Quick Sips - Tor dot com May 2016

Things have calmed down just a bit at Tor dot com for May. The first few months of the year have been packed with stories, but things are finally settling into more of a one-a-week pattern (which for this tired reviewer is probably healthier). As always, though, there's a great range of stories, mostly novelettes—fantasies and subverted fairy tales and contemporary dramas and science fiction journeys. Most of the tales, though, for being richly imagined, are very intimate in scope, about families and about people and about loss. And yes, okay, about giant murderous angels in need of thwarting. So without further dalliance on my part, to the reviews! 
 

Art by Kevin Hong

Quick Sips - The Book Smugglers May 2016

So the Year of the Superhero is officially upon us with new short fiction from The Book Smugglers. And if this first story is anything to go by then things are going to get…weird. But also pretty great. Tackling superhero-ing on a very micro scale, this first story creates an entire world in the space of a small woodland, the characters mostly insects and the action visceral and intense. It's definitely not what I was expecting—but that's rarely a bad thing and here it means a mostly-delightful tale that I should just review already!
 

Art by Melanie Cook

Quick Thoughts - WisCon

So I'm here. Kinda exhausted, tbh, but definitely here. WisCon, or as I like to think of it as, the one convention I can afford to go to. Drove down yesterday and had a rather full day.

First up: my first ever panel as a panelist. The Art of the Book Review. Quit interesting, but weird to be the only non-paid reviewer there. Also the only one very uncomfortable drawing lines of tradition and influence over stories and novels. I mean, I get saying that a story reminded me of something, but plops do I not really like talking about that in my reviews, unless I feel the story wants to bring other stories into its conversation. Still, I hope I wasn't too annoying to everyone.

Next up I sat in on the Hivemind panel, which was cool. Lots of ideas about that. I wish the science had been talked about a bit more. Oh well. Lots of cool things discussed. After that was dinner and a stop at A Room of One's Own bookstore. So much awesome! Want all the books! Have to save some money for the dealer room, though. And food? But books...

Then it was back at 9pm to be on the Baby Writer panel. It was great! Got to be real about writing and trying to survive. So many great people on that panel. Also got to say hi to people I know via the internet. Awkward turtle that I am, I don't think I talked enough, but it was great to say hi and chat a little. Thanks everyone who took the time.

We'll see how today goes. Am awake, and that's something. Hoping to make a full day of the con. And more books! Anyway, thanks for reading!

All the best,

Charles Payseur

Quick Sips - Harlot Media May 2016

Today I'm back looking at a new serial fiction from Harlot Media, a new favorite place to go for some edgy but beautiful speculative short fiction that flirts with the erotic and delivers with power and imagination. This story explores early (and much more recent, too) cinema and the institutional erasure and/or censoring of positive queer content, and stands in defiance of the "classic queer tragedy." And if this is what I can expect from Harlot going forward, then I'm certainly tuning back in to whatever they have out next. To the review!
 

Quick Sips - Nightmare #44

This month's Nightmare Magazine looks at the distance between monsters and men. Between gods and devils and ambition and destruction. In both stories humans find themselves face to face with…well, I don't want to give too much away. But needless to say the stories look at the evils plaguing humanity, and the horrors that are strictly human-made, and then asks what place supernatural horror and horror writing have in such a world. Where starvation and murder and torture aren't exactly rare. What purpose does the scary story hold? Both stories have answers to that, though they take very different tracks to get to their destinations. But I should really get to those reviews! 

Art by Daniel Sherekin

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #199

By the power vested in me as some random reviewer on the internet, I declare the theme of this Beneath Ceaseless Skies issue of be: walking. Which might seem odd but really, both stories focus on walking. On air. Through the desert. But walking forward and not looking back or looking down. They are about bridges and distances, but not necessarily about maintaining those bridges. More like building them from now to the future. Escaping islands of solitude and stagnation with a drive to move forward. To keep walking even when it defies convention and possibility. To step into the clouds, and the future. It's a great issue and I'm going to get to my reviews! 

Art by Geoffrey Icard

Quick Sips - Fantastic Stories of the Imagination #234

The May/June Fantastic Stories of the Imagination is out and, as always, provides a pair of punchy stories that provoke and challenge. Both stories this issue represent somewhat new directions for the publication. One is a solidly science fictional story but with a healthy dose of the bizarre and is definitely not for the faint of heart, and the second story is interesting both because it's about the shortest story I've noticed from the publication and because it's solidly fantasy. Both stories manage to do a lot with the space they have, though.

And I want to mention that FSI is running a Kickstarter right now for the first of a series of planned Take Over issues, this one called Queers Take Over FSI.  It looks like an interesting idea and I can certainly say that since they've relaunched I've quite enjoyed the content that FSI puts out and hope they continue for a good long while. But okay, to those reviews!