Ahh! Apparently I completely forgot about Farrago's Wainscot, which came out in October (curse you OCTOBER!!!). Instead of skipping it, though, I'm just going to treat it like a December release. After all, it has a rather trippy Christmas story, and all the stories deal with the ways in which fiction can effect the real world, the ways in which art make reality. And, of course, there is more weird than you can shake a stick at. What fun! To the reviews (and sorry I missed this in October)!
Well this was certainly another full few weeks of Strange Horizons, though I suppose that's more my fault for letting four weeks go by without checking in. In that time there have been three short stories, four poems, and three nonfiction pieces (at least, three nonfiction pieces I'm looking at). But Strange Horizons shows just how strong it can be with stories that show loss and hope and rebellion, poems that unsettle and shadow the dark corners of the world, and nonfiction dealing with everyone's favorite topic: sex. It's a full four weeks to get through, but very rewarding and enjoyable, even when it is uncomfortable and challenging. To the reviews!
I have climbed the mountain of October SFF short fiction, and at it's peak is the third issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies out this month. Released just before Halloween, the stories are full of monsters and people, and sometimes monsters who are people and sometimes people who are monsters. The two tales offered up are filled with things lurking in the night, shadows that might be innocent but rarely are. Halloween might be over, but these stories do a nice job of pointing out that monsters don't go away just because the holiday has passed. To the reviews!
As I counted the last issue of Omenana an October release (though it might have made the very end of September), this marks the second release of the publication in less than a month. The main difference between the two issues is that this one, the special Issue X, is entirely flash fiction, stories that hit and take their bow. And they're good. If I had to pick a theme for the issue I would say it's about islands and separation. Walls and power and revolution. The stories all move and are moving, all work for the theme of visions of the future and all relate back to now, to here, to what maybe we can do to make this world a better place. Time to review!
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| Art by Shade Tubor |
Well the hits just keep on coming this October with a new story from Book Smugglers. Luckily, it's quite good. And quite creepy. The story is billed as a Halloween installment that also ties into the first contact theme they've been running with and it does a beautiful job of it, crafting a tale of a woman making first contact with something herself, with the outside world, and with a very dark presence approaching. It's a atmospheric piece, and I'm just going to get the review!
Okay, so October might have been an incredibly full one for short fiction, but I couldn't resist when I was asked to look at this new novella. Cooking! Urban Fantasy! Gruesome Deaths! There are few things in this world that will entice me more, and as this is a novella it didn't exactly break the bank time-wise. It is
the longest single story I've reviewed on this site, but I've been meaning to read more novellas and this was a great place to start. And just in time for Halloween! I'm rather new to novellas, and very new to Abaddon Books, but given the quality of this story I might need to go out and see what else they offer. To the review!
October at Tor has actually seemed a bit of a reprieve from super-long stories, which is rather nice given the story-load for this month. That doesn't mean that they don't bring the quality, as these four stories are all rather dense reads, building some amazing settings and worlds that seem to flit and bend and dance. The settings are alive, characters in their own rights, and it is quite the treat to discover each one. From the alien world of the Cyclopes to the onion-like layers of interlocking dimensions, the stories bring some startling ideas, and do not disappoint in executing them. To the reviews!
I'm probably missing one story from the October Terraform, but as it might be coming out on Friday (I'm pretty sure that's what their schedule has changed to, rather than the previous Monday releases), I'm just going to roll it into the November Terraform reviews. It's a nice mix of stories this month, with a look at income inequality and...pets. Which might seem a strange pairing but which work nicely here. There are a number of interesting plot twists (and not just that there is a 5K+ story at a publication that claims to stick to under 2K) and a fun range of characters. To the reviews!
Well October is really trying to kill me, though perhaps with kindness if the new issue of Fantasy Scroll Magazine is anything to go by. The publication normally puts out a pretty stacked ToC, but this issue has not a single reprint so far as I can tell, which means nine original short stories (only one of them flash) and a graphic story. I'd mind more if everything wasn't so good, once again proving that Fantasy Scroll knows how to satisfy regardless of speculative genre. Horror makes a bit more of a statement this month, perhaps because the issue releases so close to Halloween, but otherwise there is just about everything a person could ask for, from swashbuckling fantasy adventures to more ponderous and emotionally devastating science fiction. So without further ado, to the reviews!
Okay, here we are in the fourth week of October, and with these three weeks of Strange Horizons the month shows no signs of slowing down. The good news is that the fund drive that had been going on was fully funded! So there will be even more great stories, poems, and nonfiction next year. The other good news is that there is a lot of fiction and poetry that was released as part of the bonus issue. I say good news because, while it might destroy me, there is an awful lot to like about these pieces, many of which deal with the way we tell stories, and what we choose to tell stories about. And I just need to get to the reviews!
