Quick Sips - Fantasy #61

Art by Alexandra Petruk/Adobe Stock Image

It’s been a while since there’s been a regular Fantasy Magazine. After combining with Lightspeed (and retaining that name), the publication has only returned for special Destroy issues (of which I reviewed the ones that came out in 2015 & 2016), but hasn’t been ongoing. That changes with this issue. Now, things are a bit different now, as the publication will be putting out flash fiction and poetry on top of the regular-length fiction, but like Lightspeed, Fantasy will be releasing content for free online slowly throughout the month (though you can always buy an issue to get it all right away). And the first issue seems to me like a statement of intent. A way of showing what fantasy as a genre has to offer, and what Fantasy the publication might be focusing on. Stories that combine magic and resilience. Poems that mix hope and joy. A whole experience that is challenging, provocative, and entertaining as h*ck. Let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Flash Fiction Online August 2018

I wasn’t sure if I was going to review this issue of Flash Fiction Online, because it is entirely made up of reprints. But because these reprints are from Flash Fiction Online, making up something of a “Our Favorites” issue chosen by the editorial staff, and because I don’t want to skip the publication this month, I’m going to do ahead and review the stories that I haven’t already reviewed (all of them but the Samantha Murray piece, which I did very enjoy). Many of the stories are about families or children, though in very different ways, and many of those feature a focus on the ways that adults impact young people, for good and for ill. So yeah, let’s get to the reviews!

Art by Dario Bijelac

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #99

The four original short stories of August’s Lightspeed Magazine have a lot to do with age and aging. They find characters at different stages of their lives, from adolescents running afoul of a truly foul justice system to people pushing middle age and having to make some hard decisions to older characters making a difference even after their so-called retirement. The worlds explored here are varied and strange, bent reflections offering views through which we can examine areas of our own world, our own lives. It’s a varied and interesting slew of short fiction, so without further delay, to the reviews!

Art by Waiji Choo

Quick Sips - Fantastic Stories of the Imagination May 2015

Normally I don't think of flash fiction as anything under 3,000 words, but that's how Fantastic Stories of the Imagination defines the form and so here are two more "flash" fiction pieces. Really I'm just teasing (though really, the first story is not flash), because both stories are once again good and both science fictional looks at the future, at two young women who are trying to figure out their place in the scheme of things. The stories offer two different views of the future, two different dilemmas, but they both share some common things. Mostly, they're about being open to change, about not being stuck with tunnel vision. One story shows the protagonist finding this out, the other shows the protagonist with maybe some more learning to do. But both are interesting and I guess I should just get to it!