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 - Nightmare #95

Art by Zapatisthack / Adobe Stock

Both the stories in the August Nightmare Magazine deal with loss. With death. With torture. Feature narrators who have come to bad ends. To have been murdered. Who are awakened by mothers, grandmothers, told stories. Brought into cycles of violence and loss. Through that, the characters connect to family and to memory, having to parse which details are their own traumas and which have been handed down. They’re difficult, sharp reads, with touches of poetry amid the destruction and red. And I’ll get right to my reviews!

Quick Sips - Clarkesworld #164

Art by Thomas Chamberlain-Keen

Clarkesworld comes with three short stories and three novelettes this month, which is about average for the publication but does mean a heck of a lot to cover. Luckily the works are interesting and varied, offering up pretty much entirely science fictional visions of futures that revolve around loss and destruction. Invasion and exploitation. And characters trying to get by, trying to survive, and trying to save the world. It’s a neat mix of near future, far future, humor, apocalyptic, and giant robot stories that hopefully has something for every fan of the genre. So let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Fireside Magazine #75

Art by Kieu Vo

January brings four short stories and one poem to Fireside Magazine, many of them dealing with some rather grim takes on the future. Tucked into these visions of climate change run amok and robot rights being exploited by greedy corporations, though, are some rather quiet narratives about resistance, resilience, and the hope for rejuvenation. Not that it always works out like that. Not that these characters really get to just wipe away the scars and stains of long-term damage. But that they might now, despite everything, be done growing. Learning. Changing for (we all hope) the better. But that's the risk and the reward. So yeah, let's get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Nightmare #76

Art by Kevron2001 / Fotolia

Nightmare Magazine kicks 2019 off with a pair of short stories very concerned with falling. In both, it’s not so much the landing that’s the problem. It’s the feeling of freefall, of not having a ground beneath your feet. Of knowing that the world is run on money and that’s something that you either don’t have or know is tainted with blood. It’s a story of slow and wrenching climbs that can be toppled with a sudden shift or jolt and lose all the progress gained. These are not easy reads, but through the dense gloom and creeping horror they do offer a way forward, though not perhaps in an expected way. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Clarkesworld #141

June brings three novelettes and two short stories to Clarkesworld, with an interesting look at humanity, alien worlds, and human connection. For each of the stories, the setting is another character to contend with. Either in the form of an oppressive state, a far-flung world, the cold of space, or even an Earth that-might-have-been. And the characters in the story must navigate these worlds, surviving the many dangers, seeking to find connection where there seems only hostility. It’s a goal that is not always successful, and is occassionally laced with tragedy, but there’s also some hope to be found as well. That sometimes, even against the most overwhelming of situations, people can find each other. By and large it’s not a very cheery collection of stories, but it’s an interesting mix and I’ll get right to reviewing them!

Art by Sean Andrew Murray

Quick Sips - Lackington's #17 [Gothics]

It’s a huge issue of Lackington’s out this month, focusing on the Gothic. And from literal Ostrogoths to exquisite corpses, there’s a lot to see and a lot of amazing interpretations of the theme. There are eight original stories (and a reprint that you should definitely check out but that I’m not reviewing this time) and each of them feature themes and settings that embrace the Gothic aesthetic. Haunted houses, neglected estates, and isolated villages all make the stories ripe with shadows that just might swallow up the unwary traveler. These are pieces about facing the strange and the dangerous, the supernatural and the all-too-human. And, well, not always coming out the other side. There’s a great mood to these stories that really gets at the heart of the theme, and it’s a fantastic way to explore what is one of the oldest kinds of SFF stories. So let’s get to it!

Art by Richard Wagner

Quick Sips - Clarkesworld #127

It’s another month of Clarkesworld Magazine that focuses (at least in the original fiction) entirely on science fiction. But more than that, this issue looks at what makes people human, and what makes people not human, and how all of that ties together into something shocking, beautiful, and complex. The stories focus on different people who either have drifted from humanity or never were human. For some, that not being human is a lack that they feel, and for some it is a source of strength and identity. For all the stories, though, there is a focus on how people can bridge the gap between where they are and humanity, and reach for something like justice, like compassion, like cooperation. These are some great stories, including a surprise novella and another interesting (and really weird) translated piece, so let’s get right to the reviews!

Art by Eddie Mendoza

THE SIPPY AWARDS 2016! The "Where We're Going We Won't Need Categories" Sippy for Excellent I Don't Know What in Short SFF

Welcome back to the last entry in the Second Annual Sippy Awards! The short SFF award that no one asked for is back and things are definitely…well, kind of…or, that is to say…fuck it, I don't know but WE'RE DOING THIS ANYWAY!

There are some stories that just sort of take me by surprise. That work so incredibly well but that I can't really figure out what to call. I'm notoriously finicky when it comes to genre and so sometimes it's best to just embrace the nebulous. The undefined. The meta. Today I want to look at works that do interesting things not just with character and plot and conflict but with SFF as an idea. With art as an idea. Stories that push the boundaries on what should be considered the beating heart of SFF. Many of these stories have a lot to say on why people create. Why stories are important. Why giant wasps are scary. Err…well that last one might be a little specific but still!

