Quick Sips - Translunar Travelers Lounge #1 [part 3: House blend]

I’ve finally come to the third and final section of the menu for the first issue of Translunar Travelers Lounge. “House blend” promises a dark roast with a sweet finish, and there’s no arguing that these stories deliver on that. The world build and settings are intricate and largely built around loss and tragedy. These are worlds and places that have seen better times. Where humans or whoever is left have to figure out ways to live under the constraints of their surroundings and their histories. Often there is danger, oppression, fear, and destruction looming. But even in the most desolate of places, the stories feature characters reacting with compassion and resilience, coming together instead of splintering apart. So let’s close out this first issue and get to those reviews!

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 09/30/2019

Well this is certainly a wonderful way to close out September, with five short stories and three poems of Brazilian SFF in a special issue from Strange Horizons. The works are varied and vibrant, alive with rebellion and beauty and despair and loss and resilience. That find characters struggling against oppressive worlds and situations, trying to find ways to survive and, more than that, to thrive and grow and heal. I will admit that reviewing poetry is always something that I kind of have to grapple with, and especially with work that comes out of situations very different from mine, where I might not know the context intended. But I am all for owning my opinion and I love the feeling of the poems, the call for resistance against corruption and the need to act. It’s a wonderful issue, all told, and I’ll get right to my reviews!

Quick Sips - Tor dot com September 2019

Art by Kuri Huang

September brought three new fiction releases from Tor's digital arm, two short stories and a novelette with a bit of a mind-bending feel to them. From the "real world" slipping into fantasy to scientific proofs of life after death to a kind of disease that takes away people's sleep cycles, the works explore things happening that completely change how people live. How people adapt. How people strive for something better, even when they are afraid, and challenged, and tired. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - PodCastle #591

PodCastle released one original story in September (on top of a lot of reprinted work. The new story is a strange one, haunting and slightly surreal, but at its heart (couldn't help it) it's about intimacy and relationships. About two people who find themselves in a difficult place, in a world where so many are hopeless and alone. And through their doubts and fears and hurts they have to find ways to reach out, both to one another and toward a future that seems broken. It's a difficult piece, and before I give it away entirely, I should get to my review!

Quick Sips - Terraform September 2019

It's still been a little slow at Vice's Terraform, but September saw two releases exploring different rather bleak visions of the future. Both pieces are rather philosophical, exploring questions of race and "equality," science and revolution. It features characters struggling against pressures to conform, trying to find ways to resist in a way that will be meaningful not just personally but on a societal level. The pieces explore when it might be better to fight back openly, and when to work subversively. When to concentrate on science, and when to join in the physical and political movements. And without further delay, I'll get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #287 [part 1]

Art by Ferdinand Dumago Ladera

It’s anniversary time again at Beneath Ceaseless Skies, with a special double issue, the first two stories of which I’m looking at today. The works are both novelettes, and both linked by a sort of preoccupation with the soul. They are in some ways rather philosophical pieces, examining morality and grit, will and skill and magic. They find women who have set themselves on a course that they could leave at any moment, but that they are resolved to see through to the (perhaps bitter) end. I’m eager to see how these two fit into the larger issue, too, but I’ll have to wait for next week when I’ll be finishing up my look at the issue!

Quick Sips - Fireside Magazine #71

Art by Mariana Palova

The September Fireside Magazine breaks a bit from the usual mold, in that three of the stories are translations (all from Spanish, I believe). Together, the stories and poetry paint something of a grim picture, revealing hungers and traumas, lies and fears and doubts. The characters are often put in situations where they're trying to figure out how to be themselves, how to walk the line between performance and identity, and never exactly coming away with a clear answer or map. The works are challenging and wrenching but often fun as well, emotionally charged in different ways. So let's get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 09/16/2019 & 09/23/2019

Art by Qistina Khalidah

September keeps right on rolling at Strange Horizons, and between the latest two issues there is a short story and two poems to look at. The stories evoke darkness and myth, and the places in the world where magic seems able to slip through. The deep woods. The moments of tragedy that break the world a bit. But as much as there is violence and sorrow and grief and loss, there are moments of healing as well, and compassion and empathy, that might be able to knit back together the torn fabric of reality, while maintaining a bit of that magic. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Diabolical Plots #55

Art by Joey Jordan

September brings a slightly larger release from Diabolical Plots, with three original stories covering magical schools, strange competitions, and vending machines of questionable morality. They walk the line between fun and poignant, between charming and wrenching. The pieces look at familial relationships and personal ambition against the desire to be a part of a community. In each, a character must handle being confronted with disappointment, with an unexpected complication. A family crisis, a educational reality, an immigration nightmare. Not all of the complications have simple fixes. But they all push the characters to reexamine their situations and try to find ways forward in a world that doesn't work quite the way they thought it did.

