Winter has come in truth to Shimmer Magazine, as December's releases shows a mix of horror and despair, pain and the lingering traces of loss. The stories both structure themselves around strong premises—the loss of a great war, the tasting of spirits—and complicate them, flesh them out with characters that exist in broad strokes but still impart a subtle complexity. There are some dark flavors at work here, notes of blood and hunger, but there's also a certain tenderness as well. There is despair, yes, but there is also resolve. To live. To survive. The stories approach these ideas from very, very different places, but they're well paired all the same. So yeah, to the reviews!
The science fiction issue continues at Shimmer with two more stories this month that examine place and care and struggle. Both stories, as promised in the issue's editorial, make fine use of language to build their worlds, their voices. The stories blood onto the page with strangeness and with yearning and both make use of characters facing the end of something. The end of the world, the end of a single life. There are moments of profound change and resistance and I'm just going to get to those reviews!
The second issue of Mothership Zeta has landed and once again it proves to be a well balanced and mostly-enjoyable mix of genres with an eye on fun. Humor is a very difficult thing, at times, and fun perhaps just as elusive and varied from person-to-person. What Mothership Zeta proves itself capable of, though, is providing a wide range of options arranged in a way that flows nicely from piece to piece. The issue doesn't really bog down, and there's a momentum behind it that makes it difficult to put down once its been started. And this issue also shows how genres can be bent, broken, stitched back together, and reanimated to some great results, the stories excelling at not being limited to anything other than "fun." So yeah, time to get to those reviews!
