Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 09/21/2015 and 09/28/2015

So I was not really expecting there to be so much out from Strange Horizons these last two weeks. Normally, there's only a piece of fiction, a poem, and maybe a nonfiction per week. Towards the end of the month, like now, there tends to be even less. But there is a fund drive going on. So first, maybe go and check that out. Then realize with growing apprehension that there are three pieces of fiction to look at, five poems, and two pieces of nonfiction. That's a busy two weeks. Luckily it's all quite good, rather dark, and incredibly helpful as far as the nonfiction is concerned. If this is the content that Strange Horizons keeps offering up, then I definitely want to make sure they keep up and running, and I'm sure I'll donate again this year. Plus, there are prize drawings. Amazing, amazing prize drawings. So yeah, get on that while I get to these reviews.

Quick Sips - Terraform September 2015

So I think that the publishing schedule has changed at Terraform. Instead of stories coming out on Monday, they seem to be coming out later in the week. It's strange because I can't check every day to see, but I'm thinking they've been coming out closer to Friday most weeks. Whatever the case, the stories this month are good. Mostly dark visions of the future, and getting into some non-science fictional waters perhaps with a few of them, but definitely a nice mix of stories and styles. And some that really hit hard. Even an excerpt from a longer work that I decided to look at. So to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Book Smugglers September 2015

Hey, and here I thought Book Smugglers was done with original fiction. Apparently not! Just done with the First Contact stories. So here is a sequel story to "Hunting Monsters," which was released way way back in...oh, last year. So for those hankering for a fresh installment of that story, the wait is over! I quite enjoyed the first story and this sequel is equally good. So yeah, to the review!

Art by Kristina Tsenova

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

Quick Sips - Tor.com September 2015 (Part 1)

So normally I would be waiting to post my Tor.com review until later in the month when all the stories are out (I'm guessing there might still be two this month to go), but I'm really hurting for things to review right now and I suspect there might be a story out here as late as the last day of the month, so I'm just breaking the September publications into two groups. Two original stories and one graphic story that's technically a reprint. I'm looking at it though because it's only really been up at the artist's blog, so this is the first time it's being not self-published. And it's cute. The stories themselves this month are about not giving up, about loneliness and isolation and despair, but also about wanting to help people and not giving up on them. In ways that run both uplifting and disturbing. Some good stuff, though, that I'm just going to get to reviewing.

Art by Wesley Allsbrook

Quick Sips - Urban Fantasy #11

So two new stories from Urban Fantasy Magazine this month, and a return to solicited pieces. Which...well, I'm not actually all that sure how to feel about the solicited story. Which is the polite way of saying I do know how I feel about it, but...well...I have no real experience with the writing of the author outside a few short stories in anthologies, and...well, the stories this month couldn't really be more different if they tried. Seriously, one is a heartwarming story about family and the other is...about revenge. They are a little jarring next to each other, to be honest. But to the reviews...

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #182

Nothing out of the ordinary this issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies with two returning authors revealing some quite interesting second world settings. The first is a new installment to a running series that takes the food theme of its previous installment to some disturbing lengths. The second pits a young woman against the Patriarchy, with a little help from a walking house. Both are smart and fun, with some wackier bits of world building even as the stories are quite serious. Thematically they diverge a bit, but they certainly both feel fun enough to create a sort of continuity between them. So to the reviews!

Art by Tyler Edlin

Quick Sips - Nightmare #36

Two stories from Nightmare Magazine this month and both are powerful, dealing with life and death and the power of going on. The stories are about breaking cycles and about how societies can trap people in a bad way, how society can build walls and avenues to isolate people. The stories build very different settings, and yet both are recognizable, both are indictments of things that are very much at work now, stigmas and prejudices. They compliment each other quite well, and I'm just going to get to reviewing them, 'kay?

Art by Lauren K. Cannon

Quick Sips - Apex #76

It's interesting to me how varied issues of Apex Magazine can be. One week it's have four pieces of fiction and four poems and the next four pieces of fiction and one poem and here there are five pieces of fiction and two poems. It does keep things new and fluid, changing, and at least I can trust everything to be high quality. This month the theme seems to be isolation, the characters mostly dealing with life on their own, cut off from help by choice, by pain, by the elements, by disorder. The issue does an excellent job of exploring the idea of being alone, cut off, different, and how people react to those who are alone. So review time!

Art by Ekaterina Zagustina

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #181

Two stories make up this issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and both make a fairly interesting contrast to the last issue, where violence dominated the tales. Here there is one story that is almost entirely free of violence and one story where the violence is...well, quite present but also rather hilarious. Quite a shift from last issue, and yet the stories are filled with a sense of fun, a lightheartedness that makes them charming. Both stories manage to remain mostly light, very hopeful, and left me smiling. So time to review them!

