Quick Sips - Terraform October 2020

Oops! It has been a while since the last original story from Terraform, so when one dropped at the very end of October, I missed covering it. Well, I’m making up for it now. And while Halloween might be come and gone, this story definitely keeps the blood-chilling atmosphere of the season alive and well. Looking at contagion, at bodies in revolt, and at the failure of humans to regulate and moderate themselves, to deadly and disastrous effect. It’s grim, and it’s rather terrifying, and I’ll get right to my review!

Quick Sips - Terraform March 2020

Terraform is out with a single story for March, and it's...well, it's a rather stark story about disasters (something that's extra timely right now). More specifically, it's about the ways that exploitation and capitalism are about not preventing loss and disaster. That human life isn't as important as profits, and that under these systems regulation exists not to protect people but rather to protect businesses and their ability to turn tragedy into money. It's a sharp piece, and I'll get right to the review!

Quick Sips - Terraform February 2020

After taking January off, Terraform is back with a new original in February. And it's a story that imagines a future where corporations have grown even more powerful and even the perhaps-self-aware drones are worried about being victims of increasing exploitation. The piece finds a bit of utopian vision, a dangerous thing carved out from the capitalist nightmare. For a drone who has never really wanted to be a soldier, it's a hope they're not sure they can trust. To the review!

Quick Sips - Terraform December 2019

Vice’s Terraform closes out the year with two near-future SF stories about technology and injustice. In one, the epidemic of mass shootings in America is addressed and the cause identified, the infectious agent confronted…or perhaps misdiagnosed. In the other, a chilling look at the future is revealed through the rather innocuous lens of a holiday gift guide. Both stories look at the ways the future must wrestle with personal liberties versus institutional corruption, and especially with “free” capitalism versus human lives and suffering. It’s an on brand way for the publication to close out the year, and I’ll get right to my reviews!

Quick Sips - Terraform November 2019

I wasn't actually sure if there would be a release from Vice's Terraform this month, as their publishing schedule has gone rather erratic of late. But they did indeed drop a story toward the end of the month, and it's certainly on brand for near future science fiction that walks a rather dark edge. The piece looks at the future of medicine, not just in the ways that things like nanobots might be used to keep people healthy and prevent illness and damage, but also in the way that technology will effect legislation and the law. The piece is framed inside a courtroom, where the question put the court is where religious objections to medical technology meet criminal actions up to and including murder. To the review!

Quick Sips - Terraform October 2019

I thought for a minute there that there wouldn't really be much out at Terraform this month, but a few later-month releases mean that there's still some rather sharp SF visions of the future to enjoy. In one, the world is ending and the people looking down the barrel of that possible, even likely extinction have to decide how to meet the end, and how they might leave something that will outlast them. In another, a character enters a novel kind of sleep study and end up realizing that his own biases going in can have very real outcomes coming out, in a nice look at the problems with scientific studies that rely on people to describe their own results. Not exactly the spookiest content, but full of shadows all the same, and well worth checking out. To the reviews!

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 - Terraform August 2019

Only one story in August's Terraform offerings, which I hope is just a temporary lull. The good news is that it brings all the signature terror and sci fi dread that I've come to expect from the publication. It's not an easy read, all about the price of money, the cost of capitalism, and the way that corruption can get inside a person or a place and rot them from the inside out. It's difficult and disturbing at times, and before I give too much away I should get to my review!

Quick Sips - Terraform July 2019

It's a rather brief month of stories from Vice's Terraform, with just two stories (one of them very short). But what the offerings lack in total word count they certainly make up for in impact, unfolding in a ways meant to challenge and terrify The futures here are cautionary but nothing without hope—bleak, but not without beauty. One acts as a sort of fairy tale for the age of family separation and immigration abuses, where a young girl and a drone must navigate a world hungry for tragedy. In the other, a school puts on its best face, which just happens to be one full of teeth. The stories are heavy but leave room for hope, and definitely tackle issues that need to be addressed. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Terraform June 2019

There’s four new speculations on possible futures in June’s offerings from Terraform. As always, the pieces cover a range, unified by their focus on the future, mostly the near-future, and what might be in store for humanity. It’s…well, it’s not always bleak picture. Some, indeed, seem to focus on what might be considered accidents. Some happy, some not-so-happy, and all of them leading the characters in unexpected directions where they have to make a choice of what to do, where to go, and how to balance survival and living. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Terraform May 2019

It’s a fairly full May from Terraform, with five short stories taking on superheroes, robotic soldiers, historic justice, mental health, and death tourism. These are some interesting and largely bleak looks at the future, though not without exception. Though most of the stories look at a future with some huge and fundamental problems, there remains in most of them a hope. Not necessarily that humans are going to fix everything. But that people might find a way to break free of the cycles of oppression and injustice that lock the planet on a trajectory toward destruction and tragedy. They’re some cutting looks at the present through the lens of future speculation. So let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Terraform April 2019

Things get profoundly weird in these April short stories from Motherboard’s Terraform. Very. Very. Weird. From planets where people worship different body parts of their prophet to visions of the future or present where people experience alterations in their perception, the works are all about bending the rules of what makes logical sense in what might be attempts to shake and call into question the fundamental and assumed orderliness of the universe. It finds characters embracing the dark and the unknown, rushing into the jaws of chaos, and struggling against the feelings of stagnancy and inertia. There are some really strange works on display here, but I’m going to give it my best in reviewing them!

