The September issue of The Dark Magazine brings with it two original stories that examine what it means to believe in a system that rules the universe. Whether it’s based on logic and science or magic and religion, these systems guide the way people view the world. And they also give shape to the ways that people are hurt by it. For some, it means living with the knowledge that every reality is a sort of cage, every action just a forking in a path that might lead nowhere. And for others it means being a part of a metaphor that strips them of every comfort, that isolates and sacrifices them. In both stories the characters must decide whether to accept these rules, these beliefs, or to try and stand against them and the weight of their implications. To the reviews!
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| Art by breakermaximus |
The September issue of Lightspeed issue is very concerned with the future. And with freedom. The four stories, all short stories this issue, weave around characters walking the line between destiny and free will. Between falling into what’s expected and taking a stand to do something else. And these stories shift between relationships—husband and wife, mother and daughter, soldier and demon, and how those relationships shift with time and with distance, with death and with life. These are stories that carry with them very interesting visions of hope amidst difficulty, and I’m just going to get to reviewing them already!
It’s with sadness that I say that this will be the last time I review The Sockdolager, which ends its publication run with this issue. The good news is that wow are there a lot of stories to look at, eleven original stories that are mostly centered, in my opinion, around the theme of resistance. It makes sense for a publication that strived to push for being original and fun, impacting but enjoyable. It’s a difficult line to walk, and a bit of resistance in itself, trying to carve out a unique place within SFF. The stories move, largely looking at societies struggling with corruption and invasion, and people forced to find a way to move forward, to push toward justice even when it’s difficult, even when what they really want is just to rest. But there is no rest for the willing, and the characters prove themselves to be up to the task of moving forward, of resisting, of pushing for revolution and change. Sometimes it doesn’t work out too well, but often it’s still much better than it would have been. These are some fun stories, and a great final bow for a great SFF publication. To the reviews!
This third August issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies delves into two very different worlds that are linked by the way they exploit the vulnerable. The stories explore the ways in which people are used as tools for war and execution, for death and conflict. And they reveal women willing to risk everything in order to work for a better world. In many ways the characters in both stories are working for peace, for justice. But both know that most of the time that's not a goal that can be reached without walking a road paved in its own sort of conflict and violence. That the most direct path is the one that often leaves the most destruction in its wake, but is often the only road that doesn't allow the harm to continue, that strikes at the heart of the problem. These are stories that firmly believe you can't make a peace omelet without breaking a few eggs, and so some eggs get broken. And it's at times disturbing and always tragic, but it's still necessary in the pursuit of a better world. So yeah, to the reviews!
It's a rather big month of releases from Tor dot com this August, not because there's an unusual number of them, but rather because so many of them are...big. There's five stories, four of them novelettes and three of those over 13k, so these are mostly stories that you can really sink you teeth into. Many of them examine what it means to be lost, what it means to be out of place. Whether the reason for that is magical, or because the person has been left behind, or because society itself isn't making room for people to be, the result is that the stories circle around loneliness and hurt, hope and despair. These are characters trying to find how they'll fit into a world that doesn't quite fit them, and finding that things are more complicated than they originally thought. Demonic weapons, stranded aliens, awesome libraries, and missing memories all weave deep narratives that deserve some serious time and attention. So before I take up too much of yours, let's get to the reviews!
Well September is a busy month at Fireside Fiction. With four flash fiction stories, one short story, and the first three installments of a serial novelette or novella, it manages to pack a lot in there. Given that, it's no surprise that the themes and feels of the stories range quite a bit, from happy in the face of oblivion to heartbroken at the end of a beautiful relationship. The stories look at gods and prophets, loves and robots. These are stories that all explore what it means to be human and what it is that humans create. All the bullshit and abuse but also the beauty and the compassion. It's a difficult batch of stories to fully fit under any thematic umbrella, but the quality is certainly high and the overall feeling rather triumphant. To the reviews!
Well, we’ve made it to the Strange Horizons annual fund drive! If you haven’t chipped, I strongly encourage you to. Strange Horizons is a non-profit publication and it does some very incredibly work, lifting up voices in SFF while keeping an eye out for awesome poetry and providing a nice assortment of nonfiction. Strange Horizons is one of my very favorite publications, and today I’m looking at a short story and a whole lot of poetry. Because of the nature of the fund drive, bonus content is being released on a rolling basis as they reach funding goals, so I will try to keep up with what’s been released there as well, but please forgive me if I miss a little bit. Anyway, there’s quite a bit of awesome to look at, so I’ll just jump right into those reviews!
