Black Gate

Fletcher Vredenburgh kicks off our coverage of two very promising new publications this month in his regular magazine column: Cirsova, a magazine of sword and sorcery and science fiction, and Pulp Literature, which attempts to re-capture the high adventure spirit of the great pulp mags — and largely succeeds. Here’s Fletcher.

Two incredibly impressive magazines crossed my desk this past month: the very first issue of the brand new Cirsova, edited by P. Alexander, and Pulp Literature #10, edited by the triumvirate of Mel Anastasiou, Jennifer Landels, and Susan Pieters. Both are hefty collections (Cirsova is 95 pages and Pulp Literature is 229) and are available as e-books as well as real live paper versions.

P. Anderson may say that what ties the various stories in Cirsova together is a love for the glorious pulp adventures of the past. While that is clearly true, their truest similarity lies in the authors’ love of storytelling… Cirsova has built a stage for writers to tell stories with narrative force, audacious adventure, and outlandishly magnificent settings. If this is what the first issue looks like, I expect future ones will blow me away…

Pulp Literature has been around for several years now, having published ten thick issues… While it has only a few swords & sorcery stories, I was blown away by PL’s quality and richness… Pulp Literature is filled with a wide variety of genres. Senior citizen detectives, Jewish monsters in contemporary Ontario, poetry, all sorts of good things. Don’t let that literature tag scare you off. The editors’ love of pulp in so many varieties means they have a love of storytelling and don’t neglect it. How such a magazine has escaped wider notice eludes me.

In other news, we also reported that dark fantasy magazine The Dark is switching to monthly. Check out all the details on the magazines above by clicking on the each of the images. Our Mid-April Fantasy Magazine Rack is here.

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The fiction in every issue of Lightspeed is gradually made available on the website as the month progresses; the last story in the newest issue became available on April 28th, and the entire issue is now yours to enjoy free. The April issue includes tales of supervillain ex-boyfriends, queens rescued from dragons, quantum challenges, and the first mating between humans and aliens.

Robert L Turner III reviewed the issue at Tangent Online:

In “Origin Story” by Carrie Vaughn we are introduced to Commerce City, a town overrun with heroes, supervillains, and vigilantes. Mary, the protagonist, is standing in line when she recognizes that the supervillain robbing the bank is none other than her ex-boyfriend Jason Trumble. The story is more a quick vignette about lost loves and rekindled (?) relationships than SF…

“The Birth Will Take Place on a Mutually Acceptable Research Vessel” by Matthew Bailey is the final entry for the month. In it, the first mating between Humans and the recently met Tharkan species is the subject. Told from the viewpoint of the expectant human mother, the story delves into the complexities of intercultural and interspecies communication. Bailey does a solid job of presenting the larger world through the eyes of the narrator and making the personal universal. The constant repetition of the idea of Self and Autonomy is well played against the unique situation of a first interspecies birth. Overall, the story, while not groundbreaking, is interesting and the best of the issue.

The cover artist this issue is Sam Schechter.

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I let my subscription to Locus lapse last year as a cost-savings measure (I subscribe to too many magazines), and that proved to be a big mistake. I told myself I could still buy the occasional issue when they caught my eye on newsstands. Turns out Locus is pretty eye-catching. I’ve spent far more than what a subscription would have cost me buying up individual issues. This year, I won’t make that mistake. I’m signing up for a subscription this month.

The April Locus is packed with great stuff, including interviews with Paolo Bacigalupi and Tim Pratt, a column by Kameron Hurley, a report on SF in Cuba, and reviews of short fiction and books by Eleanor Arnason, Ken Liu, Betsy James, Judith Merril, Austin Grossman, Cathy Fenner, and many others. In addition to all the news, features, and regular columns, there’s also the indispensable listings of Magazines Received, Books Received, British Books Received, and Bestsellers. Plus Letters, and an editorial. See the complete contents here.

The big change I noticed with the latest issue is that the magazine has gone to glossy, full-cover interiors — and it looks great. All those books thumbnails look terrific in color.

We last covered Locus with the February 2015 issue. Locus is edited by Liza Groen Trombi, and published monthly by Locus Publications. The issue is 62 pages, priced at $7.50. Subscriptions are $63 for 12 issues in the US. Subscribe online here. The magazine’s website, run as a separate publication by Mark R. Kelly, is a superb online resource. It is here.

See our Mid-April Fantasy Magazine Rack here, and all of our recent Magazine coverage here.