Art by Tyler Edlin

Quick Sips - Fantastic Stories of the Imagination #230

Two flash works fill up this issue's original work from Fantastic Stories of the Imagination. Thematically, the stories are both dealing with mortality, at least in my opinion. In both there is a sense that what is truly beautiful cannot last forever. That there is something in the nature of beauty that is tied to time. We see a woman traveling the galaxy, exploring all kinds of things, capturing her memories to save, and yet the true beauty of her past is in her, is never bound in the memory boxes. In the second story a person encased in glass and water and wire finds that they long for the sight of a flower, that for all that the world has given her immortality, it pales before the fleeting beauty of a bloom. An interesting theme to tie the stories together, and one I should get more into in the reviews...

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #64

September brings a rather interesting issue of Lightspeed, one that features a healthy mix of loss and change and love and moving on. Most of the stories take a rather sad path, weaving together time and loss, progress and sorrow. In the first three there is a definite sense that the characters all stand poised at the start of something, and also the end of something. There is a sense that they are all witnesses to a trauma, to something large and frightening. They are all, in ways, victims of these changes, but also contributors to them, and the future for all of them is still open, still to be decided. And then there's the last story which does an excellent job of releasing all that despair and uncertainty and embracing what's there, what can be held to, and provides a fun and funny ending to the issue. So I'm just going to get the reviews already...

Art by Craig Shields

Quick Sips - Shimmer #27 (September Stuff)

Two new stories this month at Shimmer and they're both stories about time and about humans finding places that aren't quite meant for humans. In the first an alternate Dust Bowl threatens to do much more than make for bad crops and a woman finds a child she knows is not her own. In the second, a man is trapped in a house that is not a house, that is alive and a prisoner in its own right, though neither is really able to free the other. In both stories there is a grim inevitability to the tales, a recognition that some people are incapable of healing the wounds caused and a waiting for the ones that can. Sad and moving, the stories offer small glimpses of hope, but it takes quite a bit of suffering to get there. So without further waiting, to the reviews!

Art by Sandro Castelli

Quick Sips - Clarkesworld #108

This issue of Clarkesworld is pretty much all science fiction. Which is not a bad thing, especially with some of the stories this month, but it does strike me a little bit. The theme of the issue can definitely be seen as sorts of post disasters. The disasters take all forms, from a suicide to a global economic shift to a series of wars. There are some striking takes on this idea, and I think all the stories are worth checking out, even if I wasn't a fan of all of them. At the very least it provides a great many futures to see, to confront and struggle with. So to the reviews!

Art by J. Otto Szatmari

Quick Sips - Crossed Genres #33 (Year 2065)

The three stories for the Year 2065 theme of Crossed Genres do take very different approaches to the idea. They all are at least partly set in the year, but there are different visions. One vision shows what might be, how far humanity might progress in that time, both technologically and morally. It's followed in short order by a story that also shows how far humanity might move technologically and morally, but not in the same direction. And the last shows a glimpse into a possible future, a dream that seems as fragile as a life. Very good stuff, and some interesting ideas on what the world might be like in fifty years.

Quick Sips - Uncanny #6 (September Stuff)

So I might have nearly bitten off more than I could chew when I made the decision to review the latest from Uncanny for my second review of the month. There's a lot here! Two stories (both novelettes), two poems, and some nonfiction to chew and no joke this is a packed month of the issue. Almost like they're running a Kickstarter (nudge nudge, maybe go check that out!). It also is a very powerful month, featuring a pair of stories that show just how varied SFF can be. Dark historical fantasy and middle grade science fiction meet but don't clash here, and the issue as a whole does a nice job of showing just what Uncanny is good at: bringing together voices from all over the genres dedicated to telling good stories. Here's to another year! Oh, and I guess some reviews...

Art by Matthew Dow Smith

Quick Sips - Flash Fiction Online September 2015

September is officially here (yes I know it started yesterday but here on Quick Sip Reviews the month doesn't start until I'm through the previous month's fiction). And, as usual, Flash Fiction Online provides my first stop, with three pieces of fiction. I should also say that there is a very interesting piece of nonfiction there as well on writing advice and writing in general that is very much worth a read but, because of time restraints, I am not looking at today. Sorry! What I am looking at are three stories that all provide fine looks into characters ready to move on. The editorial this month really captures that idea, and these three stories do great jobs of showing the strength required to do something new, to try something different, even if it doesn't always work out as great as it could. It's a nice theme to focus on as the year wears on, and matches quite well with the nonfiction as well (which, again, you should read), so I'm just going to get to reviewing things!

Art by Dario Bijelac