Quick Sips 12/10/2021

People might have noticed that I’m slowing down as I near the end of the year. Which is very true. It’s unfortunate and something I was hoping to avoid, but mostly it’s also a very good sign. Not in that I’m giving myself more time to process or anything like that. The opposite, in fact! I’m actually very hard at work on something that I can’t announce yet, but that I am very hopeful will be a thing I can talk about and squee about with you all soon. It’s just put a lot on my plate that’s just a bit…unfortunate for making it through 2021 stories in a timely manner. But worry not! I will indeed be getting that all done. This week I’m catching up on November’s Fusion Fragment and a special issue from Strange Horizons, and getting to December’s Hexagon. Not the hugest of weeks, but if only you knew what all I was getting through otherwise. The suspense!

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 10/15/2021

A new week brings me desperately trying to get ahead on reviews ahead of a planned vacation (of sorts). Taking time off has always been somewhat challenging for me not just because I couldn't afford to for a long time, but because short fiction never stops, and taking a whole week off of reviewing can mean the pile of work to catch up on is...intense. Given that I'm already behind on novellas and anthologies, I'm hoping that taking the time won't leave me absolutely buried. But we'll see. What I can say is that I got to a decent amount this week, finishing up September's work with the latest Mermaids Monthly. After that it's solidly October releases, and some large ones. Kaleidotrope had 14 works, and Fusion Fragment had 8. Fiyah had 7. The special Apex had 6. The only smaller release I'm looking at this week is Flash Fiction Online. And even with all that, October looks like it will be a doozy. But I will celebrate the work I did get done, even as I'll need to do at least as well next week to be in good shape for the month. Onward.

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 09/03/2021

So August is over but that doesn’t mean that I’m through all of its short SFF. I am getting to a number of August releases this week, and even getting to some September issues, but I am still a bit underwater when it comes to getting to things, so apologies that anthologies and novellas are something I’m really struggling to get to at the moment. Phew. Anyway, there’s a new Fusion Fragment out, which is cool, as well as a new khōréō magazine and Strange Horizons for me to look at from August. In September stuff, I’m looking at Fantasy and F&SF. I thought about doing Lightspeed and Nightmare instead of F&SF, but given the weirdness with dates for that publication, I opted to just get to that this week. So yeah, it’s roughly average in terms of number of works covered (slightly above where I’ve been at for the last few weeks, yay), so let’s rock.

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 06/11/2021

Well May was certainly a month. I thought I was only going to have a few things to finish up, and then EVERYTHING RELEASED. So there’s still a whole lot of May content here, from Mermaids Monthly and Fusion Fragment (which I was expecting) to Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, and Cast of Wonders (who I should have suspected). I do manage to get into June, though, with looks at the trifecta of Lightspeed, Nightmare, and Fantasy. And I did it all around the Memorial Day weekend and my birthday. Weeeee! Of course, that means I’m behind in my X Marks the Story work (because I like to wait to read the entire month before finalizing things). So it goes? In other other news, June’s Flash Fiction Online is entirely reprints, so I won’t specifically be covering those, though I do recommend checking out the issue, which is very good. So yeah, onward!

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 03/26/2021

A new week, and new reasons for me to once again add new venues to my reading. I mean, obviously. What could go wrong? Seriously, though, I’m adding both Future Science Fiction Digest and The Future Fire to my reading, both of which I’ve admired from afar for a while but couldn’t fit into my plans. The Future Fire issue is technically from January so oops there, but better late than never I hope. I’m also looking at some single-author stuff, including a new installment in Julie C. Day’s mosaic novel/story collection and a collection of speculative crip lit by Brian Koukol, whose work I enjoyed when it appeared in GigaNotoSaurus a while ago. But yeah, lots to cover today, even if it’s technically not a huge week numbers-wise. Cheers!

NOTE: This will be a recurring note that will run with every Quick Sips. First, please note that I don’t necessarily mention every story or poem out in an issue. I am giving myself permission to either DNF stories, or else finish and just not comment on them. Please don’t assume it’s because I disliked the work! There are many reasons I might chose not to comment on a piece, and I reserve the right to do just that. Second, you might notice the notations at the end of the micro reviews and wonder what the [c# t#] is. These are for the Scales of Relative Grimness and a full explanation of them can be found through the tab at the top of the page or through this link. With that said, let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips 01/29/2021

Another week, another boatload of fiction to read! Today I’m looking at another mix of venues I’ve covered for a long time and some that are completely new to me. Plus, I look at a review from late 2020. I’ll probably be doing that from time to time, looking at anthologies that might not be current-year releases. These won’t, alas, be able to be added to my recommended reading end-of-the-year lists, but I still think work that I want to read and I will still be figuring those stories into the number of stories I’ve read this year because, well, I read it this year. Just sort of a heads up there, I guess. There are still at least one, maybe more anthologies from 2020 that I plan on covering early this year.

Anyway, it’s still a little early to make too many conclusions about what 2021 might look like in fiction, though I have appreciated the amount of rather fun and bouncy messy queer stories that aren’t that bleak. The overall mood is still rather grim, but there are some nice breaks in that. Maybe I’ll start to notice more as the year really gets going.

Anyway, just a regular reminder that I don’t necessarily mention every story in an issue or collection, but the total numbers I list after the issue title is for the stories that are there, not how many I review. Reasons for not writing a review vary, and aren’t always a statement I didn’t like the story or anything. I simply reserve the right to not do a write up, as I feel like it. So yeah, to the reviews!