Quick Sips - Translunar Travelers Lounge #1 [part 1: Fizzy Mixers]

I wasn’t actually meaning to pick up any more things to review but I am apparently a glutton for short SFF and couldn’t resist this new project, Translunar Travelers Lounge, that promises some fun short fiction with speculative awesomeness. Today I’m looking at the first section of the magazine, which has conveniently (and topically where this blog is concerned) organized itself as a tasting menu. So these are the Fizzy Mixers, which are meant to be light and great for whetting the appetite. They are also delightful, fun, and funny, brash and wicked and very, very good. So buckle up and loosen up your smilin’ muscles, and let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Escape Pod #696-697

Escape Pod has two original stories this month, and while they cover some very different ground both thematically and stylistically, they are united by perhaps a certain preoccupation with...death. Both stories approach the idea of death in very different ways, though, one of them looking at the lengths people will go to in order to try and revoke death, to overcome it, to erase the grief of loss and maybe pull something back from the abyss, while the other looks at the utility of death, the culture significance and the power of death as a driving force of human art and expression. The episodes are tightly written and at turns tragic and fun. So without further delay, to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Nightmare #84

Art by Chorazin / Fotolia

The two stories of Nightmare's September issues take on horror tropes old and very, very new. From a found text detailing a strange being hidden in the distant past to a new game craze sweeping a future where immersive gaming is possible, the stories deal with situations where a story takes on a life of its own. Where the whispers in crowded markets and quiet, dusty libraries lead to a monster who looks like a man. Where the corporate greed of game makers to create the most perfect (and profitable) gaming experience waken something hiding at the edge of the collective unconscious. The stories are disturbing and visceral, and pack in some shock to go with the creeping dread. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Disabled People Destroy Fantasy! part 1 (Uncanny #30 [September stuff])

Art by Julie Dillon

This month kicks off Uncanny Magazine’s Disabled People Destroy Fantasy!, with three poems, two short stories, and a novelette all written by disabled authors. The pieces definitely look at different ways that characters deal with disability, with pain, with limitations, with chronic issues that they can’t just will away. It looks at how the rest of the world treats them, which ends up defining a lot of their existence, what they’re able to do. The works are often a bit grim, and perhaps not surprisingly take on fairy tales and other media that has a history of...not handling disability very well. The fantasy is strong here, and gorgeously rendered, so let’s dispense with further small talk and get right to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #286

Art by Noah Bradley

The two stories in the latest Beneath Ceaseless Skies both deal with younger people getting some advice and guidance from powerful magic users. In one, a boy dreams about apprenticing with a Magician who he hopes might get him out of going to war. In the other, a woman seeks out a Witch in order to free her from a different sort of doom. In both, the characters are trying to turn away from death, to avoid the end that has befallen so many others. Only one of the characters gets what they’re after, unfortunately, though both learn some valuable lessons along the way. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Samovar 09/02/2019 & Strange Horizons 09/09/2019

September kicks off with a bang with a new issue of Samovar to enjoy before settling back into regular Strange Horizons content. The translated issue features two stories and a poem, while the "regular" issue has another short story and poem, so all told it's a rather full two weeks. It's also a rather difficult few pieces, dealing with colonization, identity loss, and some dense literary comparative theory. And for all that the fiction is strong and unsettling, chronicling people struggling and often succumbing to the violence and corruption of their systems, I also want to point specifically to the poetry in these issues, which is pretty amazing and worth checking out. So let's get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - GigaNotoSaurus September 2019

GigaNotoSaurus is back! Editor LaShawn Wanak ushers in a new day and after having had just one other issue this year, the publication returns with a dose of magical Western in a novelette that mixes blood, sand, and compulsion. The piece follows a man made to suppress his nature, made into the semblance of something he used to be—fully human. It’s a rather bloody tale of covert action and a slight drive toward oblivion. But it’s also a fine taste of an interesting and intricate world, and might just whet your appetite for more. To the review!

Quick Sips - Flash Fiction Online September 2019

September brings a somewhat grim collection of short fiction to Flash Fiction Online, with three pieces very much about accidents and loss, grief and the slim margins of hope. In many, death rides heavy in shotgun. In some, grief and loneliness seem like they will be too much for the narrators to bear. There is a sharp edge of bleakness in many of the stories, and how they approach grieving and sorrow. But there’s also hope to many of them. That even when you lose someone, not everything is lost. Even when it seems that way. And not everyone who leaves does so entirely, leaving pieces of themself behind in memories, in acts of compassion that linger long after their footsteps have faded to silence. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - The Dark #52

Art by chainatp

Both of the original stories in this month’s The Dark Magazine deal with stories, with fairy tales. One of them in a more meta, way, weaving a woman’s harrowing struggle into a song that she can sing into life to give herself the happy ending she needs. The other is more of a fairy tale retelling, taking the familiar shapes and characters and themes and boiling them down into something thick and hearty. The result is an issue that is very aware of the price that women often pay just to live, and the injustice of that price. Both works find characters breaking free from the cycle that seems poised to consume them, and finding room for family and for hope. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #112

Art by Galen Dara

Two novelettes and two short stories means a fairly full issue of Lightspeed Magazine this September, with a focus on history, freedom, and struggle. Often in the stories, characters find themselves being controlled or manipulated, either by another being or by their own insecurities and fears. What results is an issue that looks at people struggling with the implications of their own drives, their desire for freedom over comfort, meaning over survival. There are stories of future incarceration, science gone wrong (or right?), struggles linked by music, and even a Weird Western where magic springs from decks of special playing cards. The worlds are vividly rendered and the characters often wrenchingly portrayed, but instead of just telling you about them here, let's get to the full reviews!