Quick Sips - Lightspeed #116

Art by grand failure

January brings the regular round of four stories (all technically short stories, though two are very nearly novelettes) to Lightspeed Magazine. The stories take a look at parallel worlds and lives, at characters caught wondering what if, and at the fallout from people pursuing lives that seem just in reach—but that might be universes away. There’s an interesting mix of moods and tones in the pieces, some focusing on a “hero” who turns out to be anything but, some that take a bit more work to decipher because of a more unconventional take on space, time, and memory. But all of them are well worth checking out, and I’ll jump right into the reviews!

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #294

Art by Rytis Sabaliauskas

It’s a new year at Beneath Ceaseless Skies, which means a new opportunity to remind people what the publication is good at. First, it’s a well paired issue, something that they excel at. These are two stories of fantasy adventure, with characters having to use their minds as well as their daring and bravery in order to try and thwart the destructive wills of those who have already taken from the main characters. So the characters are out for more than just setting right some wrongs. They’re out for a bit of payback, as well, and it lends an added flare to the prose, an added brashness. And it makes for a very fun look at what BCS does, and I should just get right to the reviews!

Quick Sips - The Dark #56

Art by grand failure

My first reviews of 2020 look at the latest from The Dark Magazine, which kicks of the year with two very well paired stories dealing with families and with abuse. With the ways toxic cycles reproduce, and infect, and infest. The ways that they are expressed in those that are hurt, who are broken, and who wonder if there is any way for them to be whole again. The stories are difficult and complex, and offer little in the way of comfort, except to recognize the hurt that is done, and perhaps say that not all abuses have to be passed down, even if they also can’t be completely healed from. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Augur #2.3

Art by Lorna Antoniazzi

A new Augur is out! And while I would normally break up the issue into two parts to spread out my reviews, I don’t want to push off 2019 reviews deeper into 2020. So I’m just looking at the whole thing today (and then taking tomorrow off)! And it is a dense and at times harrowing read, full of hurt and hope, beauty and pain. It features people trying to make sense of grief, and loss, trying to figure out where they went wrong, even when there was no way they could have done better. The stories loop around relationships, around characters trying to connect to one another and finding that at times an impossible task. But sometimes managing it all the same. It’s a wonderful issue, and a great way to cap off my 2019 reviews, so let’s get right to it!

Quick Sips - Fireside Magazine #74

Art by Stephanie Singleton

Fireside wins the award for having the last story out of the year from all the venues that I cover (at least, I’m pretty sure), with the final one dropping of New Years Eve. And it is another full month from the publication, with five stories and a poem to close out 2019. That said, it’s not quite my final review post covering 2019 material (which will drop on Monday), and so with this penultimate 2019 review post, I look at a wide range of SFF, from an ode to a YouTuber who inspires resistance and survival in a dystopian (or maybe just realistic) future to a ghost story about immigration and the pressures to make money. The works are deep and careful, powerful and resonating, and I’ll get right to my reviews!

Quick Sips - Terraform December 2019

Vice’s Terraform closes out the year with two near-future SF stories about technology and injustice. In one, the epidemic of mass shootings in America is addressed and the cause identified, the infectious agent confronted…or perhaps misdiagnosed. In the other, a chilling look at the future is revealed through the rather innocuous lens of a holiday gift guide. Both stories look at the ways the future must wrestle with personal liberties versus institutional corruption, and especially with “free” capitalism versus human lives and suffering. It’s an on brand way for the publication to close out the year, and I’ll get right to my reviews!

Quick Sips - PodCastle #604 & #606

Closing out the year with two stories, PodCastle shows the depth of fantasy as a genre with one contemporary supervillain story full of grief and loss and betrayal and one second world fantasy that manages to build a heartwarming and holiday-appropriate feel and punch with only the lightest touch of grimness. The pieces are incredibly different, and yet both of them deal with protagonists trying to bring something back. For one of them, it's a person, and their mode of choice is necromancy. For the other, it's a holiday, and their mode of choice is a sort of innocent honesty and earnest joy. Both find what they're looking for, in some ways, though the results are very different. Without giving too much away, though, let's get to the reviews!