Quick Sips - Tor dot com May 2020

Art by Max Loeffler

2020 continues to be a rather busy one for Tor dot com, and May is no exception, with three new short stories and a novelette that's almost a novella. The pieces take on some interesting SFF contents, from the superpowered world of Wild Cards to trying to bring back extinct animals to wars that span planets and galaxies. They feature characters mostly just trying to do their jobs, and finding that those jobs are complicated by the need to please bosses who can be at times a bit authoritarian, and a bit unreasonable. But the job still needs doing, and these works find ways to keep that moving and tense. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #298 [part 1]

Art by Andis Reinbergs

It’s sci-fantasy time at Beneath Ceaseless Skies! In the interest of getting to things in a timely manner, I’m splitting up the review of this issue, as two of the stories are free to read in February while the other two aren’t going to be out until March. The first two kick things off a little soft, a little slow, but with some lovely visions of worlds and characters reaching for their hearts’ desires. Characters who didn’t think they could really hope for the freedom they wanted, but find that maybe, just maybe, a visitor from the stars will open doors that would otherwise have been shut tight. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #114

Art by Christopher D. Park

Three short stories and a novelette round out the November fiction from Lightspeed Magazine. Things kick off with a new story in the Robot Country series, and from there things progress to soul mates and annihilation of worlds, documentaries and punchlines. And a lot of the works have what might be a particular focus on world building, on large stories that unfold even outside the constraints of the stories featured here. Especially with the Phetteplace and Lee stories, these feel more like chapters that will unfold in larger confines, where the stakes are huge but still only a taste of what will be. It's a fascinating collection of fiction, with action probably taking prominence over introspection (by and large, though not without exception) and it's certainly an issue to spend some time with. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Serial Box: The Vela [s01.09 & s01.10]

I need to remember to be careful going into the last episodes of Serial Box projects, because The Vela continues the tradition started by Ninth Step Station of me getting to the end and then attempting desperately to scroll for more. What do you mean it’s the end of the season?!?! What do you mean I have to wait for more?!?! There’s going to be more, right? Right?! This story has taken the main characters and put them through the wringer. You thought the finale would be all bunnies and down pillows? Buckle up, dearest readers, we’re in for a thrilling ride!

Quick Sips - Serial Box: The Vela [episodes 5-6]

I’d say that reading The Vela was a little bit like being trapped on a runaway train as it barrels toward a cliff, but if we’re being honest I don’t think that does it justice. The train has already crashed through the boundaries and into the open air and is plummeting down, on fire, while on board there are hungry lions, bandits with guns, and maybe a murderous AI for good measure. The phrase “going from bad to worse” definitely applies in terms of the issues the characters are facing, all while building up a stunning science fiction setting with high stakes, brilliant action, and shattering emotional moments. I’m tired just reading about what these characters are enduring, but I’m also super excited to find out what happens next. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #244

It’s sci-fantasy month at Beneath Ceaseless Skies, which means a trio of stories featuring people and their connections to AI. Indeed, all three of the stories in this issue feature AI, and specifically ships that either developed or were designed to have sentience. These AI all relate back to the characters around them—a ghost cat, the ship’s captain, a former lover—in ways that shed light on the larger situations revealed in these settings. Which, by and large, have to do with conflict, war, and violence. Again, in each of the stories there is a simmering conflict if not outright war, and the characters are tasked with trying to protect what they can, to prevent what they can, and to save what they can from the jaws of destruction and prejudice. The themes show the danger of insular and adversarial thinking, of making the universe into Us against Them, and they do so with magic and with machines, with loss and hope and honesty. So yeah, let’s get to the reviews!

Art by Florent Llamas

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 01/29/2018

A fifth Monday in a month typically means something special from Strange Horizons, and January definitely brings something special in this week’s issue focusing on Trans / Nonbinary SFF. Two original stories and three poems anchor an issue that is very aware of perception, identity, and defiance. In many of the pieces, the authors explore the ways that the world, that society, seeks to force people into neat lines, into binaries and labels. How systems evolve to coerce people into erasing themselves or others for the sake of the comfort and profit of the dominant. These are sharp stories that reveal characters struggling under the weight of those seeking to punish them for existing. And yet not giving up. And yet finding that they’re not alone, and don’t have to be alone. And yet carving out something for themselves. It’s a fantastic special issue and without further delay, the reviews!

