Quick Sips - Clarkesworld #166

Art by Yigit Koroglu

The latest issue of Clarkesworld is out and it’s a big one, with five short stories, a novelette, and a novella to enjoy. As always, the stories have a distinct science fiction bend to them, but with touches of fantasy and horror mixed into the sci-fi as well. More than that, many of the stories are about isolation and intense relationships, the people caught in ways, pulled toward loneliness and directionlessness, trying to find ways forward, trying to find where they belong and what their lives will look like. Not all of them find happy endings. Many of them find that their choices are extremely limited to factors in and outside of their control. Whatever their outcomes, though, the journeys are at turns beautiful and terrifying, and worth checking out. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #297

Art by Rytis Sabaliauskas

The two stories of the latest issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies deal with nobility. In one, the ruler of a very small nation explains the nature of justice. In another, a boy who might have been king struggles with having all that taken away. Both deal with events that might be too much for the main characters to handle, events that might break them, leave them forever after altered, different. It’s a fascinating pair of stories, drawing on the historical real world, though with their own fictional flourishes. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Tor dot com June 2019

Art by Gregory Manchess

Two short stories and two novelettes make for a fairly full month from Tor dot com. On top of yet another Mongolian Wizard story, there are works about inter-dimensional airships, torture in the name of psychological research, and a group of young women camping in the woods. The pieces lean on the dark side, highlighting drain and the stress of living in situations where exploitation is the law of the land. But some also find people trying to break free of the cycle, even as others show people being consumed by it. A nice range of stories, which I'll get right to reviewing!

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 05/02/2016 & 05/09/2016

I'm actually rather surprised that there isn't a bit more to cover from these two weeks of Strange Horizons, but as what is here is excellent you won't hear me complaining. One story, two poems, and a very revealing nonfiction piece are, in this instance, more than enough to absolutely blow my mind. The story is deep and fun and dark and has an ending like a hammer shattering a walnut. The poetry is a mix of love and scenery and place and destruction, about the way things fall apart and how we are poorer afterward. And the nonfiction looks at SFF reviewing and is just a great resource for people wanting to know a bit about the landscape (and some of its systemic problems). It's a heady mix, and I'm going to get to reviewing it!

Art by Nora Potwora