Quick Sips - Flash Fiction Online January 2020

Flash Fiction Online doesn’t exactly open the year up with the most SFF of issues. But even so, the stories are sharp and feature people dealing with the expectations put on them. The injustices that they are expected to accept and bear. And the ways that they say Fuck That to all the people trying to oppress them, to make them conform and accept the cages designed for them. It’s a trio of defiant, affirming stories, and I’ll get right to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Flash Fiction Online March 2018

A rather unprecedented four original stories mark Flash Fiction Online’s March offerings, ushering in the official spring months (though where I am there’ll still be snow into May) with a heavy issue full of abuse, grief, and fear. Which, hey, these are the times we live in. The stories are beautiful, exploring a rich variety of themes while maintaining a tone and mood that’s a mix of shadows and the singularity of a black hole. Characters reach of escapes from their pains, from their abuse, from their grief and despair. They stand transfixed between hope and destruction, between the thinnest thread leading toward a better place and the vast avenues leading toward ruin. It’s not a particularly happy month of very short fiction, but these are stories that bring a moving power and driving impact. They aren’t messing around, and I guess I shouldn’t either—to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Fantasy Scroll #9

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!

Art by Jessica Tung Chi

Quick Sips - Flash Fiction Online May 2015

Three new original stories this month at Flash Fiction Online, and they all fall on the speculative spectrum. For that, though, there is a nice variety, from a off-world science fiction to a contemporary science fiction to a nice, dark fantasy. As always, these are some short short stories worth checking out, short enough to be read all in one go without really losing much time for it. And at the beginning of the month, it's nice at times to not have to worry about a huge issue to get through. So yeah, let's get to it!

Art by Dario Bijelac