Quick Sips - Lightspeed #101

October brings something of the spooky to Lightspeed Magazine, with a novelette and three short stories that examine the darker sides of humanity. From muses and obsession to lust and monsters, the works all show people trying to find happiness in (perhaps) all the wrong places. Finding instead addiction and decay and a deterioration of their relationships. But at the same time, these disasters also break down the walls that they’ve built to keep their true selves hidden and safe. They are revealed even as they are threatened with complete destruction, and it’s a beautiful and haunting experience. To the reviews!

Art by Reiko Murakami

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #233

This third August issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies delves into two very different worlds that are linked by the way they exploit the vulnerable. The stories explore the ways in which people are used as tools for war and execution, for death and conflict. And they reveal women willing to risk everything in order to work for a better world. In many ways the characters in both stories are working for peace, for justice. But both know that most of the time that's not a goal that can be reached without walking a road paved in its own sort of conflict and violence. That the most direct path is the one that often leaves the most destruction in its wake, but is often the only road that doesn't allow the harm to continue, that strikes at the heart of the problem. These are stories that firmly believe you can't make a peace omelet without breaking a few eggs, and so some eggs get broken. And it's at times disturbing and always tragic, but it's still necessary in the pursuit of a better world. So yeah, to the reviews!

Art by Jordan Grimmer

Quick Sips - The Sockdolager #6 Summer 2016

This is my first issue reviewing The Sockdolager, and I'm definitely glad I've added it to my list. The goal of the publication is to provide stories that are fun to read. Not stories that are shallow, but stories that breathe life into the reader. That provoke a smile, or a grin, or a laugh. That are full of energy and style. And it delivers. The stories tend a bit more toward the fantasy (and especially contemporary fantasy), but there's some science fiction here as well, and some horror. There's enough variety that nothing gets old, that each story hits well, bows, and clears the stage for the next act. So let's get this show on the road, because it's review time! 
 

Art by Paul Starr and Alison Wilgus