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 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 December 2017

December comes to Terraform with four original stories, (okay three but I missed the last November piece so that's here too) which cover a lot of ground, from nightmare Christmas to sex in the future, to combat in the Ukraine, to the extinction of human life on Earth. Woo. These are pieces that do a good job encapsulating what Terraform does as a publication—offering up glimpses of possible futures that lean on the technology and trends of today. Some of them...are a bit more successful than others, imo, but they all have something interesting to unpack. So yeah, let's get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Terraform November 2016

It's interesting in many ways to see where Terraform will go now that Trump is the president-elect. For quite some time a good number of the stories have dealt with possible outcomes from the election and now…well, and now that it's happened I wonder what line the publication will take. Certainly there aren't any quite so scathing as some of the stories that came out when Trump was only one Republican candidate of many. The stories this month offer much more…subtle critiques about what might be coming. Stories about the loss of the environment. About corruption. About hopelessness. They're quite appropriate stories, really, and certainly not the cheeriest bunch of SF tales. They're definitely stories worth spending time with though, and I plan on doing just that with some reviews! 

Quick Sips - Terraform November 2015

I'm actually rather surprised at Terraform this month, because for once it actually mostly stuck to its guidelines and all the stories are at least under 3K. The stories are quite different this month, ranging from a humorous string of inter-office emails detailing a crisis with a microwave to a very serious examination of art over time and the rise of AI and immortality. Most of the stories are fun, though, even as they examine future that it's probably best to avoid. And mixing the commentary with humor makes them a little easier to swallow. All in all, it's a fine collection of very short stories, which I will get to reviewing now!