Quick Sips - Disabled People Destroy Fantasy! part 2 (Uncanny #30 [October stuff])

Art by Julie Dillon

Disabled People Destroy Fantasy! wraps up with these three short stories and three poems from Uncanny Magazine. Once again it’s a very eclectic mix of stories and styles, from a romantic fairy tale (with a great twist) to a dream-like piece featuring someone continually burying the dead. From a very different kind of portal fantasy to a slew of poems about disease, body image, and safety. There’s a lot to read and experience, and it’s been a phenomenal special issue that you do not want to miss. To the reviews!

THE SIPPY AWARDS 2016! The "Where We're Going We Won't Need Categories" Sippy for Excellent I Don't Know What in Short SFF

Welcome back to the last entry in the Second Annual Sippy Awards! The short SFF award that no one asked for is back and things are definitely…well, kind of…or, that is to say…fuck it, I don't know but WE'RE DOING THIS ANYWAY!

There are some stories that just sort of take me by surprise. That work so incredibly well but that I can't really figure out what to call. I'm notoriously finicky when it comes to genre and so sometimes it's best to just embrace the nebulous. The undefined. The meta. Today I want to look at works that do interesting things not just with character and plot and conflict but with SFF as an idea. With art as an idea. Stories that push the boundaries on what should be considered the beating heart of SFF. Many of these stories have a lot to say on why people create. Why stories are important. Why giant wasps are scary. Err…well that last one might be a little specific but still!

SFF exists because some people a long time ago weren't satisfied with the conventions of storytelling. Because they wanted to tap into the imagination directly and hell with the establishment. And today that urge still lives and the breathes. Only now it comes against a different establishment, the one that tries to define what SFF is and should be. But I want to celebrate some stories that refuse to sit quietly, that refuse to stay confined. Today I want to present…

The "Where We're Going We Won't Need Categories" Sippy

for Excellent I Don't Know What in Short SFF

Quick Sips - Omenana #8

There's a new issue of Omenana out and you should read it. The publication is going through some changes, moving to a more robust website, adding some new ventures (like reviews), and the fiction remains strong and brilliant. These are stories that look at magic and at tragedy, that show loss but also people gaining things. New abilities. New hopes. New understandings of the world they live in. These are not always easy stories—they are dense and they are occasionally uncomfortable—but they are resonating stories. Stories that inspire and complicate. And I should get to reviewing them! 

Art by Danial Inneil, Color by Sunny Efemena