Quick Sips - Lackington's #21 [Cocktails]

Art by P. Emerson Williams

There’s a new issue of Lackington’s out and the theme is just my thing--cocktails! There are seven stories that explore the different ways people can mix drinks and mix drugs and mix all kinds of things, up to and including people. The stories are strange and moving, complicated and a wee bit haunting (and okay, sometimes more than a wee bit), so it’s an issue well in keeping with the reputation Lackington’s has earned for itself over the years. These are pieces that delight and confound, that beckon and tease, and that ultimately deliver sever different great takes on the themes. There’s a nice mix of genres, from fantasy to science fiction to horror, and lots of worlds to see and tastes to enjoy. To sit back and let this issue mix you up something memorable. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 08/05/2019 & 08/12/2019

Art by Em Allen

Two stories and two poems open up August's Strange Horizons content, and they swirl around isolation, distance, and a spot of magic. Both stories unfold in a mostly-contemporary setting and focus on relationships between women. Romantic or not, generational or not, the relationships bring into focus what each person has been lacking and how they're attempting to find in someone else a cure to that lack. The pieces are lovely but touched with melancholy and sadness, hopeful but still recognizing the burden of societal expectations and values, especially when they don't meet up with how the characters need to live. It's a lot of stunning work, and I'll get right to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Uncanny #29 [July stuff]

Art by Julie Dillon

This month’s Uncanny Magazine gets dark. From monsters and murder to abuse and death to magic and exploitation, the fiction features a number of characters facing their own demons. The dark places inside themselves, and the dark forces outside seeking to use them for further harm. Who are seeking to devour them, to corrupt them, to twist them. The works don’t have a lot of bright spots to them, and poetry gets in on the darkness as well, featuring doomed astronauts and haunting songs. The issue on the whole is difficult for me, visceral and tragic, though not entirely without warmth. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Fireside Magazine #66

Art by Cat O’Neil

Five Tuesdays make for a busy April with Fireside Magazine, which released five short stories and a poem this month. The piece run the gamut of emotions, from slow and dark to fast and violent, from fun and sweet to numb and hurt. The connective tissue of the issue seems to me to have more to do with cycles, with systems and how they produce justice or injustice, depending on how they are structured. And what people do when faced with these systems. How they play into them. How they resist them. How they try to ignore them. And by and large the stories are challenging, presenting readers with visions they might wish to look away from, but which we all should see, and examine, and complicate. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Mithila Review #10 [fiction]

It’s been a while since the last issue of Mithila Review, and I’m happy to say there’s a new huge issue with tons of short SFF to read and enjoy. Because there’s so much, I’m once again breaking my review of the issue into two parts. And today I’m looking at the first part, covering the fiction! There are eight different stories presented here, covering a nice range of genres, though leaning a bit toward the weird and on stories that unfold in strange cities and desolate wastes. There are pieces that look at escape, at legends, and at food. And overall this is a very visceral issue, one that doesn’t hesitate to unsettle or confront the reader with themes and formats that are difficult. And overall I think there’s a great deal to take away from this issue’s many hungers and truths and warnings. So without further delay, to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Lackington's #16 (Trades)

The last Lackington’s issue of 2017 (though for me the first one of 2018), centers on the theme of Trades. And trades of all sorts. The editorial makes mention of the idea of trade as in profession, with people pursuing their trades in the face of the inequalities and injustices of the systems they work within. The whims of cruel kings, the corruption of governments, the power of supernatural beings. But it’s also an issue that looks closely at the idea of trade as in exchange. The bargains we make with ourselves and with others. The ways that we buy and sell things, people, and justice. Or try to. The stories have some very interesting takes on these ideas, trying to look at what makes a fair trade. It’s a fascinating collection of stories, mostly fantasy and with a great sense of magic and danger. To the reviews!

