Quick Sips - Nightmare #68

May brings a pair of original stories to Nightmare Magazine that look at families and different kinds of hauntings. That feature situations that might seem terrifying at first, but mostly only at the surface. That, once you really dig down into them, the horror and the violence seems to bleed away, and something like compassion, like joy, like love begins to shine through. These are stories that feature some definite abuses, that feature characters lashing out at times, but they also feature a reaching toward something better. A healing of wounds. A justice snatched from the hands of corruption. And though they are not exactly easy reads, they are definitely beautiful reads very much worth checking out. To the reviews!

Art by Grandfailure / Fotolia

Quick Sips - Apex #108

It’s a pretty big May for Apex Magazine, at least in terms of number of stories (with four originals). Which means there’s a lot more worlds to see and experience and get made uncomfortable by. Apex specializes in dark fiction, and these four stories do a nice job of showing how differently darkness can manifest in short SFF. From trauma and war to injustice and defeat to death and undeath to panic and fear, the stories all have different takes on what makes our skin crawl and our stomachs sink. So let’s dive right in to the reviews!

Art by Anna Dittmann

Quick Sips - GigaNotoSaurus May 2018

May brings a science fiction novelette to GigaNotoSaurus, and one concerned with isolation, social interactions, and human ingenuity. Literature is full of stories of human survivors—people stranded on islands or in remote locations, hoping for rescue. Here that idea is twisted nicely, showing that for all the joy that humans can achieve in their battle against loneliness, there’s plenty of pain and darkness they can create as well. Before I give too much away, though, let’s get to the review!

A Few Notes, On Reaching 3000 Reviews

So at first I wasn’t going to do anything real special for my 3000th review on Quick Sip Reviews. I just passed 1000 posts not long ago, which was also cool, but I’ve been a little busy with personal things for most of the last year and finding extra time to set aside to check in has been difficult. But I find myself with a small amount of time, and rather than push forward into more reviews, I think I’ll take a breath.

When I started QSR in January of 2015, it was for a number of reasons, most of which I’ve written about at some point. Love. Spite. Guilt. Hope. Whenever someone starts a fan project like this, there’s this question that tends to come up about who you’re doing it for. Especially with reviewing, there’s something of a debate about who you should be writing to. Are you writing reviews in order to steer people toward stories? To help people complicate their readings? To celebrate what’s being published? To try and influence awards?

I started reviewing at first purely selfishly. I was a writer just starting out and I was doing Critters (from which I still value the respectability policy because though it is designed for critique, I believe reviewers would be well suited to try and follow some of the guidelines, especially about grounding opinions in the language of opinions). And there was an email that Tangent Online was looking for reviewers, and a general plug that Tangent was good for reviews. I applied to that, I got accepted. I don’t want to spend too much time dragging Tangent. I don’t believe that it’s a good place for new reviewers, especially those who (like me) weren’t really aware of the legacy of the site and who (like me) weren’t on social media to the point that they could easily find out. People who know what it’s about and still do it, okay. But I personally found myself involved in something that I grew more and more uncomfortable with. Eventually I started QSR, trying to take advice that I saw from writers, from reviewers, from everyone.

And hey, it’s kinda worked out. I'm nominated for a Hugo Award this year largely on the back of my reviewing. I have a Patreon that is mostly supported because of my reviewing (which, by the way, if you've ever appreciated what I do, my Patreon is 100% what allows me to continue and I would love any level of support to continue). I have a column at The Book Smugglers because of my reviewing.

And here, at 3000 reviews, I just want to re-affirm some things about my reviewing, which isn’t really intended as advice, but I want to say. Keeping in mind that this is all just my opinion, my approach to what I do, what I have been doing for over four years now.

I don’t really review as a service to anyone but myself. Meaning, I read and review to try and expand my own understanding and enjoyment of short SFF, and life in general. My goal is not exactly to just find things that I like. My goal is to understand myself better. Why?

