THE SIPPY AWARDS 2018! The "Where We're Going We Won't Need Categories" Sippy for Excellent I Don't Know What in Short SFF

Welcome back to the fifth and final category of the Fourth Annual Sippy Awards! It’s doesn’t have the history or prestige of the Hugos or Nebulas or...well, any other award, but I like to think the Sippys represent a much needed niche in the award season. For me, at least, it’s a chance to celebrate the stories I loved from the last and remind myself that not everything is about the Big Awards. Sometimes it’s rewarding to just love what you love, and make no excuses for it. In that vein, the Sippys were born, and I definitely encourage everyone: don’t be shy about celebrating the stories you loved. Make awards for them, write reviews about them—have fun and add a bit of joy into the universe!

But anyway. I’ve shipped my favorite relationships, hidden under the covers from the scariest horror, wept rivers for the most emotional tear-jerkers, and drove fast and took chances with the most pulse-pounding action! Which leaves just one category to go, and it’s...

The “Where We’re Going We Won’t Need Categories” 

Sippy Awards for Excellent I Don’t Know What in Short SFF

So what's the deal? Well, the thing is, categories are tricky things, and no matter how I refined my original ideas for them, there seemed to be something...missing. Because what about those stories that just...don't fit? Part of why I love SFF is that the stories can be almost anything, can cover ground that's never been explored, can blaze trails and innovate in ways that other genres just can't. SFF is the genre of dreams, of strangeness, of uncharted stars. It's a place where things can get downright weird on a regular basis, and that's completely Okay! In fact, I love that! And this category is where everything goes that just doesn't fit anywhere else. They inspire, and they provoke, and they challenge, and they entertain. I don't know what else to call them, so I'll just call them excellent!

For venues, there's two making their first appearance in this year's Sippys. The Dark just managed to punch its pro-paying ticket, and though that might change with the recent updates at the SFWA, for now it's definitely a voice from wonderful (and as the name implies, certainly dark) SFF. And Fireside Magazine is putting out tons of amazing work. Though much of its content leans short, it's also put out novelettes and even novellas, and is (I hope) a rising star in the field. Returning to the Sippys are works from Clarkesworld, Uncanny, and Apex, who all definitely put out a lot of content that's often hard to quantify. So yeah, let's get to the awards!

Quick Sips - Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #37

August brings a new Heroic Fantasy Quarterly into my greedy hands, with four stories (one novelette and three short stories) plus three poems, all diving into myth and magic, war and longing. The pieces have a bit more of a battle focus in this issue, moving from battlefield to battlefield and finding knights, giants, dragons, and necromancers aplenty. The stories do more than just provide an action-packed fantasy read (though they do that, too). They dive into the realities and horrors of battle, and the reasons people have for entering into them anyway. It’s a varied and resonating issue, and before I give too much away, I’ll get to the reviews!

Art by Jereme Peabody

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #253

It’s a pair of stories about women weavers in the latest issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Except that neither of them make cloth, exactly. For one, the weaving, the tailoring, involves emotions—woe and guilt and sorrow. For the other, it involves transforming beast corpses into all manner of objects. And yet both are about legacy and about skill. Both feature the main characters coming up against something that shakes them to their core. And having to find a way to keep going, to find faith in themselves even when they might find it difficult to have faith in justice. There’s a wonderful magic to both stories, as well, that complicates the ways that these characters face their challenges. That give them strength, even when things seem their bleakest, that life goes on. To the reviews!

Art by Jereme Peabody

X Marks the Story - March 2018

The latest X Marks the Story is live at The Book Smugglers!

Here's the list!

“The Emotionless, In Love”, Jason Sanford (published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies #246, March 2018)

“The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington”, Phenderson Djèlí Clark (published at Fireside Magazine, February 2018)

“Five Tangibles and One”, D.A. Xiaolin Spires (published at Terraform SF, February 2018)

“Traces of Us”, Vanessa Fogg (published at GigaNotoSaurus, March 2018)

“Of Warps and Wefts”, Innocent Chizaram Ilo (published at Strange Horizons, March 2018)

“From the Womb of the Land, Our Bones Entwined”, AJ Fitzwater (published in Pacific Monsters, Fox Spirit Books, November 2017)

Plus there's more X-plorations to be found. Cheers!

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Quick Sips - Fireside Magazine February 2018

Things have settled down a bit at Fireside Magazine, and the month finds four new short stories for our reading pleasure (plus some nonfiction that, while I'm not looking at it specifically here, is very much worth your time and attention). The stories have a bit of a dark bend to them this month, contrasting the more traditional romantic feelings of February. Instead, the stories reveal injustices and settings ripe with destruction, pain, and loss. From alternate history to future societies created to be the perfect audience, these worlds contain deep shadows and wounds that cannot heal clean so long as the corruption at their hearts are left untreated. It's an interesting mix of stories, and let's get to them!

Art by Odera Igbokwe

Quick Sips - Fantasy #60 People of Colo(u)r Destroy Fantasy!

Fantasy Magazine lives in this issue thanks to the support behind Lightspeed Magazine's People of Colo(u)r Destroy SF! It's time to destroy fantasy and this issue does a marvelous job of that, showcasing four original stories that feature themes of resistance and injustice, struggle and hope. These are stories to inspire, that look to the idea that change is possible, that those living under the burdens of injustice can get out, can help each other, and even if they can't destroy the unjust systems on their own, they can work to undermine their power. Chip away at the damage that they do. These stories are full of amazing characters and lots of magic, from a story of plague and dancing to one of bargains and marching. It's an incredible issue and I should just get to those reviews! 

Art by Emily Osborne