Somebody on the Internet told me that October was Black Speculative Fiction Month. I figured that was cause for a little bit of TBR shuffling, and I found some true gems mixed in with my usual new release reading schedule. As always, let’s start with short fiction before moving on to the longer works. Short… Continue reading October 2025 Round-up and Short Fiction Miscellany
It’s been a bit of an unusual reading month, with a little bit less novel-shaped reading time than usual but quite a bit more places to carve out some short fiction. Between that and my attempt to free up the holiday season posting schedule, this month’s Magazine Minis is my biggest ever, with a blitz… Continue reading Tar Vol’s Magazine Minis: Five-Zine Blitz (October 2025)
GigaNotoSaurus is back, and my monthly magazine reading is once again at two. So let’s take a look at the October issues of it and Clarkesworld! Clarkesworld It’s always exciting to see a Table of Contents with a bunch of authors you’ve five-starred in the past, and so as much as I appreciate Clarkesworld platforming… Continue reading Tar Vol Reads a Magazine (or Two): Reviews of Clarkesworld and GigaNotoSaurus (October 2025)
It’s been a bit of a topsy-turvy month in real life, but I’ve managed to get a lot of reading done, albeit in a different order than usual. And when you read enough in any given month, you’re bound to find amazing things that you want to share with the world. So let’s do that,… Continue reading September 2025 Round-up and Short Fiction Miscellany
My September short fiction reviews are coming out of order because of some travel early in the month, and GigaNotoSaurus remains on a two-month hiatus, so let’s do a rare late-month, single-issue review and take a look at the September 2025 issue of Clarkesworld. Clarkesworld This issue of Clarkesworld features five short stories and two… Continue reading Tar Vol Reads a Magazine: Review of Clarkesworld (September 2025)
Early September travel has thrown off my usual reading schedule and has me swapping the order of my regular short fiction reviews. So we’ll save the monthly Clarkesworld review for later and start with Magazine Minis: short reviews of selected stories from the same magazine issues. Today, I’ll be looking at tales that caught my… Continue reading Tar Vol’s Magazine Minis: Asimov’s, khōréō, and Translunar Travelers Lounge
Travel and an unusually hefty short fiction project this month left me with relatively little time for miscellany, and what time I had was mostly spent in search of the lucky 10,000, focusing on acclaimed 20th century sci-fi that I’d somehow yet to read. And wouldn’t you know it, I found some great stuff! Let’s… Continue reading August 2025 Round-up and Short Fiction Miscellany
To mark the transition between our summer Hugo reading and our regular short fiction reading, my online book club decided to have a session focusing on the finalists for the 2017 Hugo Award for Best Short Story. Why 2017? Well, the stories were all online, it was before we started our Hugo Readalong, and it… Continue reading A Very Late Evaluation of the 2017 Hugo Longlist for Best Short Story
GigaNotoSaurus has announced a two-month hiatus—and my best wishes go to the staff as they navigate whatever it is that is demanding their attention—so in August and September, my monthly read of two magazines will be reduced to just one. So let’s take a look at Clarkesworld. Clarkesworld This month’s issue includes seven stories: five… Continue reading Tar Vol Reads a Magazine: Review of Clarkesworld (August 2025)
After finishing up my reading for both the Hugos and SPSFC, I felt strangely on top of things, so I decided to dig into some backlist short fiction. As it turns out, short stories that people are still recommending five (or more) years after their initial publication are disproportionately excellent. I’ve got quite a list… Continue reading July 2025 Round-up and Short Fiction Miscellany
