Quick Sips - Terraform December 2018

Well, Terraform got one of its stories in just under the wire, meaning I'm a little late in posting this today because of the holiday and everything. But the month certainly brought a rather...apocalyptic bunch of stories forward, focusing on dramas both personal and global and keeping the tone dark and foreboding. From the ways that devices can be used to gather data on consumers (for both good and ill) to ways that the planet has to be completely re-imagined if it's to survive humanity, the pieces are perhaps a little doom-and-gloom, though not without some heart and some hope for the future. Fitting, for the final works of the year. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 11/05/2018, 11/12/2018, & more

Good news, everyone—Strange Horizons funded for 2019! The fund drive had been running for a while, complete with bonus fiction and poetry, so it’s a bit of a larger release than usual today, with three stories and five poems to look at. And there’s a lot of damage on display in these works. A lot of characters trapped by circumstance in situations where there really doesn’t seem like a good way out. Where their pain seems inevitable and unavoidable. And, often, pain is unavoidable. But the shape of that pain is often something that can be effected, and here we see how these characters seek to choose the pain they have to experience. And it’s just a wonderful collection of short SFF, really showing what Strange Horizons does as a publication, and I’ll get right to my reviews!

The Monthly Round - December 2017

This is the last one, as I'm starting a new monthly recommendation/review column at Book Smugglers called X Marks the Story (the first of which will be out next Wednesday). But please join me for the final Monthly Round over at Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together.

As, for those who just want links...

Tasting Flight - December 2017

“When The Night Blooms, An Artist Transmutes: A Three-Act Play” by Nin Harris (The Dark)
“The Weight of Sentience” by Naru Dames Sundar (Shimmer)
“The Birding: A Fairy Tale” by Natalia Theodoridou (Strange Horizons)
“The House at the End of the Lane is Dreaming” by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor (Lightspeed)
“An Incomplete Timeline of What We Tried” by Debbie Urbanski (Terraform)
“The First Stop Is Always the Last” by John Wiswell (Flash Fiction Online)

Cheers!

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Quick Sips - Terraform December 2017

December comes to Terraform with four original stories, (okay three but I missed the last November piece so that's here too) which cover a lot of ground, from nightmare Christmas to sex in the future, to combat in the Ukraine, to the extinction of human life on Earth. Woo. These are pieces that do a good job encapsulating what Terraform does as a publication—offering up glimpses of possible futures that lean on the technology and trends of today. Some of them...are a bit more successful than others, imo, but they all have something interesting to unpack. So yeah, let's get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Terraform September 2017

So Terraform appears to be back! I guess I missed a story at the very end of August and so this go-round there are four pieces to look at. The structure has changed to pair each story with a piece of nonfiction that explores something from the piece. The nonfiction reads are quite interesting and I must say I think the format plays more to Terraform’s base and larger place in the landscape, though I perhaps wish there was a bit more communication from the editorial staff about what’s going on. Still, for now I’m rather happy that the publication is picking up again and the stories are right back to the normal quality that I expect. It’s a great mix of stories this month, and without further hesitation, I’ll get to reviewing them!

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #86

The July Lightspeed Magazine offers up a pair each of science fiction and fantasy short stories that balance hope and despair, pain and longing. The stories examine injustice, characters caught in moments that they want to escape, situations that are deeply unsatisfying. For some it’s a humanity that has lost its spark, and for others it’s a world that doesn’t allow them to be themselves. In some the pressure is external, a threat or invasion, and in others it’s the seeming-injustice of chance. Whatever the characters and whatever the stories, though, the pieces all examine what it means to be discontent, to be angry and hurting. To want change. And the stories differ widely in how that hope is portrayed, and how close the characters are allowed to come to it, but all the pieces are certainly interesting, and it makes for a fascinating issue I should just review already.

Art by Reiko Murakami

Quick Sips - Terraform September 2016

This month marks another one of experiments for Terraform's short SFF. Not only is there a story told as a series of documents making up a packet of information that still manages to tell a compelling story, but there's also a continuation of the running graphic story and two rather formally daring pieces of fiction. There's a lot weird in this month's offerings, but also a lot of good. Most of the risks taken pay off, are exceptional for their innovation as well as their hitting content. And it mixes a jaded look at the future with a spot of hope as well, that even in the worst of futures there's something worth fighting for. To the reviews! 