For this special contest of One Throne Magazine, writers were given the first and last line of a story, provided by Tendai Huchu, whose fiction I've reviewed a few times and quite enjoyed. Writers then had a day to write a flash fiction story using those lines. The top four stories were released to the world, and they are an interesting mix of stories, funny and tragic and everything in between, stories about escape and stories about performance and stories about finding the logic in madness. They are quite different in how they take on the prompt, but they're all worth checking out. To the reviews!
The second issue of the month from Beneath Ceaseless Skies is (much) shorter than the first, but still manages to pack in a lot to think about. These are some challenging stories, both addressing (among other things) the way societies stifle women, and how women struggle against the constraints that grow to imprison them. Some dream of the sky, and some dream of alien worlds. For many, though, the stories are fraught with loss and tragedy, as these two stories show so well. To the reviews!
This month's Urban Fantasy Magazine might not bring stories that deal directly with the spookiest of months, but does get into the ghouliday spirit with a story about ghost fish and a story about a fortune teller that does get plenty dark. Both stories involve women, young or old, dealing with circumstances getting a bit beyond their comfort zone and having to try and handle themselves. Both do, and rather stunningly so, though not perhaps without some harm being done. But both stories have a strong core of healing, if not always in the way that was most expected. To the reviews!
October is actually a fairly light month for Apex Magazine this year. Not when it comes to the number of stories, with four original fiction pieces as well as four poems, but the stories lean slightly on the shorter side. Which is completely fine by me, in part because of the busy month and in part because, by and large, the stories are quite entertaining. There is a feeling that this month is keeping things a bit more action-oriented, with stories where things happen and don't really stop happening. These are not exactly ponderous tales, but faster, more entertaining tales. And it works pretty well, providing smiles and laughs even while keeping things dark. Time to review!
There is an incredible amount to take in with this issue of Nightmare Magazine. Why? Because it just so happens to be QUEERS DESTROY HORROR! Woo! Which means loads of stuff to read. Five original stories, plus reprint fiction, plus a lot of excellent, amazing, very very good reprint poetry that you should definitely read but which I don't quite have time this month to look at. But I was quite impressed by the fiction selections, which show how to be dark, how to be scary, and how to be downright good while celebrating queer writers, queer characters, and queer stories. More of this, world!!! To the reviews!
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| Art by AJ Jones |
More than anything, this issue of Lightspeed prompts me to examine my definition of strange. Because these stories are all a bit...well, some of them get very abstract. Surreal. From the science fiction to the fantasy, this month is about outlines and sketches, about things that jar and upset and beg to be examined deeply. Four stories, as normal, and all of them with a nice heaping helping of strange. Of Weird. And all the better for it. So time to review!
I have some mixed emotions about Shimmer this month. Firstly, it's good. Damn good. Secondly, it's short. Damn short. Which fills me with both immense joy and immense sorrow. Joy because this month is slowly (or not so slowly) killing me with all the fiction out. But sorrow because I want to read more of this. I want more stories like these. Dark and unsettling and yet focused on relationships that shine, that make me all warm inside. About the redemptive power of relationships in the face of loss, these stories to a great job hitting hard despite their short lengths. So to the reviews!
In a month that is dominated by the spooky, the dark, Uncanny Magazine presents a nice array of stories, poetry, and nonfiction that are...reaching. Not light, perhaps, but dense rather than dark, yearning rather than scary. Most of the works have a delicious way of not offering closure, not really offering answers. The endings are all lingering promises. Even the nonfiction doesn't offer a solution to everything, more highlights a problem and a possible direction to go and allows the reader to follow onward, to make the steps themself. It makes for a lovely issue that I should just get to reviewing.
Keeping with the theme of tons of fiction in October, Clarkesworld is new and offering five pieces of new fiction. I'd be angrier with the story-load as a whole except the month has managed to be mostly incredibly good so far. Seriously, there have been some amazing stories, and this month's Clarkesworld is no exception, taking some mostly science fictional views of the world. Indeed, I think all of these stories swing much more science fiction than fantasy, though there are of course elements in some of them that could be a bit more magical. Whatever the case, most of the imagine futures, imagine situations, where people see the need for action and act. Not always with the greatest of outcomes, but with a strength to take control of their presents and their pasts, to try and reach for a better future. So to the reviews!
Hot off becoming the latest SFWA-qualifying market, Unlikely Story is finally out with its new issue, the Journal of Unlikely Academia. And, well, it is not a small issue. Eight stories, with many over 6,000 words. The good news? They fucking rock. The issue shows why Unlikely Story deserves that SFWA seal of approval, with stories that run from bawlingly tragic to fist-pumpingly inspiring with many stops in between. The theme is about learning, about school, and these eight stories do a hell of a job exploring those ideas. So to the reviews!
