Quick Sips - Tor dot com September 2020

Art by Audrey Benjaminsen

It’s another full month of original fiction at Tor dot com, with four short stories and a novelette. As the seasons change into autumn (here in the U.S. at least), the fiction seems to be shifting as well. The stories are getting a bit more grim, a bit spookier. The works are tending toward horror tropes and elements with vampires, ghosts, monsters, gods, and apocalypses. The works find characters who are trying to get their lives on track following loss, following disappointment, following…life happening. And their attempts run into shadows, into the strange and dangerous mysteries of the world. And if, and how, they come out of those shadows will determine a lot if they can start to recover and heal from what’s happened to them. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #313

Art by Vladimir Manyukhin

It’s anniversary time again at Beneath Ceaseless Skies, with a special extra-big issue containing three short stories and a novelette. Because of how the stories are released, it’s basically like having two different issues in one, and that plays out for me in the thematic links between the stories as well, where the first two deal with people investigating strange disturbances that turn out to be much deeper and more perilous than they thought, and the second two deal with people figuring out how much of their desires are what they think other people want for them, and how much are genuinely coming from within. The stories bounce off each other well, building in resonating ways a look into some very interesting (and often grim) fantasy worlds. But before I give too much away, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Escape Pod #748-751

September sees a return of original content to Escape Pod, and does so in rather dramatic fashion, with seven(!) new short stories, including the four winners of the annual flash contest. With that many stories, there’s a lot of science fictional visions on display, looking at time travel, post-apocalypses, aliens, AIs, and much more. The worst also range from happy to heartbreaking, from hopeful to kinda bleak. But the works show some wonderful interpretations of what science fiction can mean, what they can include, and I am all here for it. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 09/21/2020 & 09/28/2020

I close out my reviews of September’s Strange Horizons issues with a look at one more short story and two more poems. The fiction deals with totalitarianism, with borders, with touch. With a relationship fracturing under the strain not only from without, but from within as well. The poetry keeps things heavy, dangerous, mysterious. Things aren’t all doom and gloom, though, with a bit of humor mixed in as well, and a spot of meta-textuality as one of the poems evokes and complicates a different text (one probably familiar to most people reading this). The publication crosses the three quarter mark on the year in style, with a strong range of works that do not disappoint. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - PodCastle #643

Just a single story in this month’s PodCastle original releases, but that’s not to say it’s does hit above its weight. The story is complex and beautiful, daring and demanding in ways that I don’t often see in short SFF. It deals with transition, with changing a body in magical ways, but the change isn’t just a metaphor for gender transitioning, in part because that’s already literal in the text. Rather, the transition here is more complicated, a way for the main character to reshape her body and get a manner of control and freedom she’s always wanted. It’s stirring and emotionally resonating work, and I’ll get right to my review before I give too much away!

Quick Sips - Fireside Magazine #83

Art by Melody Newcomb

The latest Fireside Magazine comes with five new short stories, making it large for the publications (but that’s kinda what happens on months with five Tuesdays). More, it tours SFF, moving from future superheroes to past uploaded consciousnesses. From sentient 3D printers to sentient ritual blades. From daring dos in space to a much more terrestrial look at homes and monsters. The works are at turns entertaining and touching, fun and challenging, chilling and inspiring. They cover a lot of thematic ground and make for some great reading, so I’ll get right to my reviews!

Quick Sips - Diabolical Plots #67

Art by Joey Jordan

The two new stories in the latest issue of Diabolical Plots are quite well paired, and find people clinging to ghosts. In the first, that’s rather literal, with a character and their ghost dog, and the relationship that has so fulfilled them both coming to a close. In the second, it’s a bit more figurative, but the characters are still clinging to the ghosts of humanity and all the things that humanity destroyed--the way of life that has been lost, replaced with something much more efficient but not quite as comforting. Both stories are emotional and challenging, presenting readers with situations where there no stopping loss. But also showing characters moving forward regardless, picking themselves up and looking towards the future, even if they’re still also looking to the past. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Nightmare #96

Art by Melkor3D / Adobe Stock Image

The September Nightmare Magazine brings a pair of stories that show a quieter side of horror. Both feature settings as part of the cast, though their characters are very different—rural farm versus urban decay. Both very much focus on the violence found in these places, though, the ways that a person can be lost. One story, though, focuses on the monsters that live among us and the ways America shelters and shields them. The ways it allows them. Where the other story is much more about the tragedy of loss and the deep sense of haunting that comes from so many places, where the dead and their potential loom large, and possess a solid weight. Despite the slower pacing, both stories are intense and intimate, and it’s a great issue that I’ll get right to reviewing!

