Black Gate

 

Amazing Stories, November 1989. Cover by Janet Aulisio

An unexpected issue came up during my reading of the November, 1989 Amazing Stories. In 1979 I was 10 years old, and I barely remember being 10 years old. In 1989 I was 20, and I remember being 20; maybe not 100%, but I remember enough. In fact, I remember enough to know what 20-year-old me (20YOM) would think of the stories in the November, 1989 cadre. Sometimes, 20YOM’s views conflicts with 51-year-old-me (51YOM). So there are times I am literally of two minds!

On to it!

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We let Heroic Fantasy Quarterly loose on a chaotic world on January 31st. We’ve got a full compliment of stories and poems, including:

The Medallion’s Song, by Ginny Patrick, with artwork by Karolina Wellartova. Having been gifted a mysterious amulet by her imperious owner, young Serena is on the run, trying to get the funds to hitch a ride on a caravan out of town. But Macaea City has more than its share of dangers, and Serena has more than her own share of secrets.

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For the second round of the quatro-decadal review, I read and reviewed six periodicals from November 1979, in the following order:

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
Galileo Magazine of Science & Fiction
Analog
Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction
Amazing Stories
Omni

I would put Analog at the top of the list, solid stories — especially Mark McGarry’s “Phoenix,” Clifford D. Simak’s The Visitors installment (a ‘part two’ that stands on its own) and Kevin O’Donnell Jr’s “Old Friends” — interesting science articles and a pleasantly rambling book review section, these more than make up for the uninspiring editorial.

A close second would be Asimov’s, which swings hard with fiction, especially Kevin O’Donnell Jr’s “The Raindrop’s Role,” “Furlough” by Skip Wall, “The Fare” by Sherri Roth, and “Gift of a Useless Man” Alan Dean Foster.

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Worst Cover Ever

I will admit that I was very nervous about delving into Omni Magazine. For years, decades! I’ve heard people talk about Omni in breathless tones of awe! Yet I knew very little about it. Not to say that it was entirely unknown to me; I have distinct memories, back in like 1983, of being at the doctor’s office and they had several issues of Omni in the waiting room. I even flipped through some of them. Here is what I remember:

Omni Magazine was owned by Bob Guiccione, who also owned Penthouse Magazine, and Omni was full of ads for Penthouse. Like it should have come with a little placard that gave you instructions on how to rent a PO box and a chart where you could tick off the years/months until you turned 18 and could get a subscription to Penthouse… ahem… not that I ever did anything like that myself.

The November 1979 Omni was remarkably free from ads for Penthouse, so maybe it was a mid-80s thing?

Another thing that gave me pause about Omni was that it was huge! Not the four by six of the pulps, and not the ¼ inch thick Galileo, either. There is no other way to say it, Omni had a girth that I wasn’t sure I could handle.

Turns out that I needn’t have worried — easily half of Omni is advertising and the other half is a quarter advertising; cigarettes, mostly, but a fair share of whiskey and cars, too. Of the remaining space, a large portion of it is given up to articles and pseudoscience essays. At the end of the day, November 1979 Omni has very little fiction, only two pieces, although it also has two sci-fi related pictorials. I don’t know if this fiction desert is standard fare for the magazine or if it was a one-off.

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