Quick Sips - Terraform March 2019

There's a lot going on at Motherboard's Terraform this month, with not only the three short stories I'm covering, but a reprint and an excerpt that you could check out as well. The original fiction covers a number of rather bleak futures ruled by corporate greed and government overreach. Not, mind you, over-regulation, but rather looks at how governments can be tools of oppression, punishing those already suffering from intense pressure and a general hopelessness about the future. It shows how people can be funneled down paths that are supposed to keep them "safe" and "happy" without ever really getting there and without ever being satisfied or content with the actual work they do. The stories show how these harsh futures push people into isolation, and how people seek to reach back out in any way they can. It's not a light bunch of stories, but they're definitely worth grappling with. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Terraform February 2019

Three original short stories mark another solid month of releases from Motherboard's Terraform (plus there's a reprint, something more rare for the publication, that's definitely worth checking out but that I am not covering here). The pieces as always look at what the future might hold for humanity, and the visions range from dire to something much more hopeful. And there's a thread that runs through these pieces of connection and isolation. Of relationships and loneliness. And the future seems brightest where people are able to make genuine connects and live freely. And looks bleakest where people are stifled and pushed to their breaking points. So yeah, let's get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Terraform January 2019

It’s a full month of short SF to kick off 2019 at Motherboard’s Terraform. As always, the pieces on display look at visions of the future, taking trends and projecting them out, wondering what if and guessing at the shape of things to come. Or, perhaps more accurately, guessing at the shape of things that should not come, as each of these stories is a warning against a future full of heightened oppression, fear, insecurity, and corruption. They look at the pressures to conform and the way that mob mentality infects and can drive institutions that shouldn’t be handled by popular demand. The stories skew a little long for the publication, though still very manageable, and they pack rather a strong emotional wallop. So hold onto your feels and get ready for some timely science fiction. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Terraform December 2018

Well, Terraform got one of its stories in just under the wire, meaning I'm a little late in posting this today because of the holiday and everything. But the month certainly brought a rather...apocalyptic bunch of stories forward, focusing on dramas both personal and global and keeping the tone dark and foreboding. From the ways that devices can be used to gather data on consumers (for both good and ill) to ways that the planet has to be completely re-imagined if it's to survive humanity, the pieces are perhaps a little doom-and-gloom, though not without some heart and some hope for the future. Fitting, for the final works of the year. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Terraform November 2018

Three short stories anchor Terraform's releases in November, as well as a strange video thing on Cyber Monday that I won't be looking at. The fiction, though, looks at identity and disaster and, ultimately, isolation. In all of the stories, characters fight for their lives, or what of their lives they can have any control over. The worlds revealed are ones of narrowing futures, where technology or climate or a combination have made it so only the ultra rich have the freedom to do as they want. For everyone else, life is navigating the thin spaces left to them, trying (and mostly not succeeding) to save what they can to the creeping loss effecting the globe. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Terraform October 2018

Thanks to a novel excerpt that I’m not looking at, the October Terraform stories from Motherboard are a little light this month. Three flash fictions, though, deal with some rather heavy themes. Appropriate, given the goal of the publication to put out topical science fiction. Because most of what’s topical right now is the nightmare that world and domestic politics has become. From international war to exploitation and death on a mining colony in space to the much more intimate hurts that family can inflict on each other, these works aren’t exactly a cheery bunch. They reveal characters wanting to find something better, though in very different ways. So let’s get to the reviews! 

*UPDATE: They sneaked in a Halloween novelette on me, so some of the above isn’t accurate.

Quick Sips - Terraform September 2018

I'm closing out my September reviews with a look at Motherboard's Terraform, which brings four new looks at rather terrifying possible futures. As usual, the stories range from predictive to outlandish, but all of them lean toward warnings. Signs for people to read and pay attention to. Turn back now. Avoid this possible time when humanity has lost respect for our world and our selves. These are pieces look at the way things could be with an unblinking gaze and invite readers to look into that abyss. It's a nice range of works, too, from far future space extinctions to much more grounded political sci fi, where corruption and injustice are only a step or two beyond what we have now. It makes for a strong month of stories, which I'll get right to reviewing!

Quick Sips - Terraform August 2018

Motherboard's Terraform seems to be going through a new transformation of sorts. Not in its schedule or really even in the themes and genres it publishes, but rather in the length of works it focuses on. For a little while now, the bulk of the work it's been publishing has been ranging less into the flash fiction length and more solidly into short stories. Which means a bit of extra space to explore the futures these authors imagine—which can be both a good and a not-so-good thing, given how dark and gritty a lot of those future are. This month five short stories reveal futures full of slavery and corruption, drugs and borders. They star characters trying to heal the fissures they've opened up in their lives, or falling headlong into them. So yeah, let's get to the reviews!