Art by Paula Arwen Owen

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 08/31/2015, 09/07/2015, and 09/14/2015

Okay, so I've been a little behind with Strange Horizons but here I'm catching up on three weeks. Fortunately and not, I suppose, these weeks have been a little light on nonfiction, so I'm just looking at two stories and three poems. It makes the work a little easier for me but I do quite enjoy the nonfiction from Strange Horizons and am hoping for some new installments for their ongoing series. The work for these three weeks is surprisingly dark, actually, with things leaning their way toward horror or dark fantasy, but as I'm still a fan there's really no problem with that. Just a little...strange (heh). All in all, though, it's a strong collection of fiction and poems, and a new piece of art that captures nicely the creepiness of it all.

Art by Maggie Ivy

Quick Sips - Apex #72

This month's Apex seems to be a lot about the stories that we tell ourselves, the stories that cover over the truth. At least the fiction definitely seems that way. There are literal stories that cover up uncomfortable truths, both through the suppression of memories and through the "misremembering" of events. But there is also a drive to face the truth, to face the past head on and deal with it. That it's necessary for moving on, for getting better. In all the stories there is a sense that the characters need to face their mistakes, that they are stronger than their guilt or grief, that they can do something. And, of course, the poetry is amazing. A solid issue, so let's get to it!

Art by Beth Spencer

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons February 9, 2015

Quite the short week from Strange Horizons, with only one flash fiction and one poem. And again I wonder if I should just do one massive Strange Horizons review at the end of the month. I don't think I will yet, because 1.) I'm at about my limit of what I can review a month and having more days to fill would mean less time I get for everything else (like writing, because I do that, too), 2.) I like balancing longer reviews like Clarkesworld or Apex with short ones like these, and 3.) the end of the month would be way too crowded if I tried to save everything until then (with Terraform, the second Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Tor.com, etc.). So still doing Strange Horizons every week for now. Onward!

Story:

"Traveling Mercies" by Rachael K. Jones (1030 words)

Short but very sweet, this story follows an old vampire as they travel around the world seeking places to stay out of the sunlight. It's an interesting story, and a hopeful one, as the vampire has never been let down, has always been invited in some place to wait out the day. It's a message that people are always willing to help, that there is home and comfort in fraternity and good will, and that those forces can redeem, can make a friend from a monster. It's a very cool idea, too, using the lore of vampires, that they always have to be invited in, and this way the thirst is slaked not with blood but with friendship. Perhaps that sounds a little saccharine, but it works. It's optimistic, yes, and sweet, but I didn't find the story sappy. Instead, there is a darkness and a danger there, because the narrator will die if they can't find a shelter from the sun, and because they are something of a monster, defined by rules, by the curse of what they are. And yet for all those who believe that hospitality is dead, it's affirming to see a story that still believes in the generosity of the host, of the bonds that can be formed between friends, and on the power of those things. It's a great story, powerfully told.

Poem:

"Once the Dream Lionesses" by Alexandra Seidel

I will admit that I don't know if there is a word for this kind of poem, for one that uses the first lines of its stanzas in echoes in the last stanza. It's a good effect, though, the thoughts echoing back with the voices of the lionesses. To me, the story is of loss, of age. The riddle of the Sphinx is mentioned, the four legs to two to three, which evokes the idea of aging, echoed in the words of the lionesses, that they are tired, that they are diminished. The hunter has taken their bones, their voices, and where the hunter walks now they are silent but also gathering themselves. Beneath the hunter there is no drum, or the drum is silenced, but I got the feeling that it was waiting, that it was building to something, holding itself back when the hunter stepped. Still, the story screams loss to me. The loss of the natural, mostly, taken for profit, taken for sport, just taken. And there is a weariness in dealing with it, the lionesses feeling their age, but also calling on forces deeper, deeper. I enjoyed the poem, though I'm still trying to decide what I think of the stillness at the end. I'm leaning toward it being that waiting, that when the hunter steps the lionesses pause, waiting, knowing that they have to wait for the right moment. That, rather than the hunter stilling their drum, because I want to believe that the beat goes on. But maybe that's just what I want to read. Either way, it's a nice poem, with a strong form and interesting imagery.