change all the same. What hasn’t changed is that the fiction is at turns sharp and charming and wrenching, the character work solid, the world building epic, and that it all comes together to form a rather awesome issue of short SFF. There are spacial anomalies that defy the laws of physics, magic that is caught in the tears of a cosmic mourner, and a cat who isn’t about to let anything threaten the World Tree. The stories are very different, and not very linked thematically, but they provide a great range, and a little something for everyone. To the reviews!