Quick Sips - Fantasy #62

Art by grandfailure/Adobe Stock Image

In some ways it feels too soon to close out my full reviews of Fantasy Magazine, the publication only having relaunched last month. But I’ll still very much be covering the publication, which in that short a time has already shown itself to be a wonderful source of fantasy short fiction and poetry. December brings four short stories and two poems into the world, and the works are varied and interesting, dealing with space, with anxiety, with coping. The characters find that their situations seem to be pressing in around them, and they have to decide if they’re going to push back, break out, or embrace the squeeze. So yeah, to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Uncanny #37 [November stuff]

Art by Julie Dillon

The November Uncanny Magazine brings three short stories and three poems to make for a full issue full of advanced technology, ancient incest, and some monsters for good measure. The fiction leans heavily into science fiction, providing three tales of super science and the very quiet, mundane, intimate things that go into big, dramatic, shattering breakthroughs in physics and AI. These are wrenching stories of people struggling and sometimes failing to reach for what they know is right, and the aftermaths that come when the decisions have been made and people have to live with what comes next. It’s an emotional and wonderfully imagined set of stories and poems, and I’ll get right to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Fireside Magazine #84

Art by Anna Dittmann

October brings four short stories to Fireside Magazine, and the works deal a lot with bodies, with control, with violation. As such, there are some rather important content warnings to heed, but also a very driving sense of exploration of what it means to be embodied, to have skin, to be perceived. Characters struggle with and against the cultural forces that keep them at odds with the meat they carry themselves in, or the code, or both. Sometimes able to pull free, sometimes not. But always still left with the concept of self as observed versus self-observing. Always still left in this messy space of trauma, desire, and anxiety. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Fireside Magazine #76

Art by Carlota Suárez

The three stories and one poem in February's Fireside Magazine have a lot to do with family, and harm, and the possibility of escape. An escape that is complicated by a history of pain and abuse, exploitation and pressure. The stories range from contemporary fiction to fantasy to science fiction, all of them grounded on Earth. The action involves the complicated roles people have within their families, within the bounds of expectation and desire. It's a dense issue, and a careful one, and before I give too much away, let's get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Uncanny #31 [November stuff]

Art by John Picacio

I’d say that it’s a short month from Uncanny Magazine, but despite there being only two stories and two poems, one of the stories is a whopper of a novella, so wordcount-wise it’s a very robust issue. And the novella is certainly a story that captures some of the feeling of the uncanny, strange and mixing science and magic, focusing on a girl tossed back in time, struggling with her own desire not to screw up the timeline and her desire to prevent a tragedy from happening. And the story doesn’t re-tred old ground in providing a wonderful murder mystery time travel adventure, full of shadows intense and unsettling. The rest of the stories and poems round out a strange but rather lovely and haunting feel that for me personally fits with the time of year, with the first tendrils of winter digging in, and the sudden shortening of days and deepening of night. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 02/04/2019 & 02/11/2019

Two short stories and two poems open up February’s Strange Horizons offerings. The fiction at least focuses on history and fairy tales. On the injustices that people layer onto those who don’t have power. On the children and peasants of the world. But how the truth and the dark realities that the powerful author and ignore have a way of coming back, of being felt in strange and haunting ways. The poetry mixes the wonders and chaos of creation and universe-exploding potential with…the wonders and chaos of day to day life and partnering and cohabitating. And it keeps in perfect harmony with my own feelings about the publication—often lyrical, often heartbreaking, always Strange. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Uncanny #26 [February stuff]

Art by Julie Dillon

It’s a full February at Uncanny Magazine, with two poems, two short stories, and a novelette to round out this shortest month of the year. The fiction is broken situations. People who have been abused and are looking for a place to belong. And yet finding that place isn’t always easy—often what might seem safe could be a new abuse in disguise, a sort of pitcher plant designed to lure in the desperate. For those who can avoid the traps, though, the pieces also focus on the joy that can be found in finding a place, and a people, who make you feel at home. With a purpose that rings true and the ability to live, even if it will always be tempered by the ways the world is broken or corrupt. So let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Uncanny #25 [November stuff]

Art by John Picacio

After a few special issues, it’s a relatively small month from Uncanny Magazine. That doesn’t mean, though, that there isn’t A Lot to enjoy. Anchoring things is a novelette that blends magic and song, sword and myth. And really both of the stories this month deal with stories, with narratives, and how they can be twisted. How specifically women can alter the narrative structures that keep them prisoner and use them to cut their way free of the conventions and expectations that would keep them caged. That, plus two very short but densely powerful poems, and it’s one heck of an issue. So let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Fireside Magazine June 2018

Did you know that Fireside Magazine now has a print edition? Called Fireside Quarterly? That is not only awesome in its content, but is also an impressive bit of layout, design, and printing? Seriously, it’s beautiful and you should check it out. But sorry, back to June’s fiction, which contains four stories (three of them flash-length). If I were to pick a theme that I felt echoed through all of these, it would be seeing the world in new ways. In each of the stories, characters are confronted with things that seem at first familiar. But which, nonetheless, have changed. Altered. Complicated themselves. From friendships to memories, from magic to superheroes, the pieces all explore what people do when they have to face the dissonance between what they thought was going to happen and what has happened. And it makes for some compelling reads. To the reviews!

Art by Katie Chandler

Quick Sips - Uncanny #21 [April stuff]

It’s a full March at Uncanny Magazine, with three original stories and four poems to kick off what in most places is the start of spring. And in many ways these are stories about cold and warmth. About numb moments and numbed hurts and the awakening that spring can bring. Not an erasing or easing of pain but a revealing of it. A thawing, and through that thaw a return of sensation. Not always free of pain (in fact, often full of pain), but also full of the hope that spring can bring. That healing is possible, that live can continue, even after the hurt and desolation of winter. It’s just a powerful issue and I’ll get right to the reviews!

Art by Nilah Magruder