Birthdays and Funerals
Strange Horizons not only pioneered the notion of an on-line “magazine” devoted to speculative fiction, but is still around today to talk about it. In fact, Strange Horizons is celebrating its tenth anniversary, which also happens to coincide to its annual fund drive. The magazine is somewhat unique in that it operates on a “PBS-like” donation model (without the nature and cooking shows coupled with pop concerts from performers whose better days date back to the 1970s that your financial support of somehow makes you a last bastion of “high culture”). It seems to have worked. Take a look at its very first issue.
On a more somber note, this just in on the continuing decline of the physical bookstore, albeit the big box model that a few years ago everyone was lamenting was killing off neighborhood independent bookstores.
Whatever the fate of the physical book, the future looks like it might be in the hands of the little guy who can figure out a niche to, if not thrive in, at least be comfortable in. Not such a bad thing,
A few weeks back at the 
I’m a gamer, a lifer, someone who at the age of thirty-nine doesn’t get to roll dice like it did at nineteen, but I still take a week’s vacation every year to hang out with High School friends and revisit campaigns where characters have been on paper long enough to legally drink in the U.S.
Imaro: The Naama War
Jack the Giant Killer, by Charles de Lint
This is the third in a series of posts looking at the question of who wrote the first otherworld fantasy: that is, the first fantasy to be set entirely in its own fictional world, with no connection to conventional reality at all. It’s an innovation traditionally ascribed to William Morris, but I think I’ve found an earlier writer who deserves that honor.
The City and the City
