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Retro Reviews: Amazing Science Fiction, June 1960 and July 1960

Retro Reviews: Amazing Science Fiction, June 1960 and July 1960

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Amazing Science Fiction June 1960-small Amazing Science Fiction July 1960-small

Two more issues from 1960, which more and more seems to me to be the year Cele Goldsmith really began to hit her stride. I’m covering these two because they contain both parts of a serial, James Blish’s …And All the Stars a Stage.

The June cover is by Leo Summers, illustrating Robert Bloch’s “The Bald-Headed Mirage.” Interiors are by Finlay and Varga. For July the cover is by Harrel Gray, not illustrating any story. Interiors are by Finlay, Varga, and Grayam.

Norman Lobsenz’ June editorial is about death rays, and sterilization schemes. The book review column, The Spectroscope, by S. E. Cotts, covers Chad Oliver’s Unearthly Neighbors and John Brunner’s Slavers of Space, both favorably. The letter column features Mike Deckinger; B. Joseph Fekete, Jr.; Paul Shingleton, Jr.; Paul Zimmer, Scott Neilson; Bob Adolfsen, N. C., Lenny Kaye; and A. D. Scofield. The only names I recognized were Zimmer (Marion Zimmer Bradley’s brother) and Kaye, whose letter is his first, wherein he calls himself “the loneliest fan in the state of New Jersey.” Kaye’s second letter appeared the next issue … I’ll discuss him in the next paragraph. Mike Deckinger was also a pretty prominent fan, and folks who were around back them remembered Fekete and Shingleton as well.

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The Dark Issue 11 Now on Sale

The Dark Issue 11 Now on Sale

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The Dark February 2016-smallThe Dark is a quarterly magazine co-edited by Jack Fisher and Sean Wallace. The 11th issue features four all-original short stories by Michael Wehunt, Amber van Dyk, Gregory Norman Bossert, and Kristi DeMeester.

“Birds of Lancaster, Lairamore, Lovejoy” by Michael Wehunt
“And the Woods Are Silenty” by Amber van Dyk
“Between Dry Ribs” by Gregory Norman Bossert
“All The World When It Is Thin” by Kristi DeMeester

You can read issues free online, or help support the magazine by subscribing to the ebook editions, available for the Kindle and Nook in Mobi and ePub format. Issues are around 50 pages, and priced at $2.99 through Amazon, B&N.com, Apple, Kobo, and other fine outlets. A one-year sub (six issues) is just $15 – subscribe today.

If you enjoy the magazine you can also support it by buying their books, reviewing stories, or even just leaving comments. Read issue 11 here, and see their complete back issue catalog here.

The cover for the February issue is by Quebec artist Daniel Bérard.

The issue is cover dated February 2016. We last covered The Dark with Issue 10.

See our February Fantasy Magazine Rack here, and all of our recent Magazine coverage here.

Black Static #50 Now on Sale

Black Static #50 Now on Sale

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Black Static 50-smallBritish horror magazine Black Static #50, cover-dated January-February, is now available. It sports a creepy and very effective cover by Vince Haig, illustrating Georgina Bruce’s “White Rabbit” (click the image at right for a bigger version.)

This issue contains six stories:

“White Rabbit” by Georgina Bruce
“Man of the House” by V.H. Leslie
“Child of Thorns” by Ray Cluley
“Greenteeth” by Gary Budden
“Foul is Fair” by Tyler Keevil
“Bug Skin” by Tim Casson

The magazine’s regular columns include Coffinmaker’s Blues by Stephen Volk (on “10 Ways Comedy and Horror Are Almost the Same Thing”) and Notes From the Borderland by Lynda E. Rucker (“Meet the New Goth, Same as the Old Goth”), plus two review columns: Blood Spectrum by Tony Lee (DVD/Blu-ray reviews); and Case Notes by Peter Tennant (book reviews).

Issue 50 is nearly 100 pages and comes packed with new dark fantasy and horror, and top-notch art. Black Static is the sister magazine of Interzone (see the latest issue here); both are published by TTA Press in the UK. The distinguished Andy Cox is the editor of both.

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Galaxy Science Fiction, March 1953: A Retro-Review

Galaxy Science Fiction, March 1953: A Retro-Review

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Galaxy Science Fiction March 1953-smallI’ve already covered the $6,500 novel-writing sham announced in this issue in a previous post. So let’s jump straight into the contents.

“The Old Die Rich” by H. L. Gold — Periodically, senior citizens are dying of starvation, yet they have large sums of money in banks or in cash. Mark Weldon tags along with his friend, Officer Lou Pape, whenever the police find out about the incidents. Mark’s intrigued by the circumstances and feels compelled to understand the pattern, even if it’s a matter of being too fearful to deplete their savings.

Mark’s investigation leads him to May Roberts, a young woman who hires seniors for unspecified purposes. He tries to break into her apartment at night, only to be captured. She decides to use him as her latest employee.