When I started reviewing, I was just coming to terms with my sexuality after a lifetime of repression, confusion, and harm both to myself and to others. I’m an introvert. I don’t have a large network of people IRL to talk to or interact with or anything. It was through reading and engaging with short SFF (and short SFF fandom) that helped me to figure myself out. That continues to help me figure myself out. It has not brought me great material wealth. It has not fixed all the ways that I am broken or the world around me is broken. But I continue to get a lot out of it. I continue to learn about me. For myself, that is certainly valuable. For readers of my reviews, I can only hope it is valuable, in the same way that people write fiction primarily to explore themselves and yet that exploration can resonate with readers. I try to remain honest, and hope that my exploration of short SFF through reviews resonates with others in a way that they find valuable.

To completely contradict my “this is not advice” statement above, if I had one piece of advice to give reviewers, it would be to try to not approach reviewing as if you know what’s good and what’s bad. Often, I find that reviews that seek to judge stories on some objective or outside measure don’t really help the reviewer grow or change or improve. As a reviewer or as a person. And if our goal is not to improve as people, to challenge ourselves and better understand and interact with our world and ourselves, then what is the goal? What better goal is there?

But back to me. Because this is a post about me doing something. Having done something. Having reached a milestone. Maybe. Certainly, I feel like I’ve grown in doing it. I don’t feel done. And I still make a lot of mistakes. But. A breath. A recognition.

And hey, some thanks, primarily to the Nerds of a Feather crew for helping me out of a bad situation and giving me a much healthier place to be in fandom. To A.C. Wise for always being so awesome and encouraging to me from Day 1. And to K. Tempest Bradford who gave me the time of day when I was still very very new at this and gave me a boost when I needed it. And for every reader and writer who has either appreciated what I've done or told me what I was doing wrong. And really, especially to those who have pointed out ways that I could improve and ways I could learn better how to cause less harm.

I try to read enthusiastically. Compassionately. Respectfully. And as thoroughly as I can. I don’t often think of myself as overly positive. Doing so would insult the people who have been hurt by things I’ve written (and I do not doubt there have been those hurt by things I’ve written). It also, in my opinion, fails to value engaging with stories and trying to judge them not by some objective rubric but by how well they accomplish what I feel they set out to do. Yes, it’s a subjective way of reading and valuing stories. But it’s honest. And I find reviewers who are honest about their opinions to be more valuable than those who hide behind assertions disguised as truth.

I hope I never get to the point where reading and reviewing feel like an obligation or chore. I have commitments now to read and review a lot, but though these are things I depend on for money and, by extension, to live, I still feel I come to reviewing because I need it. Because I’m hungry for it. Because I’m not done figuring myself out, and I never want to be.

So for now, a breath. A little bow.

And the work continues.

Cheers!

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Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #250 (part 2)

The second half of Beneath Ceaseless Skies’ special 250th anniversary issue is out, and it’s definitely got a mystery feel to it. Which is great, because I’m a particular fan of mysteries, and these two take very strange situations and place them into second worlds full of magic and danger, intrigue and trauma. These are stories of people trying to find ways to live with their pasts, to live with the weight of who they are and what they want to become. They are fun but not without their shadows, and not without the presence of death. But they are also about justice, and finding solutions to problems that would otherwise be much worth. So let’s dig in! [as a side note, the final story of the issue marks my 3000th individual review on Quick Sip Reviews, so cheers to that!]

Art by Jereme Peabody

Quick Sips - Flash Fiction Online May 2018

The three original stories of Flash Fiction Online’s May issue deal with art and with encounters, with culture and family and compassion. For the narrators of these stories (which all are told in first person), there are Things Happening that are rather uncomfortable to deal with. Things that push them outside of their comfort zones. And they each have to decide how to deal with that—by hiding away or stepping back or by embracing the unknown, the uncertainty, and the nebulous. And the characters all end up being drawn toward compassion and acceptance first of themselves, leaving their futures open for possible presence of others. It’s a quiet but powerful bunch of stories, and it’s time to review them!

Art by Dario Bijelac

Quick Sips - The Dark #36

The Dark Magazine gets, well, really fucking dark for its May original releases. Examining death and horror as ideas, as characters, and as modes of telling stories, the pieces look at situations made possible because of cruelty and pain. In both, powerful characters play with their victims, trying to learn from them, to perhaps hone their craft through their victims. And yet there is a sense that what might be happening is just more of the same, different in setting and style but still, at its core, the same as ever. Still, sadly, very human. And it’s a fascinating and difficult issue that I’ll just get to reviewing!

Art by Abigail Larson