Quick Sips - Omenana #16

The first issue of Omenana came out just before I started doing reviews here at QSR (though I did read the issue and covered one of the stories in my new-at-the-time Monthly Round at Nerds of a Feather). Six years later and it’s still a wonderful source of SFF short fiction and a publication I look forward to diving into every issue. This latest is no exception, and the works are a nice mix of epic, intimate, gripping, chilling, and inspiring. I love the magic of the stories, the sharp edge of horror, and the beautiful hope that still clings to the narrowest of ledges. It’s a great issue, and I’ll get right to my reviews!

Quick Sips - Breathe Fiyah

Art by Eli Minaya

A collaboration between Tor and Fiyah Magazine, this special Breathe Fiyah issue features eight short stories (entirely flash fiction) by Black writers exploring race, oppression, resistance, and revolution through a speculative lens. The stories are largely (though not completely) contemporary, both fantasy and science fiction (with some horror elements thrown in as well at times), and they create a framework, one that ends up resembling perhaps a structure of kindling. Each piece a small addition that, when put together and struck, sets off a blaze. The stories are about resisting, about surviving a world that is actively trying to erase, exploit, and exterminate you. And the works do indeed spark and smolder, ending with a bang that, hopefully, will shake things up, weakening the racist and white supremacist structures that marginalize Black writers. 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 - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #309

Art by Alexander Ostrowski

The two stories in the latest issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies deal with magic and family, and more specifically with magical companions that threaten to wreck the fragile peace and safety that the narrators of the stories feel they have achieved. In one of the stories, though, that threat is very real, and very deadly. In the other, it only seems a threat, but is really the key to unlocking something much better than what the narrator currently has. The works are very different, but their focus on younger women struggling against the roles and fates decided for them unite them in a rather wonderful way. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Fiyah Literary Magazine #14

Art by Dominique Ramsey

I count every month that kicks off with a new issue of Fiyah as one that’s off to a great start. And this latest issue turns things up a bit with four stories and two poems, all of which bring wonderful and often wrenching visions of speculative fiction. There’s no theme to this issues works, but if I had to connect the dots I’d say that each of them revolves around revelations. Seeing something or learning something that completely changes the context of the world. That might be a secret that suddenly makes the world very different. Or it might be a single conversation that shifts a character’s perspective from the verge of committing violence to sacrificing themself to save people. It might be the dissolution of a relationship that leaves a character suddenly adrift and thrashing, trying to stay above water, or it might be the twisting and perversion of a professional relationship into something much more toxic. But all of the pieces find characters who see their lives going in one direction only for them to find a completely different outlook. So yeah, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - The Dark #55

Art by Miranda Adria

The Dark is closing out 2019 with two stories that treat with horror in very different ways. In one, a young woman deals with social isolation and trauma while trying to both solve a mystery and navigate a very fragile space within her family. In the other, an artist deals with a much more physical isolation as he finds himself in a remote house where his inspiration has taken a rather sinister turn. In both, though, the characters are up against supernatural threats alongside emotional and mental ones. The baggage they carry is a weight on them, and they've effectively been thrown into the deep end with it. Can they shed it, or build it into something they can use to steer a course to safer waters, or will they be dragged down to the depths by it? To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #282

Art by Artur Zima

The two stories in the latest issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies have everything to do with war and survival. With people who have lived despite the horrors they have seen and, in some way, despite the horrors they have authored. And both characters find that conflict is finding them again, putting them back in a place where they will be witness and conduit for something large, something powerful and shattering. For something that could spark a new war, and stop one from reigniting. So let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - The Dark #40

The stories of the September issue of The Dark Magazine deal with a classic horror trope: The Sacrifice. In both stories, the characters are faced with having to sacrifice someone because of their own desires, their own wishes. It’s part of a deal, a bargain by which they hope to escape something or gain something. And for both stories, the sacrifices are supposed to confront the characters with the cost of their desires. Whether they decide that it’s worth it, though, is a bit different from piece to piece. Still, both do engage with what it means to be trapped by expectations, by place, by distance, and how desperate people can be to find some way to escape their circumstances. To the reviews!

Art by Abigail Larson