Quick Sips - Lightspeed #90

The November issue of Lightspeed Magazine is full of twists and turns, adventures and magic, dark bargains and chance encounters. And, for me, the issue is all about connections. About strangers and family. The pieces as weave around the bonds made between people who might not be related by blood. Who are drawn to each other by care and by shared memory and by the mutual desire for something different. The story is about finding friends in odd places and having that bond, that friendship, become something transforming and affirming and amazing. The stories are not exactly romantic so much as they show how powerful human connections can be, how trust and love go beyond the romantic or sexual and unite people trying to create better worlds, even when it seems impossible. To the reviews!

Art by Galen Dara

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 10/30/2017

It’s a special Arab SFF issue of Strange Horizons, thanks to the successful stretch goal from the fundraiser earlier this year. Two stories and four poems anchor an issue that is loud in its quiet, that keeps the speculative elements subtle and wrenching, and that focuses on frustration, fear, and corruption. These are works that show characters trying to live their lives and finding that other forces and factors are making that difficult where it’s not impossible. The works look at immigration and distance, voice and home and faith, and they all do a great job of showing why international SFF is important to experience, to find the visions of the world that we might not otherwise be exposed to. So let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - The Book Smugglers October 2017

Just when I thought the season was over, The Book Smugglers return for a special Halloween story. It's...well, it's not incredibly Halloween-y, but it is a rather touching and ultimately dark story about utility and purpose and humanity. The story does a great job of building up a weird, slightly magical science fiction setting with a great hook and a devilish ending. It does have something of a ghost story aesthetic going for it, too, so I suppose you can consider it fit for the season. In any event, it's unsettling at times and decidedly creepy and before I give too much away let's just get to the review!

Art by Desirina Boskovich

Regular Sip - "Bearly a Lady" by Cassandra Khaw

I’m back looking at the Book Smugglers Novella Imitative, this time with a paranormal rom-com featuring a werebear, the London fashion scene, and the trials and tribulations of magical dating. In the past, Book Smugglers certainly have not avoided romantic stories or plot lines, and this piece revels in the high tension, high drama world of dating within the supernatural population, full of strange abilities, powerful appetites, and occasional blood-lust. It’s a fun story, wrapping as it does some of the difficulty of dating while large, dating while bi, navigating an industry and world where toxic men seem most insulated from harm and already marginalized women are most at first. To be powerful in this setting is itself an aggressive act, one met often with cruelty and abuse, and the story does a fair job of balancing that. But before I give too much away, to the review!

Art by Muna Abdirahman

Quick Sips - Fireside Fiction October 2017

October's Fireside Fiction offers up five short stories (four of them flash fiction) and two more chapters of the ongoing Fisher of Bones novella. The fiction is definitely fitting for the season, dealing with monsters and with children, with harm and with ghosts. The stories circle around the idea of victims and how those victims seek to find voice and power. And how, occasionally, that power isn't enough, and the flow of power and history is too much to fight against. The stories carry with them a darkness and a creepiness, but one that is offset by hope, and by people helping people. Sometimes the help isn't quite enough, but often it is, and in any event it makes for some very compelling reads. To the reviews!

Art by Galen Dara

Quick Sips - Terraform October 2017

Just in time for Halloween, the October Terraform story are a bit spooky. They explore what it means to be human, and especially what it means to be human in a time when technology and abuses both personal and societal are accepted and normalized. It visits people and robots and ghosts and stranger beings still who must grapple what is to live with the inheritance of humanity, or by changing themselves who try to avoid it. It's about reinvention and learning, about compassion and movement and evolution. And the stories are beautiful and just a bit eerie, which makes them perfect for the season. So let's get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #237

Whenever I get a new issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, my first inclination is to find out how the stories fit together. More than any other publication, BCS does an excellent job of pairing its stories. Perhaps because it does just two an issue, but there’s almost always something to link the tales, and this issue is no different. While the stories are thematically rather distant, and aesthetically fairly different as well (though each with perhaps a bit of a Western feel), they are linked by some key ideas. Metal, first and most. The first story deals with Iron, the second with Silver. And in each, these metals are used for magic, for a perceived justice, only to have that justice come into question, and the righteousness of the main characters comes into conflict with the harm that they do. These are stories of elections and revenge, voice and hunger. The pieces go together well, drawing a picture of desperate people and the complex idea of freedom. And before I give too much away, let’s get to the reviews!

Art by Veli Nyström