Black Gate

Asimov’s Science Fiction October/November issue — the traditionally “slightly spooky” issue — contains a huge new 34,000-word novella from the brilliant Aliette de Bodard, the sequel to her Hugo and Nebula Award nominee, On a Red Station, Drifting, plus stories from Alan Smale, Ian Creasey, Rick Wilber, Ian McDowell, and many others. Here’s the description from the website:

Aliette de Bodard’s October/November 2015 cover story is an enormous new novella that plunges us into a far future where various factions struggle to find the lost “Citadel of Weeping Pearls.” Success will require travel through time and space. The journey could result in death, or it could give the empire the weapon it needs in a war against archenemies.

Our traditionally “slightly spooky” issue is full of outré stories of the macabre. A trio of tales makes use of English and Irish locales and lore. Alan Smale entices us to the West Midlands for a chilling look at “English Wildlife”; Ian Creasey draws us further north to York, and, then through hyperspace, to listen while a young girl spins a sinister yarn about “My Time on Earth”; and Rick Wilber takes us from the beaches of West Ireland to the coast of Massachusetts for one character’s just rewards in “Walking to Boston.” We remain in the U.S. for Sandra McDonald’s ghostly account of “The Adjunct Professor’s Guide to Life After Death”; venture to the old west for Ian McDowell’s uncanny legend of “The Hard Woman”; and voyage through time with Timons Esaias to find out what happened in “Hollywood After 10.” Daryl Gregory escorts us to another realm for a surprising twist on a familiar tale of witchcraft in “Begone”; and new author Brooks Peck lures us to a space station in Earth’s Orbit to view the consequences of living “With Folded RAM.”

The striking cover art this issue is by Maurizio Manzieri, for “Citadel of Weeping Pearls.”

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Shimmer #27, cover-dated September 2015, offers four new stories. Two are currently available on the website; the last two will be available later this month.

“Dustbaby,” by Alix E. Harrow
There were signs. There are always signs, when the world ends.

“A July Story,” by K.L. Owens
Iron red, linseed-cured, and caked in salt, in a place where the mercury never crept much above fifty Fahrenheit, the two-room house chose to keep its back to the sea. A wise choice, given the facing of the windows and the predilections of the wind.

“Black Planet,” by Stephen Case (available October 6)
Em did not dream the world. When the lights went out and the absence of her brother in the room across the hall became palpable, it was simply there, hanging in the space above her bed. She would stare at its invisible form, spinning silent and unseen, until she slept.

“The Law of the Conservation of Hair,” by Rachael K. Jones (available October 20)
That it has long been our joke that our hair lengths are inversely proportional, and cannot exceed the same cumulative mass it possessed on the day we met.

See the complete issue here.

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In his editorial this month, Jason Sizemore celebrates the rich world of international SF.

I offer my customary welcome with a bit more glee than usual. This is a special month for Apex Magazine as we spotlight one of my favorite things: international SF. To make this happen, I turned to Cristina Jurado, a Spanish author and editor-in-chief of SuperSonic, the first bi-lingual semiprozine for the English and Spanish speaking markets. She did a wonderful job selecting the original fiction this month.

When Lavie Tidhar and I did the first volume of The Apex Book of World SF in 2009, few Anglo readers could name more than a handful of non-Anglo (specifically the United States, Canada, Australia, and Great Britain) genre authors. On the eve of the release of The Apex Book of World SF: Volume 4, it pleases me to report that the scope of the genre has broadened substantially in the last six years. Perhaps the most buzzed about science fiction novel of the year is Chinese writer Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem. The world owes Ken Liu a debt of gratitude for bringing Liu’s work to English readers.

This issue of Apex also includes a new story from Liu Cixin, “Mountain.”

Here’s the complete TOC.

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The September issue of the online magazine Nightmare is now available. In his editorial this month, John Joseph Adams justly celebrates his recent awards, nominations, and publications:

We won another Hugo! Our sister-magazine Lightspeed took home the rocket for Best Semiprozine, but also, just as exciting there were two other Lightspeed Hugo victories: Thomas Olde Heuvelt’s story from Lightspeed, “The Day the World Turned Upside Down,” won the Hugo for Best Novelette, and one of our illustrators, Elizabeth Leggett, won the Hugo for Best Fan Artist…

In other awards news, the World Fantasy Award nominations were also announced recently, and I’m pleased to report that I have been once again nominated in the “Special Award, Professional” category. I am extremely honored to be nominated again (now for the seventh time overall, including three Anthology nominations), and I will be in Saratoga Springs, New York for the World Fantasy Convention (November 5-8) when the awards are presented (where I look forward to losing to Gordon Van Gelder in person)… And ICYMI last month: Both Lightspeed generally and our Women Destroy Science Fiction! special issue specifically have been nominated for the British Fantasy Award!

Releasing this month, on September 15, is a new anthology I edited called Loosed Upon the World, the definitive collection of climate fiction… Then in October comes the debut of Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, part of the prestigious Best American series. In it, guest editor Joe Hill and I present the top twenty stories of 2014 (ten science fiction, ten fantasy).

As we’ve noted previously, John Joseph Adams is one busy guy. It’s a full time job just keeping up with him.

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Beneath Ceaseless Skies #182 has new stories by Margaret Ronald and Jack Nicholls, a podcast by Suzanne Palmer, and a reprint by Wendy N. Wagner.

“Murder Goes Hungry” by Margaret Ronald
“It’s not—” I sighed as we reached the doors of the veterans’ wing. “It was a cruel thing for him to do. She has her vows, and too many of us veterans are too scarred to be any sort of decent companion.”

“Flying the Coop” by Jack Nicholls
They were in sight of the churchyard gates when the witch’s hut hopped out from between two buildings, thirty paces behind them.

Audio Fiction Podcast: “Moogh and the Great Trench Kraken” by Suzanne Palmer
It was more water than ever should be in one place, something so vast he scarcely could find the words. “Oh,” he said. “This is a very large river indeed.”

From the Archives: “Cold Iron and Green Vines” by Wendy N. Wagner (from BCS #69, May 19, 2011)
Most people didn’t bother replacing teeth; they all went wicker-and-cogwork as young as they could.

Issue 182 was published on September 17, 2015. Read it online completely free here.

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