Quick Sips - Apex #101

October has arrived at Apex Magazine and I have to admit, I keep expecting the month to be a bit…spookier than it’s shaping out to be. Which isn’t really a complaint, because what I’m getting instead are much subtler dark stories, full of atmosphere and a sort of suffocating oppression that sinks into every nook and cranny of these stories. We find a piece reimagining the fate of Hitler in powerful fashion, a story of performance and pain and destruction, a story of yearning and possibility and potential, and every a flash fiction with some suspect Salisbury Steak. So it’s a rather large issue of Apex, all told, and one that brings many different flavors of dark SFF. Some tinged with hope and others more heavily laced with despair and crushing need. So yeah, to the reviews!

Art by Rubén Castro

Quick Sips - Tor dot com July 2016

Four stories anchor Tor dot com’s SFF short fiction offerings this month, and if I had to find a commonality between them I think I would choose a sort of wandering feeling. Or maybe wandering with a purpose. All four tales are a bit on the slower side, pacing-wise, making for some cerebral and rather philosophical stories. About loneliness and desperation. About purpose and meaning and the direction of life. About finding something to be happy with and something to struggle against. The stories all excel at place, at revealing a strange world. The inside of Abraham Lincoln’s head. An abyss that might be an alien portal. A distant world and a town by a haunted city. A busy hotel next to one of the world’s busiest airports. And in these worlds the readers are invited to learn something, to see something, and to take something with them when they go. So to the reviews! 

Art by Chris Buzelli

Quick Sips - Tor dot com May 2016

Things have calmed down just a bit at Tor dot com for May. The first few months of the year have been packed with stories, but things are finally settling into more of a one-a-week pattern (which for this tired reviewer is probably healthier). As always, though, there's a great range of stories, mostly novelettes—fantasies and subverted fairy tales and contemporary dramas and science fiction journeys. Most of the tales, though, for being richly imagined, are very intimate in scope, about families and about people and about loss. And yes, okay, about giant murderous angels in need of thwarting. So without further dalliance on my part, to the reviews! 
 

Art by Kevin Hong

Quick Sips - Tor.com August 2015

Providing nothing comes out in the next few days, there are four stories this month from Tor. Things lean a bit more fantasy than science fiction this month, with an alt-historical fantasy leading things off and leading into two stories that blend genres quite well, part science fiction, part fantasy, and ending with a story of witches and magic and birthday parties. There are certainly some fine stories in the bunch, most of them about seeking for something without quite knowing what it is. Seeking a miracle, perhaps, or seeking the truth about one's heritage, or seeking to stop an injustice from being committed. What is found, though, is normally something more than expected, something that opens up for the characters whole new worlds of possibilities. A fine month of stories that I should just review already.

Art by Chris Buzelli