Quick Sips - Tor dot com March 2018

It's a relatively light month from Tor dot com this March, with only two short stories to look at. The pieces excel, though, at building worlds that are gritty and yet border on the magical. That feature characters struggling with difficult moral decisions and having to make choices that might help them sleep at night but might lose them everything. The pieces are a mix of genres and styles, but they look at people making unexpected connections and contemplating doing things that might be out of character. Because they don't want to lose more. So yeah, let's get to the reviews!

 

Art by Brent Hardy-Smith

Quick Sips - Fireside Magazine March 2018

March brings a feeling of oppression and strength to Fireside Magazine, which features four original short stories. From fantasy-tinged history to a future full of ongoing natural disasters, the pieces focus on empathy, loss, and captivity. They show characters who want to live their lives and who all fall into systems that don’t really allow them to be free. They are bound by obligations and restrictions, by ignorance and by prejudice. And in their attempts to push back against those forces they come up against resistance, violence, and exploitation. These are stories that do not flinch away from difficult depictions, and readers should go in prepared to confront some general unpleasantness, to put it mildly. But these are also stories that glow with beauty and power and should definitely be savored. Let’s get to the reviews!

Art by Galen Dara

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 03/19/2018 & Samovar 03/26/2018

It’s a full two weeks from Strange Horizons and Samovar, which released a new issue full of translated SFF. With three stories and two poems to look at, the overall feeling this week is, once again, strange. Especially with Samovar, I feel like there is a wonderful vagueness to some of the work, a touch of surrealism that makes the pieces pop. They are works that are first viewed through the lens of translation, but further than that they are also pieces that don’t seek to explain themselves, offering up rather literary takes on genre while still definitely retaining a strong speculative weirdness. Plus the pieces from the regular Strange Horizons week mix history, the unknown, and some deep feelings of grief and despair. This is not a light offering of short SFF, but the publications really hit hard with their variety and complexity. To the reviews!

Quick Sips - Glittership March 2018

March brings one new and three reprint stories to Glittership (well, maybe more if they release again before the end of the month, but for now...). And can I just say that it's a delight to find a whole series of stories that don't really delve into the tragedy so often paired with being queer. Not that the stories are free of pain, or hardship, or loss, but that most of them imagine positive outcomes for the queer characters. Lifetimes to spend with the people that they love. Love blossoming. Resistance burning bright. And it's just a great assortment of settings and characters, most of them leaning fantasy but not entirely (time travel ftw!). To the reviews!

Regular Sip - "The Owls of Juttshatan" from Prime Books

With the end of the month approaching, I’m taking a quick diversion today from regular releases to look at another short story from Prime Books. Like the two I reviewed a while ago, this one takes a military science fiction seed and grows an entire galaxy of ships, wars, and women kicking ass. It features sharp prose, a gritty setting, and a poignant ending. So let’s get right to the review!

LIVER BEWARE! You're in for a Drunk Review of Goosebumps #2: STAY OUT OF THE BASEMENT

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #247

Beneath Ceaseless Skies is back to its regularly scheduled fantasy with two new stories exploring memory and nested narratives. In both, a character tells a story about a war. About battle. About death. And about a decision. A shift. A rebellion. Perhaps not always a huge one, but one that has far reaching consequences. In both stories there’s a focus on the decision to step away from following orders and embrace something different. Something uniting. Be it food or a faith in people, the stories show characters putting down their weapons and striving for a deeper understanding and compassion for those who would otherwise be their enemies. It’s a wonderful issue, and one I’m excited to review!

Art by Stefan Meisl