Quick Sips - Baffling Magazine September 2020

This month at Baffling Magazine there’s just one story to check out, but as it’s a new story by Nino Cipri, I’m pretty sure we can all agree that’s more than enough. And it’s a beautifully rendered portrait of suburbia. The façade of the pristine--the lawns, the cars, the “perfect” families. The bliss of quiet mornings and drives through the empty streets. But under that, something perhaps rotting. Something off. Something wrong. And the story might not find words for it but it provides a stirring and unsettling picture of it, of a boy finding something he doesn’t quite understand, but that he feels with his whole self. It’s strange and more than a little creepy but also powerful, like something is about to break through the shell that he’s been living on the surface of. And what’s coming through...well, perhaps I should just get to the review!

Quick Sips - Uncanny #36 [September stuff]

Art by Christopher Jones

The latest from Uncanny includes three new short stories and two new poems that speak of space, of people finding themselves in a new place, unsure of the rules, hurting from the baggage and scars they bring with them, trying to find a way forward. A way to stop being hungry--for food, or experiences, for closure, for revenge. The works lean a bit more towards the science fictional side of things (or well, the fiction does), with a slight divergence to a work that...seems to blend science and fantasy. The works are well built, vividly imagined, and have a bit of aching need at their core, and I should stop being vague and get right to my reviews!

Quick Sips - Clarkesworld #168

Art by Rodion Shaldo

September’s Clarkesworld Magazine is big. Four short stories (1 translated) and three novelettes remind me that this is the longest publication that I cover. And in some ways it’s an almost strange month for the publication, featuring stories that dip more into the fantasy side of things, though with plenty of science or at least mechanical elements that mean that the focus still isn’t really on magic, exactly. The pieces run from historical weird to far future colonization, from intimate stories unfolding in the human mind to conflicts that span countries and beyond. There’s a lot to get to in this issue, so I won’t waste any more time. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 09/07/2020 & 09/14/2020

Art by Thais Leiros

Strange Horizons’ September kicks off with two new issues with two new poems, a new short story, and a novelette, on top of the usual amazing nonfiction that I don’t cover but definitely recommend. And the pieces are indeed Strange! And…horizon…y. They look at the borders of things, the sort of uncertainty that makes reality malleable, that leaves people broken, alone, their worlds shattered by a casual violence, by the presence of something hungry and stark, mechanical and merciless. The works are unsettling and yearning, and the poetry is (as usual) challenging and wonderful. Once more the publication more than lives up to its name, and I’ll try and do likewise with some reviews!

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #312

Art by Vladimir Manyukhin

Both of the stories in the latest issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies are about bargains and the people who facilitate them. Who trade in the power to get things done. To realize dreams. Or to respond to hurts. Both people, though, find that there are hurts they seem incapable of really seeing to. And in some ways that regardless of what they do, things seem to get worse, people they care about are hurt, and they end up increasingly alone. It’s a nice one-two punch of grim and gritty stories involving magic and desire. But there’s hope there as well. Stuck in, and shadowed by the pain that’s been caused, but present all the same, for those willing to look for it. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - GigaNotoSaurus September 2020

The latest GigaNotoSaurus pushes things to novelette length and spins a tale of gods and desire, betrayal and faith, all wrapped around one person who really just sort of wants to be left alone. When their god suddenly develops an intense (and entirely unwanted) desire for them, though, being left along is off the menu. What follows is a strange and careful story that spins around a blossoming friendship, the desire for safety, and the shattering reality of the abuse of power. It’s not an easy read, for all the fantasy elements are interesting and the characters are rather fun. The situation is grim, though, and the atmosphere creeping, alive with violation, and lacking a clear path forward. Before I give too much away, though, let’s get to the review!

Quick Sips - Flash Fiction Online September 2020

September brings three stories to Flash Fiction Online that deal with...change and compromises. That find two people navigating a situation where they have to decided how to move forward when the path before them seems to be leading into conflict, separation, and destruction. For the first two stories, that touches on the divine, finding beings with supernatural powers faced with how to use those powers. Even the last story, though, deals with a force that is a greater magic, and how people relate to it, how people run from it and hide it. The stories all find the characters having to deal with big changes to their little worlds, and trying to make their decisions based on empathy, compassion, and trust. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - The Dark #64

Art by Vincent Chong

The latest issue of The Dark Magazine focuses on monsters, on beings who might be gods, beings who are making some unfair bargains and fully expect to get away with it. And, well, they’re not necessarily wrong to think that, as the stories are also visceral and intensely grim. They offer no real relief from the crush of injustice and the descent of time. But then, the publication isn’t called The Happy. So it’s a rather appropriate issue, if also a rather devastating one. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #124

Art by Grandeduc / Adobe Stock Image

The September Lightspeed Magazine brings out three short stories and one novelette, many of them tinged with a level of meta-commentary, whether through an author literally self-inserting into the text or through a fictional author confronting themselves through a series of revision notes. There’s a blurring of form, of reality and fantasy (or science fiction), and the result is a selection of stories that provoke and challenge. That aren’t always a joy to read, but that question narrative structure, time, and do a lot of interesting things. To the reviews!