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

Quick Sips - Uncanny #19 [December stuff]

The holidays come a bit early this year with an extra-big issue of Uncanny Magazine, stuffed with four short stories and four poems. Of course, perhaps because we are finally in winter’s talons, the work has a decidedly complex and not-exactly-happy feel to it, the pieces confronting some very heavy issues and finding characters not always able to escape the harsh realities of their situations. From new gods born from misery and exploitation to an android finding their future grim indeed, from a young girl dealing with trauma and stress to a hero who knows that heroes are anything but always heroic, the stories are tinted windows into humanity, revealing us not always through contemporary humans but through our stories, our creations, and our works. It’s not the brightest of pictures, but it does create for some captivating and compelling short fiction, with a whole slew of poetry that ranges from sweet to brash and back again. To the reviews!

Art by Julie Dillon

Quick Sips - Uncanny #5 (August stuff)

Another month of Uncanny Magazine brings a mix of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. The stories are a bit extreme in that some are on the longer side of short and one is perhaps the shortest that I've reviewed on the site so far. But all of them deliver strong ideas and a nice vein of darkness that makes this month a little unsettling. In some ways the issue (or this half of it) seems to revolve around the idea of the hidden coming to light, or perhaps seeing something often ignored in a whole new way. It's a strong installment, and I should get to reviewing it!

Art by Antonio Javier Caparo