Quick Sips - Flash Fiction Online June 2016

The stories in this month's Flash Fiction Online seem all about duality. About something happening that seems like something else. Preening that's really surviving. Healing that's really hiding. The stories show people being confronted with the pain of their past and trying to work through it. And all finding different ways forward. Harnessing the pain to do good. Remembering the hurt to not fall into old patterns. Burying the hurt in order to move on. These stories are compelling and interesting, and I'm going to get to reviewing them.

Art by Dario Bijelac

Quick Sips - The Dark #13

The second issue of The Dark Magazine's new format is out and I'm still really enjoying how it's working. Especially with very dark stories, sometimes it's better to get smaller bites more often than to sit down and tackle it all in one go. Because The Dark is, undoubtedly, very dark. Even this month's original fiction, which might seem rather tame (and requiring a relatively small amount of trigger warnings), brings up the end of the world, parental abuse, forced feeding, crushing loneliness, and the sickening moment suspended between freedom and isolation. The stories both feature women yearning to be happy, yearning for something carefree and joyous and finding that there life is often filled with situations where there are no good options, just pain and hunger and hurt. So on that cheery note, to the reviews! 

Art by Peter Polach (Apterus)

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #200

Beneath Ceaseless Skies is officially 200 issues old! Which wow, is quite the accomplishment, and the celebration means a double issue filled with fantasies that reveal worlds distant and magical or much closer to our own (and still, yes, magical). Characters struggle with guilt and moral dilemmas where there are no good options. People try to heal in the midst of conflict and violence and history and people come together, find comfort in the press of bodies, in moments of small compassions. It's a great collection of tales, well worthy of a celebration. To the reviews!

Art by Martin Ende

Quick Thoughts - Happy Birthday to Me

So I just turned 30. It's something of a…well, it's a number with a zero in it so I guess it's what people consider a milestone. Woo, three decades of life. Almost that much time being sentient. I wonder at times what 30 means to people. I assume that, in the near-ish past, it was a time for people to look around and say "I've got this life thing about figured out." At 30 people are expected to be making progress. Having families. Living that American dream. And…and I don't know whether to laugh or vomit.

I'm 30 right now and I'm not really looking around and thinking "I've got this all figured out." I do not. I'm getting published a bit more than I was last year, or the year before that. I'm doing more reviews, and interacting with more people. I think I'm starting to find what works for me. Maybe. Just a little bit. But in other ways not at all. I was asked at the Baby Writer panel at WisCon what I do to cope with trying to write, which sort of made me pause. Because, in my mind, I'm not sure I do. I'm still flailing, trying to maybe find something that might work. Trying to find balance. Failing. Trying to find it some other way. Like life is some sort of block castle and mine keeps falling to pieces. So take a breath, start again, and try not to look at the cool castles other people have.

I think when I was in school I used to think "By 25 I'll have a novel published. Maybe two novels." Obviously that didn't happen. At 30 my thought is…"Maybe I'll make it to SFWA eligible in a year or two." A novel? Unless I can publish a book of reviews I don't think that's in the cards. Maybe soon I'll want to pull that trigger. But then, I write between thirty and forty thousand words of reviews a month. It's not exactly possible for me to just write…more. So either I would have to stop writing reviews (which I don't want to do) or stop writing short fiction (which I don't want to do). Or write less of everything (which I don't want to do). Ah life, the process of figuring out which thing I don't want to cut I need to cut.

But perhaps this sounds a bit bleak. I don't really mean it to be. Or not all bleak. I think age is something that reminds us that there isn't time to write all the stories, all the novels. That time exists. That I could be farther, more successful. That if I knew at 20 what I know at 30 I'm not sure that I'd be doing the same thing. But also knowing that I'm in a better place on so many levels than I was at 20. That I do know more what I'm doing. That I have more figured out. And that's…well, that's my goal in some ways. To be able to look back and say "I have it more figured out than I did a year ago." That even if I'm not lighting the world on fire with my work, I'm still further than I was last year. That next year I'll be further than I am now.

30 is, after all, just a number. No more important or meaningful than 29 or 31. And I have things to celebrate this year. My urban fantasy m/m romance "Fieldwork" is available now from Dreamspinner. My superhero story "Medium" is soon to be out in the first Book Smugglers Quarterly Almanac (with art based on my story and it is SO GORGEOUS). My erotic m/m/f wizards story is due out from Torquere at the end of the month. I have over a dozen stories either out or forthcoming this year plus well over a hundred reviews and blogposts. I was on my first convention panels at WisCon. I'm in a fledgling local writing group that's going okay. I have an amazing partner and a house full of hilarious pets and awesome books. I am 30. Happy Birthday to me. Thanks for reading.

All the best,

Charles Payseur

Quick Sips - Strange Horizons 05/16/2016, 05/23/2016, & 05/30/2016

Okay, so closing up May is proving to take longer than anticipated, but the good news is there's tons of great stuff from this month to enjoy, including another three weeks of content from Strange Horizons. Three fiction pieces, three poems, and a pair of nonfiction makes this a rather weighty post, and it's definitely not any lighter when you look at the subject matter. Loss and growth and guilt dominate—characters stuck in cycles and wanting to know where to go, what to do, where their place is. And with all this great content, I should just get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Terraform May 2016

There is a part of me that stares in shock at the stories in this month's batch of Terraform SF offerings. Not just because they are rather shocking, about dangerous unknowns and the human tendency to push forward without thinking things through the most thoroughly. But also because all of these stories actually stick to the under 2,000 word guideline. Which means all of these stories know how to hit and bow and clear the stage, know how to reveal a future that teases, that compels, but that leaves so much deliciously unanswered. Time to review!

Quick Sips - Plasma Frequency Q2 2016 Part 1

May might be over but I'm perhaps a little behind on reviews so the May-train keeps on running with a look at the first half(ish) of Plasma Frequency's second quarter issue. Website issues have prevented some of the stories from being available and an art issue has prevented the issue itself from being ready yet, but I'm hoping both of those things will be fixed soon because these stories are quite good. Full disclosure: I have a story in this issue, which is available to read on the website now. Obviously, I will not be looking at it. But the rest of the stories are fair game, and present a fascinating array of science fictional visions circling around, well, circles and cycles of loss and resistance. Time to review!