Quick Sips - Terraform April 2016

Well after sort of missing the majority of March's Terraform content because of a tagging issue, I've been super cautious to make sure I don't miss out on any April stories. And good thing, because they are an interesting bunch, a mix of dystopian visions, each with their own particular flavor. From social media obsessed to decidedly punky to sci fi slavery and beyond, there's a little something for everyone. Politics, extinction, and technology merge in these stories. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - The Sun Magazine March 2016

So something a bit different today, as I'm looking at a not-really-spec publications called The Sun Magazine. Or, rather, I'm looking at the piece of fiction it released in its March issue. Why? Well, a few reasons. First, I was asked by the author, whose Terraform SF story I was a big fan of last year. And because I'm in that time of the month where publications are all holding onto one or two stories yet so it's either let a Thursday go with no new review or else pick something new. And I'm quite glad I decided to read this story, as it's challenging and deep and really rather uncomfortable. It's fantasy, or maybe science fiction, but whatever it is the story is a great meta-fictional experience worth checking out. The story is excerpted online and available for free in the digital edition of the magazine. Definitely go read it. For now, though, the review!

Quick Sips - Terraform September 2015

So I think that the publishing schedule has changed at Terraform. Instead of stories coming out on Monday, they seem to be coming out later in the week. It's strange because I can't check every day to see, but I'm thinking they've been coming out closer to Friday most weeks. Whatever the case, the stories this month are good. Mostly dark visions of the future, and getting into some non-science fictional waters perhaps with a few of them, but definitely a nice mix of stories and styles. And some that really hit hard. Even an excerpt from a longer work that I decided to look at. So to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Terraform January 2015

Because this releases one story a week without anything else, I figured I would just wait to review all the Terraform stories at once. It means I have to wait a bit to put out the review, but I don't want to make a habit of putting out reviews with only one story in them. Those are for special occasions! So yeah...

Stories:

"How A Dream Machine Works, Exactly" by Mark Von Schlegell (2582 words)

A surreal experience, as might suit a story that is about dreams. In it a man finds a machine that can turn his dreams into reality. At least, that's what he hopes. Things don't go exactly as he thought, though, and instead of really working to make his dreams real, he instead only is able to make another, similar machine, owned and operated by a childhood acquaintance, stronger. In the end he gives up trying to change the world with his machine, cedes the demands to her, and retires, only to find a new sort of machine to transform dreams into reality. The whole thing is a little messy, a little confusing, but it's still interesting in a dreamy sort of way. The end might be a little cheesy, but it's not bad.

"CES 2067" by Sam Biddle (1485 words)

Positing a world where technology is worshipped for technology's sake and not for really anything that it can do for people, this story was fun but didn't really hit that hard for me. At it's core it's about manufacturing desire, desire for technology, for the future, only it's a future that doesn't really exist, that doesn't really do anything for anyone. And that's an interesting idea, and it makes for a rather funny set of observations as the main character agonizes his choice in rectangle and imagines having a better one. I just always get a little touchy about these kinds of stories because sometimes they seem like "darn kids" stories. Not that this one is. I think what's being criticized is consumerism and the selling of an idea of "coolness" and not that it's trying to say that smart phones are stupid. And maybe because I don't follow the latest things when it comes to handheld devices I'm just missing something, that if I had ever gone to a CES I would like this more. I still liked it, but it didn't connect with me as much as I would have liked.

"Re-Homing" by Debbie Urbanski (1454 words)

Many of the Terraform stories revolve around some central What if...? question, and this one asks one in a way that is interesting, funny, and rather dark. What if raising children was like raising pets? It's both commentary on how we as a society view children as possessions and a commentary on how we treat our pets. Because even for pets, getting bored and trading them in or getting rid of them is terribly shallow. And people looking to adopt pets sometimes do so for some messed up reasons and with terrible results. But I think the more interesting part is to look at it as commenting on how we view children as possessions instead of people. And many do. It's part of the parent-child relationship that often bothers me, that many parents think they own their kids and that's just rather disturbing and leads to some horrible things. That this story manages to make that premise funny and sad and all the things is a testament to how good it is. Well handled and just the right length. Superb!

"Rockall" by Andrew David Thaler (2123 words)

A story about a colony that lives on a great boat out on the ocean, this one is a bit strange, focusing on Nails, the senior diver for the colony who must check to make sure the boat is anchored securely to a rock deep underwater. The routine of diving is taking it's toll, though, and Nails does not seem in a good way, haunted by giant squid that might or might not exist. This is a story I wish was longer, because as it is I feel like I'm missing some of the conflict. Nails seems to be rather bored, rather apathetic, but I didn't get a great feel for the colony, for the boat, or for what happened in the rest of the world. It's an interesting idea, and I like the perhaps-hallucinated squid, but I was left a bit wanting, a little bit confused at the end. I wanted to follow Nails, to see where he was going, but for what it is the story is fun and has some nice moments.