SFF exists because some people a long time ago weren't satisfied with the conventions of storytelling. Because they wanted to tap into the imagination directly and hell with the establishment. And today that urge still lives and the breathes. Only now it comes against a different establishment, the one that tries to define what SFF is and should be. But I want to celebrate some stories that refuse to sit quietly, that refuse to stay confined. Today I want to present…

The "Where We're Going We Won't Need Categories" Sippy

for Excellent I Don't Know What in Short SFF

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 09/19/2016 & 09/26/2016

The Strange Horizons Fund Drive continues with two more weeks of excellent content, featuring two stories, two poems, and a nonfiction piece. There are also nice previews of some of the initiatives that Strange Horizons will be running or hopes to be running that are worth checking out but that I won't get into here. The pieces from these weeks, though, seems to deal heavily with both history and heroes. Looking at the myths we tell, about the way in which history and narratives mix and mingle. There is a strong Greek mythology vein that is explored in a number of the works, and larger than that they all explore old wounds and newer efforts to heal and make right the injustices of the past. And the pieces are touching and interesting, complex and heavy. It's a great collection of works that I'm going to get to reviewing! 

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 09/05/2016 & 09/12/2016

With two stories and four poems*, Strange Horizons has kicked off their annual fund drive with these two weeks of content. There's announcements galore and, oh right, some SFF to read and enjoy. The fiction offerings are decidedly different, from a longer piece deconstructing the idea of art and death and sentience to a cute little story that looks at loss and fantastical cooking. There's certainly a lot to digest between the stories and the fiction, though, and a great many reasons that giving to Strange Horizons is a great idea! So yeah, time to review!  (*well it was two and then bonus content happened so now it's four, hurrah!)

Art by K. C. Garza

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 06/27/2016, 07/04/2016, & 07/11/2016

It's probably no real surprise that in the pieces for the first half of Strange Horizon's Our Queer Planet there is a sense of longing. A hunger. To see and be seen, to comfort and be comforted. To reach out and act on desires that are dangerous, to fly in the face of convention and doubt. These stories and poems and works of nonfiction are affirming and powerful. Beautiful and refined and raw and bleeding and staunched and just so good. These are stories that I as a reader am hungry for, poems that I want to see more of, nonfiction that helps me both think about my reading and writing and also about my queerness. There's so much good here and I'm going to get to those reviews! 

Art by Alex Araiza

Quick Sips - Mithila Review #4

The June Mithila Review is out and to me is all about time and weight. About cycles of harm and history and time and intent and the hope of breaking free. The hope of finding a way to something better, to something not tainted with the violence of harm and loss and grief. There's a reaching in these stories and poems, a looking at what works and what doesn't work. What falls apart under the gaze of context and what might have a chance of standing up. It's a great issue with a nice mix of poetry and fiction and it's time to review!

Art by Ashim Shakya

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 02/22/2016, 02/29/2016, & 03/07/2016

Wow, sometimes I forget just how much content Strange Horizons comes out with in a month. I'm only looking at three weeks, but there are two stories, four poems, and a few nonfiction pieces that are definitely all worth checking out. Both fiction pieces look firmly to the stars to tell their tales while the poetry brings things back home in very powerful ways, and the nonfiction looks at things from a truly global perspective. Lots to enjoy, lots to review!

Quick Sips - Lackington's #8 - Dreams

So this technically came out a few months ago (very definitely in 2015), but the latest Lackington's just became available for free online and that means now is the time I'm reviewing it. The theme for this issue is Dreams and that combined with Lackington's emphasis on poetic style means the issue as a whole is surreal, strange, and quite good. Alien landscapes, creatures pulled from the deeps, an entire universe of dreams: the stories range far and wide but they keep the idea of dreaming, both in a literal and symbolic sense, in sharp focus. So without further ado, time to review!
 

Art by Gregory St. John

THE SIPPY AWARDS - The "Where We're Going We Won't Need Categories" Sippy for Excellent I'm Not Sure What in Short SFF

This is it, my friends. You've stood by as I've shipped my favorite relationships. And while I've shivered under the covers waiting desperate for dawn thanks to my favorite horror. And while I've wept enough rivers of tears to sail an armada on because of my favorite emotional stories. And even while I've revved my engine and worn my sunglasses at night in honor of my favorite ACTION! of 2015. But now we come to the final Sippy category, a category so mysterious that it defies the very nature of definitions...I think... Because the final Sippy category is--

The "Where We're Going We Won't Need Categories" Sippy

for Excellent I'm Not Sure What in Short SFF

Sometimes there are stories that just refuse to be placed into a specific box. Stories that, when looking back on them, I can't quite pick out one element that made them memorable. Not that the stories from previous categories were at all simple, but these ones feature cakes made from dead people and were-helecopters and fox spirits and just so many things that made me want to honor them for being...well, strange. And amazing. So instead of thinking of myself as lazy, I will try to think of this category as the wide net to make sure I don't let any really weird tales slip away. And the winners are...

Quick Sips - Nightmare #36

Two stories from Nightmare Magazine this month and both are powerful, dealing with life and death and the power of going on. The stories are about breaking cycles and about how societies can trap people in a bad way, how society can build walls and avenues to isolate people. The stories build very different settings, and yet both are recognizable, both are indictments of things that are very much at work now, stigmas and prejudices. They compliment each other quite well, and I'm just going to get to reviewing them, 'kay?

Art by Lauren K. Cannon

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #58

I look at the latest from Lightspeed Magazine today, which is always a cause for celebration. This month most of the stories are dealing with war, which is an interesting choice. They work fairly well together, too, though the serial story sticks out a bit. Not sure how the reprints would fit into this tapestry because time prevents me from reading the reprints, but the new fiction is solid and creates an interesting whole. That cover really does do a nice job of showing the imagery of war and civilization contrasting and working together. But time to get to the stories!

Art by Wylie Beckert