Quick Sips - Mermaids Monthly Bonus Issue

Art by Nilah Magruder

Following a successful Kickstarter, there’s a new source of aquatic speculative fiction in town—Mermaids Monthly! Edited by Julia Rios, the publication is officially launching in the new year, with a one year planned run. To whet our appetites before then, though, there’s a special bonus issue that has gone out to supporters already but which I am super honored to announce is available to everyone to read for free right now! The issue includes two reprint stories (one of which appears both in the original Spanish and translated into English and which I've reviewed previously), two original poems, a short graphic story, and a bunch of wonderful illustrations and small announcements about the publication. As I reserve the right to review reprints, I decided to exercise that to cover the story I haven’t already reviewed on QSR before. And already the publication shows great promise and a wonderful range. The bonus is available in three formats (the art looking best in the pdf) that are free to download, and I definitely encourage you to check it out. In the mean time, I’ll get right to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 11/02/2020 & 11/09/2020

November opens with two short stories and two poems at Strange Horizons. For the fiction, the sense of apocalypse is strong, as is the focus on relationships. That even as the world is dying, people still hold to each other, to those who give them comfort, even if that comfort is…complicated. The works mix the heavy approach of destruction with the warmth of people reaching out in that space for love, for understanding, whatever else follows. The poetry is also amazing, and together it provides a fabulous one-two punch of SFF goodness. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Uncanny #34 [May stuff]

Art by Julie Dillon

May brings three short stories and two poems to Uncanny Magazine, and there’s plenty of strangeness to go around. Now, I’ve seen it said that the publication lacks a central guiding aesthetic, and to a point I agree that it is eclectic and shows a wide range of the genre, but I also think that the title gives a lot away. There is a general feeling of the uncanny that I think the publication maintains, and this month is a great showcase of that, with three stories that are very different, but that carry along visions of the uncanny, worlds and people who are almost like our own, but different in some ineffable way that leads to a kind of disquiet and tension through which we can examine those strange new worlds as well as the reflection they cast back on our own. So yeah, to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Fireside Magazine #69

Art by Mary Haasdyk

It's another full month of content from Fireside Magazine, with five stories and one poem full of magic and family and cages. Whether the cage is more literal or figurative, though, varies from piece to piece. Sometimes the cage is a bargain there's no getting out of. Sometimes it's a future you're trying to avoid. Or a society's expectations that wrap tighter than chains. Or a promise made to a friend that takes on a life of its own. Whatever the case, the pieces show characters dealing with these constraints, these cages, and seeking perhaps to break free, to shatter the bars, to reach for freedom. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Uncanny #28 [June stuff]

Art by Galen Dara

June's Uncanny Magazine brings a bit of heartbreak, a bit of horror, but also a bit of romance. At least, two of the stories feature some rich romantic themes, and develop characters reaching out in compassion even as the world around them seems to descend into some very dark waters. The works explore worlds dominated in many ways by cruelty, and seek to find compassion and empathy, sometimes rather forcibly. Throw in a pair of poems taking on some different meta-fictional lenses, and it's an issue that will make you think even as it entertains. So let's get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Uncanny #23 [August stuff[

The second half of the special Dinosaur issue of Uncanny Magazine brings even MOAR dinosaurs, with five new stories and three new poems. Two of the poems aren’t really dinosaur-centric, but the issue as a whole offers up a great diversity in styles and ways of incorporating the source material and expanding the shared space of the issue. Here we are treated to more stories of dinosaurs displaced in time, landing on the Oregon Trail, or in a strange fairy tale, or in the middle of a small town. There’s not quite the same focus on communication and understanding as before, though. Instead, these pieces look a bit more at violence, and hunger, and corruption. They don’t flinch away from showing some dinosaurs getting their feed on, as well as getting their freak on. It’s a strange, rather wonderful collection of short SFF, so let’s get to the reviews!

Art by Galen Dara

Quick Sips - Uncanny #22 [June stuff]

The May fiction and poetry from Uncanny Magazine has something of a yearning quality to me. The pieces deal with desire, and with longing, and with reaching both backwards in time and forward. Memory and comfort, lust and power all mix and mingle here with characters who want to find something that seems to be missing in their lives, some vital spark that can’t seem to light in the environment they find themselves in. So they must move, or seek aid, or change their environments to better suit their needs. The stories are on the short side, the poetry very concerned with myth and women, and the issue as a whole is a wonderful way to usher in the arrival of warmer weather. Let’s get to the reviews!

Art by Julie Dillon

Quick Sips - Uncanny #18 [October stuff]

October arrives at Uncanny Magazine with a flush of monsters and love letters, a complex web of desires, communities, and speculative traditions. The stories aren’t really what I’d consider spooky, though they do have an eye toward “classic” costumes—monsters, historical fashion, and robots. Instead, the stories and poems as well seem more concerned with the ideas and styles of the past, about the ways the present erases the past in order to create a new vision of the future. Or, perhaps, the ways that people now imagining the future come to override the imaginings from the past, so that what is futuristic and what is contemporary and what is anachronistic all are thrown into question. In some of the pieces, it means the styles of the past are updated and reinvigorated, while other works seek to find strength and joy in how the past imagined the future and how the past actually was, before time and taste and injustice erased everything that didn’t fit into the dominate narrative of history. So yeah, these are some complex and deep stories that still manage a sense of fun and focus. To the reviews!

Art by Ashley Mackenzie

Quick Sips - Uncanny #11 (August Stuff)

The August content of Uncanny Magazine certainly doesn't pull its punches, with two stories, two poems, and two pieces of nonfiction that all hit with a power that leaves a lasting impact. Oh, and if you didn't realize, they're funding Year Three RIGHT NOW! IT IS THE LAST DAY GO!!! Ahem, but anyway...the fiction and poetry especially seem to come from places of hurt and hope. From a world that has failed in a rather fundamental way, that has let people down. That only works for some and for others not at all. Where people struggle to find some plan, some frame that makes it make sense only to have the rug pulled out from under them. These are uncomfortable pieces, mainly, but ones that don't allow the reader to look away, that confront them with the knowledge and the feeling of those hurt. So yeah, to the reviews! 

Art by Javier Caparo

Quick Sips - Uncanny Magazine (June Stuff)

Today I'm looking at the June content for Uncanny Magazine. For a relatively new publication, it still knows how to bring in the talent, and the stories and poems here are indicative of a zine that knows how to deliver. Now that time is passing there does seem to be something close to a core emerging from the stories, a common theme that makes this publication a bit more connected. And it's that idea of the uncanny, of something that can't quite be explained. In these stories it takes the form of a magic library and a song that might be able to tap into a power no one knew existed. But for both there is a great sense that not quite everything is explained. We (the readers) are simply presented with these vision and asked to accept or reject them. And I find accepting them much more rewarding. To the reviews!

Art by Tran Nguyen