Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 10/19/2020 & Samovar 10/26/2020

Well, the month managed to bring a little bit of a curveball at Strange Horizons, as I wasn’t expecting a new Samovar. But here we are, and I’m certainly not complaining about the three stories and two poems that round out the two issues. As they come from essentially two different publications, there’s not a huge amount of thematic links between the issues, but they still all embody the kind of strange that both publications do so well. A complex and yearning weirdness that kinds people struggling to find their place in broken worlds. Clinging to rationalism or absurdity to make sense of it all or to reject that sense can exist at all. Add in some wonderful poetry and it makes for a great mix of short SFF. 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 - The Dark #43

Art by Anna Mei

Christmas comes a little early with a special all-original issue of The Dark Magazine, featuring four new short stories. The pieces go a bit weirder and meta than I am used to seeing from the publication, but there’s no question that they are indeed dark. From the end of the earth to a storm that twists reality, from death and revenge along the highway to a family with a dark legacy, the works find characters who really never expected to find themselves in the situations they are in. Who couldn’t really prepare for the darkness they walked into. But who are hell bent on not giving in to the gravity of their destruction. Not that they can always do much about it. But there is a resilience I feel in these stories, and will to keep going. So let’s get to the reviews!