Quick Sips - Capricious #1

I'm looking at Capricious today, a brand spanking new New Zealand-centered magazine. Why? I will be honest and say because September has been a very slow month and because I saw the link on Twitter from someone whose story I wanted to read. Shallow, perhaps, but the publication looks like an interesting one, and pays at least a cent a word, and it's not incredibly long. Four stories is just about right for me, and so all of these things conspired to get me to review the issue. Will I pick up the next one? Probably that depends on how full that month is, but I will say that I did enjoy these stories. There is a definite sense that genres are being traversed, mixed, and subverted. Most of the stories blend science fiction and fantasy elements, and I'm quite a fan of those kinds of stories. And really, the stories accomplish their blends in unique ways, none of them really the same or even similar except in their ambition and skill.

I'm not one who goes into a publication hoping for some strict adherence to a theme. Color me the wrong kind of SFF reader, but I like to be surprised and I like to be challenged. Like the alien in the third story, sometimes what we go looking for isn't what we need to learn. And I think that this issue does a good job of justifying its place in the field. It does a nice job of presenting stories that are fresh and unique, that weave genres and themes in interesting ways. So yeah, I should really get to the reviews...

Art by Anastasia (Mircha) Astasheva