The job is to travel into the past and place bets on known outcomes or invest in the stock market at key moments. Mark slips from one time period to the next, spending a varying amount of time in each destination. But anything he interacts with in the past, such as food, can’t come forward to the present with him; it ages as though it’s still part of the past, becoming dust.

Gold’s story has good pacing, but I couldn’t get past his rules of time travel. If someone moves into the past and can’t eat because anything ingested becomes dust, then how could someone breathe? It didn’t seem reasonable to me.

“Games” by Katherine MacLean — Ronny plays outside, imagining a Native American battle scene. Except that as he’s acting it out, he becomes one of them. And then he becomes an old man, dying of starvation — someone who refuses to give information to those who’ve held him imprisoned. It’s frightfully real for Ronny, and he doesn’t understand how it’s happening.

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The February Magazine Rack

The February Magazine Rack

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Apex-Magazine-Issue-80-rack Asimovs-Science-Fiction-February-2016-rack Back-Issue-86-rack Clarkesworld-113-rack
Interzone-262-rack Uncanny-Magazine-Issue-8-rack Beneath-Ceaseless-Skies-192-rack Weird-Fiction-Review-6-rack

The last two weeks have produced some tremendous new fiction and articles. We started our coverage of TwoMorrows Publishing’s altogether splendid comics magazine Back Issue with issue #86, containing their giant-sized look at Marvel Bronze Age Giant comics. For fans of classic magazine art, our man Doug Ellis dug into his massive collection to examine early interior illustrations from Kelly Freas and Richard Powers. For vintage magazine readers, we took a look at Galaxy magazine’s $6,500 Novel-Writing Sham from 1953, and Thomas M. Disch’s detailed review of the Best Science Fiction of 1979, from the February 1981 issue of F&SF. For those looking for Award recommendations, we surveyed the annual Locus Recommended Reading List, compiled by the editors of Locus magazine, and the always-reliable Rich Horton’s Hugo Recs. Finally, Fletcher Vredenburgh contributes his January Short Story Roundup, reviewing Swords and Sorcery 48, Grimdark Magazine #6, and Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #27.

Check out all the details on the magazines above by clicking on the each of the images. Our Late January Fantasy Magazine Rack is here.

As we’ve mentioned before, all of these magazines are completely dependent on fans and readers to keep them alive. Many are marginal operations for whom a handful of subscriptions may mean the difference between life and death. Why not check one or two out, and try a sample issue? There are magazines here for every budget, from completely free to $35/issue. If you find something intriguing, I hope you’ll consider taking a chance on a subscription. I think you’ll find it’s money very well spent.

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Beneath Ceaseless Skies 192 Now Available

Beneath Ceaseless Skies 192 Now Available

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Beneath Ceaseless Skies 192-smallThe February 4th issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies features their 400th story — a damn impressive milestone. BCS has been showcasing the best authors in the business, and promoting and developing new fantasy writers, since 2008. It has become one of the most important periodicals in the business, and you owe it yourself to check it out.

Issue 192 has original short fiction from K.J. Parker and Tamara Vardomskaya, a podcast, and a reprint by the marvelous Rachel Swirsky. Scott Andrews has also changed up the cover art; this issue features “Plains of Another World” by Leon Tukker.

“Told By An Idiot” by K.J. Parker
I accepted that master Allardyce had the potential to write the greatest play ever; a play so good that if God were to summon Mankind before the bar of Heaven and demand to know one good reason why He shouldn’t send a second flood and drown the lot of us, all we’d have to do is hand Him the manuscript and there’d be no case to answer. I knew that, in order to write this play, master Allardyce needed to drink himself stupid, get beaten up twice a week, and generally mash himself down into a cheese, like the cider-makers do, before he could ferment and distil his very essence into words on a page. But I have a business to run, and I need crowd-pleasers. Master Allardyce’s monument-more-enduring-than-bronze would just have to wait until I retired. Accordingly, I gave him no peace.

“The Three Dancers of Gizari” by Tamara Vardomskaya
It dawned on me that he enjoyed watching me squirm; a proud competent woman but to him just Nahemiah’s commoner puppet. “Ten thousand!” I spat out the words intentionally in the heaviest Tavalland accent that the theater had eradicated in me twelve years before. “Ten thousand thalers for your measly sculpture that the Opera rejected!”

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January Short Story Roundup

January Short Story Roundup

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oie_1623615pLzdaIcYIt has finally gotten cold here in the Northeast, but I’ve got plenty of thunderous swords & sorcery stories to keep me busy indoors reading. January brought not only Swords and Sorcery Magazine’s usual complement of two stories, but also issues of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly and Grimdark Magazine. That’s a terrific way to kick off the new year.

Swords and Sorcery Issue 48, as editor Curtis Ellett writes, brings four years of publication to a close, which is pretty impressive. That’s like fifteen years in internet time, so congratulations are in order.

