Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #249

April brings two tales of magic and pain to Beneath Ceaseless Skies, featuring characters very much looking for cures for something and finding that those cures might not exist. In each, the characters face something that makes them look at what they do in a new light. Their mission and their identity is complicated and altered. How they respond to that is very different, though, with one person running away from the implications of their decisions and the other person ready to meet the full weight of what’s happening. Both stories also feature an interesting take on make and some intense battles. So yeah, let’s get to the reviews!

Art by Stefan Meisl

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #93

February brings a rather philosophical batch of stories to Lightspeed Magazine. These are pieces that explore ideas and concepts like justice, identity, and freedom through a speculative lens. In each, the characters are engaged in some ways against incorporeal threats and harms made tangible. In each, the characters’ struggles take on a weight and power as they engage with these concepts and seek to triumph over them. They are dense and stirring stories that don’t lose their immediacy or intimacy for trading in big ideas. To the reviews!

Art by Sam Schechter

Quick Sips - Nightmare #43

This month's Nightmare Magazine certainly knows the value of slowly building tension in speculative horror, with two stories that don't rush right to the climax. Instead the stories climb meticulously, deviously, taking the reader to a pinnacle of horror before giving them a shove and turning out the lights. These are stories that know when to drop the curtains, with endings that hit and linger. They're methodical and tightly built and quite good and so I'm going to get to reviewing!

Art by Yana Moskaluk

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #66

This month's Lightspeed Magazine is all about subverting tropes. From a time travel story about love and determination to a sentient ship bursting with faith in greater powers to dragons literally erasing diversity in Medieval Europe, the stories take some common ideas and twist them just so. Everything old is new again and the stories manage to range from subtle to more blatant, but all of them are subversive, all of them worth sinking your teeth into. Which I should get started on!

Art by John Brosio