Black Gate

Asimov’s Science Fiction October/November issue — the traditionally “slightly spooky” issue — contains a huge new 34,000-word novella from the brilliant Aliette de Bodard, the sequel to her Hugo and Nebula Award nominee, On a Red Station, Drifting, plus stories from Alan Smale, Ian Creasey, Rick Wilber, Ian McDowell, and many others. Here’s the description from the website:

Aliette de Bodard’s October/November 2015 cover story is an enormous new novella that plunges us into a far future where various factions struggle to find the lost “Citadel of Weeping Pearls.” Success will require travel through time and space. The journey could result in death, or it could give the empire the weapon it needs in a war against archenemies.

Our traditionally “slightly spooky” issue is full of outré stories of the macabre. A trio of tales makes use of English and Irish locales and lore. Alan Smale entices us to the West Midlands for a chilling look at “English Wildlife”; Ian Creasey draws us further north to York, and, then through hyperspace, to listen while a young girl spins a sinister yarn about “My Time on Earth”; and Rick Wilber takes us from the beaches of West Ireland to the coast of Massachusetts for one character’s just rewards in “Walking to Boston.” We remain in the U.S. for Sandra McDonald’s ghostly account of “The Adjunct Professor’s Guide to Life After Death”; venture to the old west for Ian McDowell’s uncanny legend of “The Hard Woman”; and voyage through time with Timons Esaias to find out what happened in “Hollywood After 10.” Daryl Gregory escorts us to another realm for a surprising twist on a familiar tale of witchcraft in “Begone”; and new author Brooks Peck lures us to a space station in Earth’s Orbit to view the consequences of living “With Folded RAM.”

The striking cover art this issue is by Maurizio Manzieri, for “Citadel of Weeping Pearls.”

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Shimmer #27, cover-dated September 2015, offers four new stories. Two are currently available on the website; the last two will be available later this month.

“Dustbaby,” by Alix E. Harrow
There were signs. There are always signs, when the world ends.

“A July Story,” by K.L. Owens
Iron red, linseed-cured, and caked in salt, in a place where the mercury never crept much above fifty Fahrenheit, the two-room house chose to keep its back to the sea. A wise choice, given the facing of the windows and the predilections of the wind.

“Black Planet,” by Stephen Case (available October 6)
Em did not dream the world. When the lights went out and the absence of her brother in the room across the hall became palpable, it was simply there, hanging in the space above her bed. She would stare at its invisible form, spinning silent and unseen, until she slept.

“The Law of the Conservation of Hair,” by Rachael K. Jones (available October 20)
That it has long been our joke that our hair lengths are inversely proportional, and cannot exceed the same cumulative mass it possessed on the day we met.

See the complete issue here.

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