Black Gate

Lots of great stuff in the December Lightspeed. First off, editor John Joseph Adams shares some big news in his editorial.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, publishers of my Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy (and the rest of the Best American series), have offered me the opportunity to edit a science fiction/fantasy (and horror) novel line for them — and naturally I agreed!

The line will be called John Joseph Adams Books (their idea, not mine!), and will be a tightly-curated list of 7-10 titles per year. We’ll be pre-launching the line in early 2016 with new editions of three Hugh Howey novels: Beacon 23, Shift, and Dust — making them available via traditional publishing for the first time, and then the line will kick things off in earnest in early 2017 with our first batch of never-before-published works.

This is fabulous news for John, and for the industry as a whole. Expectations are high for the new line, and I’m sure he will deliver.

Also, Black Gate readers will be delighted to find a story by BG blogger Mark Rigney, author of the eternally popular Tales of Gemen, “The Trade,” “The Find,” and “The Keystone,” three of the most widely read stories in the Black Gate Online Fiction library. “Portfolio” is a tale of strange reincarnation, and a set of very unnerving paintings.

…

Read More Read More

The December issue of the Newsmagazine of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Field features interviews with authors Chuck Wendig and Bet Cato, reports on the 2015 World Fantasy Awards and British Fantasy Awards, a convention report of the World Fantasy Convention, news on the massive Orbit expansion we reported on last month, the Nebula Nominations, author updates on George R.R. Martin, William Gibson, and Neil Gaiman, and many others, US and British Forthcoming Books lists, a column by Kameron Hurley, short fiction reviews from Gardner Dozois and Rich Horton, and reviews of new books from Charlie Jane Anders, Jonathan Strahan, Catherynne M. Valente, Linda Nagata, Cherie Priest, Matt Wallace, Kameron Hurley, Gemma Files, 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 an obituary for T.M. Wright, Letters, and an editorial. See the complete contents here.

We last covered Locus with the October 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 December Fantasy Magazine Rack here, and all of our recent Magazine coverage here.

The December 10th issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, issue #188, arrives with a brand new cover, “Huashan Temple” by Xiao Ran, a concept artist from Shanghai, China. Click on the image at right to see a bigger version.

Issue #188 has short fiction from Nick Scorza and John Wheeler, and a reprint (from issue #120) by Laura E. Price.

“Eyes Beyond the Fire” by Nick Scorza
When no eyes were on her, Lys frayed a rope with her knife — choosing one which would not harm the sails but would send an iron pulley tumbling into the sea. When Tamlen angrily ordered a replacement brought from the cargo hold, Lys was first to volunteer and on her way before anyone could deny her.

“The Rest Will Blur Together” by John Wheeler
I am Melika. And that is all, now. My grandfather — I believe he was my grandfather — said that our memories make us who we are. I hope that he was wrong, for if he spoke the truth, then I am no one.

From the Archives:
“The Drowned Man” by Laura E. Price
The drowned man brushed past Corwyn in his hurry to get away from her sister.

Nick Scorza has been published in magazines such as Something Wicked, Hobart, and Dogwood. John Wheeler is a graduate of the Alpha Science Fiction and Fantasy Workshop for Young Writers; this looks like his first sale.

…

Read More Read More

The January issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction contains a big new novella from Allen M. Steele, “Einstein’s Shadow,” plus stories by Ian McHugh, Ted Kosmatka, Nathan Hillstrom, and others — all under a gorgeous cover by Donato Giancola, who painted the cover for Black Gate 15. Here’s the description from the website:

Our January 2016 issue features a tense alternate history novella by Allen M. Steele. Danger, intrigue, and suspense are all aboard a Bel Geddes airliner as it makes an unforgettable transatlantic journey in “Einstein’s Shadow.”

Genevieve Williams ponders the haunting and unknowable alien in “The Singing Bowl”; Ian McHugh takes on a different set of provocative and nearly unfathomable aliens in “The Baby Eaters”; while Robert R. Chase offers us human and inhuman perspectives on “Conscience.” Brand-new author Nathan Hillstrom debuts in Asimov’s with a terrifying tale of “White Dust”; Dominica Phetteplace speculates about the mystery of “Atheism and Flight”; and Ted Kosmatka investigates the startling consequences of “Chasing Ivory.”

Non-fiction this month includes Robert Silverberg’s Reflections column, which invokes ancient Norse myth and the Twilight of the Gods in his reminiscence about “Fimbulwinter 2015”; James Patrick Kelly’s On the Net looks at “The World of Series”; Paul Di Filippo’s On Books reviews a Mike Ashley anthology of tales by early women SF writers, as well as works by Alan Smale, Ken Liu, and the Strugatsky brothers; Alvaro Zinos-Amaro & Paul Di Filippo offer a Thought Experiment about “Pushing the World in a Certain Direction and other Acts of Submission”; plus the annual Readers’ Awards’ ballot and Index, poetry, and other features.

…

Read More Read More

The November-December issue of Britain’s longest running science fiction and fantasy magazine is now on sale. The cover, “Sleepy Hollow,” is by Martin Hanford (click the image at right for a bigger version.) This issue offers some fascinating ideas. Here’s Lois Tilton at Locus Online on Malcolm Devlin’s “Five Conversations with My Daughter (Who Travels in Time).”

One night, after yet another fight with his wife, Dad’s six-year-old daughter comes to join him on the sofa and begins to speak in the voice of an adult woman. It seems that from time to time her future self can rejoin herself as a child, in moments when two points converge — whatever that means. She’s come now to ask a favor, later… He does, of course, promise, and as the years pass he comes more and more to believe her. But the favor she asks, when the time comes, isn’t what he would have chosen.

And on Rich Larson’s “We Might Be Sims”

The three disposable convicts on an experimental trip to Europa [“We’re cheap enough already,” Mack says. “We’re a tin can full of human detritus.”] have long since gone stir-crazy, each in different ways. Jasper has decided it’s all a simulation, that they’re really locked in a bunker somewhere on Earth. He wants to open the hatch, to prove it.

Read Lois’ complete comments on the issue here.

…

Read More Read More

One of my frequent complaints about the current crop of genre magazines is that they don’t publish enough novella-length fiction. As page counts shrink and more magazines announce they’ll only consider fiction below 8,000 words, the market for novellas — generally any fiction between 17,500 words and novel length — has dramatically shrunk.

But what if there was a market that published only SF and fantasy novelettes and novellas? That would be totally fabulous, right?

Well, there is such a market, and as a matter of fact, it is fabulous. GigaNotoSaurus, edited by Rashida J. Smith and published since November 2010, is a free online magazine that offers readers one story, between 5,000 and 25,000 words, every month. It has published multiple Nebula-nominated works, including Ken Liu’s “All the Flavors” and Ferrett Steinmetz’s “Sauerkraut Station,” as well as Judith Tarr’s “Dragon Winter,” S. Hutson Blount’s “The Taking of Book 257,” and C.S.E. Cooney’s marvelous “How the Milkmaid Struck a Bargain With the Crooked One.”

This month’s story is Iona Sharma’s “Quarter Days,” which Stompydragons called “utterly delightful. I loved the world she’s built, her characters felt fresh, and the plot used all of that to great effect.” Read it free here.