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 - Tor dot com March 2020

Art by Xia Gordon

March brings a pair of novelettes to Tor dot com, one of them from the ongoing Wild Cards setting. Both stories deal with violence, though, and with choices. With situations where the only way out, the only way to safety, might be through some people (in a rather bloody manner). They feature characters who are just coming into their power, who don't quite understand everything about themselves. But who aren't afraid to take action. The stories are often creepy, but ultimately freeing, with people finding a place to be and a power that lets them push back against the forces that were keeping them prisoner. To the reviews!