The issue kicks off with the impressive (and impressively titled) “The Quarto Volume, or Knowledge, Good & Evil” by Ken Lizzi. Cesar is a member of a mercenary company in a land similar to Renaissance Italy but with demons and wizards. Those who control those spirits control the world, and that’s a small number of people. Now, Cesar learns, there’s the possibility of power escaping into the hands of the many. Cesar is cut from the same cloth as any number of roguish heroes, but Lizzi’s prose lends him a clear voice and the setting has great potential. An earlier Cesar the Bravo story was included in the anthology Pirates & Swashbucklers from a few years back. Considering my love of all things piratey (check out the article Howard Andrew Jones and I did about Captain Blood), I’ll probably be buying that soon.

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Back Issue 86 Now Available

Back Issue 86 Now Available

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Back Issue 86-smallBack Issue is one of the best comic magazines on the market, especially if you’re a fan of comics of the 70s, 80s, and today. The latest (February) issue is a 100-page giant, celebrating the Marvel Bronze Age Giants like Marvel Tales, Fantasy Masterpieces, and Marvel Triple Action. I have many fond memories of curling up with those lengthy treasures long ago, and looking through the full-color digital issue preview brought them all back. Here’s the issue description.

Back Issue #86 (bonus-size 100 Full-Color pages, $9.95) takes a big look at Marvel Bronze Age Giants and Reprints! We open Marvel Comics’ vaults for an in-depth exploration of its GIANT-SIZE series! Plus: indexes galore of Marvel reprint titles, Marvel digests and Fireside Books editions, and the last days of the “Old” X-Men. Featuring the work of DAN ADKINS, ROSS ANDRU, RICH BUCKLER, DAVE COCKRUM, GERRY CONWAY, STEVE GERBER, STAN LEE, WERNER ROTH, ROY THOMAS, and more. Re-presenting the cover of Giant-Size Marvel Triple Action #1 by JOHN ROMITA, SR.! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

See the full details on issue 86 at the TwoMorrows website.

Back Issue is edited by Michael Eury, and published by TwoMorrows Publishing. Issue #86 is cover-dated February 2016. It is 100 pages in full color, priced at $9.95. The cover is by John Romita, Sr. An eight-issue subscription is $73 in the US ($31.60 for the digital version). Order right from the TwoMorrows website.

See our Late January Fantasy Magazine Rack here, and all of our recent Magazine coverage here.

Interzone #262 Now on Sale

Interzone #262 Now on Sale

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Interzone 262-smallThe January/February issue of Interzone magazine is now on sale. With the new year comes a new cover artist, Vincent Sammy, who illustrates this issue with a piece titled “The Orion Crusades” (click the image at right for a bigger version.)

Interzone #262 contains six stories:

“The Water-Walls of Enceladus” by Mercurio D. Rivera
“Empty Planets” by Rahul Kanakia
“Geologic” by Ian Sales
“Circa Diem” by Carole Johnstone
“A Strange Loop” by T.R. Napper
“Dependent Assemblies” by Philip A. Suggars

Non-fiction this issue includes an interview with artist Vincent Sammy, on his thoughts on providing the cover art for the next six issues, Future Interrupted by Jonathan McCalmont, Time Pieces by Nina Allan, this month on Virgina Woolf, plus David Langford’s Ansible Link, and the regular columns: book reviews, Nick Lowe’s Mutant Popcorn film reviews, and Tony Lee’s DVD column, Laser Fodder. Issue 262 is nearly 100 pages and packed with fiction, columns, and top-notch art.

Interzone is the sister magazine of Black Static, both are published by TTA Press in the UK. The distinguished Andy Cox is the editor of both.

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Gypsies, Paupers, Demons and Swans: Rich Horton’s Hugo Recs

Gypsies, Paupers, Demons and Swans: Rich Horton’s Hugo Recs

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The Two Paupers CSE Cooney-smallI cover a lot of short fiction magazines and novels, but I never feel adequately prepared for the Hugo ballot. But that’s okay, because I know people who read every single short story published in English, and can point me in the right direction.

Well, one person. Rich Horton. Seriously, he reads them all. No, really. All of them. When he modestly claims he doesn’t, he’s lying. He’s read some of ’em twice.

And he has great taste, too. So when he compiles lists of the best fiction published last year, we lesser mortals should pay attention. For example, here’s his rundown on the best novellas published in 2015:

The Two Paupers, by C. S. E. Cooney (Fairchild Press)
“Gypsy,” by Carter Scholz (Gypsy plus …,  F&SF)
“The Four Thousand, the Eight Hundred,” by Greg Egan (Asimov’s SF, December 2015)
“The Bone Swans of Amandale,” by C. S. E. Cooney (Bone Swans)
“The Boatman’s Cure,” by Sonya Taaffe (Ghost Signs)
Wylding Hall, by Elizabeth Hand (Open Road/PS Publishing)
Penric’s Demon, by Lois McMaster Bujold (Penric’s Demon)
Teaching the Dog to Read, by Jonathan Carroll (Subterranean)
Sunset Mantle, by Alter S. Reiss (Tor)

Congratulations to Black Gate website editor emeritus C.S.E. Cooney for placing two novellas in Rich’s list!

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