Art by Alex Dingley

Quick Sips - Tor dot com February 2017

February is often a month devoted to love but Tor dot com has chosen instead to focus on duty and organizations and the role of a single operative in a larger mechanism. These stories cross genres, from high fantasy to space opera to near future science fiction. And yet they all involve people who are dedicated to a cause, who are part of a larger group. Whether attached to a government ministry, a military, a clandestine organization, or a religious empire, these characters are all parts of something larger than themselves. And many of the stories explore that size difference, showing how important, or unimportant, or importantly unimportant, some people can be. The stories are mostly thrilling, too, about assassinations and attempted coups and spies and in that they have a pace and a momentum to them that is captivating. They are not always the easiest of reads but many of them are quite fun, and all of them are quite interesting, and I should just stop yammering on and get to the reviews! 

Art by Micah Epstein

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #200

Beneath Ceaseless Skies is officially 200 issues old! Which wow, is quite the accomplishment, and the celebration means a double issue filled with fantasies that reveal worlds distant and magical or much closer to our own (and still, yes, magical). Characters struggle with guilt and moral dilemmas where there are no good options. People try to heal in the midst of conflict and violence and history and people come together, find comfort in the press of bodies, in moments of small compassions. It's a great collection of tales, well worthy of a celebration. To the reviews!

Art by Martin Ende

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #194 Science Fantasy Month 3

March marks Science Fantasy Month 3 at Beneath Ceaseless Skies, which means an extra story in this issue and a "You got chocolate in my peanut butter" convergence of two things that I quite enjoy. The stories pop with a unique feel and blend and with an energy that is infectious. There's a movement to all of the stories, a pursuit to them, a purpose. But just as these three stories all show characters running toward something, they are also stories about running away. About being afraid and fleeing to some perceived safety. And the stories work, are at turns hopeful and happy and tragic and doomed. It's a special month and it hits its mark beautifully. To the reviews!

Art by Sung Choi

Quick Sips - Uncanny #7 (December Stuff)

So Uncanny Magazine is closing out it's first full year of publication, and what a year it has been. It definitely produces a very bright and shiny issue every two months, and free content spread over each and every month, and it's definitely something I look forward to whenever it comes around. This month sees three stories, a single poem, and two pieces of nonfiction out, and while it might not be the most holiday-themed, it does a nice job of giving a wide tour of SFF, from devils to sentient spaceships to vast conspiracies involving dead writers, this issue is bound to have something for everyone. To the reviews!

Art by Julie Dillon

Quick Sips - Tor.com October 2015

October at Tor has actually seemed a bit of a reprieve from super-long stories, which is rather nice given the story-load for this month. That doesn't mean that they don't bring the quality, as these four stories are all rather dense reads, building some amazing settings and worlds that seem to flit and bend and dance. The settings are alive, characters in their own rights, and it is quite the treat to discover each one. From the alien world of the Cyclopes to the onion-like layers of interlocking dimensions, the stories bring some startling ideas, and do not disappoint in executing them. To the reviews!

Art by Tommy Arnold

Quick Sips - Clarkesworld #106

Ah, Clarkesworld. I can definitely say that there are few publications that put out such a daring array of science fiction and fantasy. Most of the stories this month are science fictional in nature, but each takes a quite different approach to the genre. And, of course, the one fantasy story was such that it more than makes up for being the only fantasy story. Both on Earth and far, far away from it, the stories do a great job of capturing a dark truth about bonds, about groups. These stories are about surviving, are about what binds us together. Many deal with families, with falling apart and holding on, and some deal with societies both small (in the case of a group of tourists stranded on a hostile world) or large (in the case of the city with its suppression of the pain it creates). But all are good and there's even a new translated story to enjoy. So let's get to it!

Art by Julie Dillon

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #174

So apparently this issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies is quite concerned with rivers and prices to be paid. Sometimes the stories in each issue are very different, but these two are very strongly linked thematically. In both there is the crossing of a river, and in that crossing there is a buying into an agreement, a sort of cycle. There is no way to avoid paying for either main characters of these stories, no real way to get around the fact that by accepting help in crossing the river they have entered into a bargain that binds them. And yet both character do manage to twist that bargain into something that changes them and their function and also changes the one that takes them across, giving those characters a release. Interesting apart, this is an issue that begs to be analyzed together. Which I always love to do. Also, despite releasing this issue in the last few days of the month, the stories are fairly short for the publication, which I always appreciate. So yes, let's get to it!

Art by Christopher Balaskas