Black Gate

The star-studded November/December issue of F&SF contains some pretty big names, including a huge novella from Marc Laidlaw, a short story by Larry Niven, and a story by Kate Wilhelm who, at 89, has been absent from the pages of F&SF for too long (her last published short story, “The Fullness Of Time,” appeared in 2012). C. D. Lewis at Tangent Online gives an enthusiastic review to the issue.

Marc Laidlaw’s 19,000-word novella “Stillborne” continues a series depicting the fantasy adventures of Gorlen the bard and Spar, the gargoyle whose hand he was cursed to exchange with his own. Like the prior installment from Fantasy & Science Fiction’s [May-June] 2014 issue, “Sillborne” is set in the company of religious leaders whose values and priorities are calculated to entertain… Humor is definitely the story’s greatest strength, and it is on display best when Laidlaw pens conversation between Gorlen and his rediscovered lover…

“Attachments” by Kate Wilhelm follows a woman who finds freeing herself from a haunting ghost as much a problem as freeing herself from a controlling, abusive ex. Disturbingly, some of the ghosts have motives like those of her ex…

Larry Niven’s “By the Red Giant’s Light” is a short story about two characters who spend what turns out to be more than an ordinary human lifetime responding to a danger to the last human (albeit rather modified) in the solar system. It’s set at a time the Sun’s expanding diameter has engulfed Mercury’s orbit. The initial hook — the difficulty of telling the human from the robot from their exteriors — gets us into the story’s heart, which is the human’s plea for help against an asteroid due to destroy Pluto and, with it, the last intelligent life in the solar system… solid SF, worth reading, and [it] reminds us why we’ve loved Niven for decades.

Read C.D.’s complete review here.

If (like me) you’re intrigued by Marc Laidlaw’s tale of Gorlen the bard and Spar, editor C.C. Finley tips us off that there are more to be had.

Gorlen debuted in the October 1995 issue of F&SF with “Dankden” and has returned six times since, most recently with the cover story “Rooksnight” (May/June 2014). Marc Laidlaw tells us this new adventure may not be the conclusion of Gorlen and Spar’s story, but it is certainly a conclusion.

Gorlen and Spar have also appeared in Lightspeed, beginning with the September 2013 issue.

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Asimov’s SF wraps up its first full year as a bi-monthly magazine with a delightful new issue, featuring brand new science fiction from Connie Willis (a big new novella), Greg Egan, Jack McDevitt, James Patrick Kelly, Norman Spinrad, Tom Purdom, Rick Wilber, and lots more — including another story in the long-running series by James Gunn set in the world of his Transcendental Trilogy.

Here’s editor Sheila Williams’s description from the website:

We are pleased to announce that Asimov’s November/December 2017 issue will launch a brand new novella by SFWA Grand Master Connie Willis. “I Met a Traveller in an Antique Land” welcomes us into that little shop around the corner and thence into the subterranean mysteries of New York City. With all the twists and turns, you’ll soon be as lost as her hapless traveller. This is an intriguing tale that you won’t want to miss!

November/December caps our stellar anniversary year with its own stellar line up: Norman Spinrad looks at the consequences of “The Nanny Bubble”; Greg Egan investigates “The Discrete Charm of the Turing Machine”; “And No Torment Shall Touch Them” if James Patrick Kelly can rescue his characters from the machinations of a difficult relative; James Gunn’s saga continues with “Love and Death and the Star that Shall Not Be Named: Kom’s Story”; Jason Sanford reveals the harsh secrets infusing “Nine Lattices of Sargasso”; and new author Emily Taylor quietly shows us what’s been “Skipped.” We’ll go “Timewalking” with Michael Cassutt; find ourselves “Afloat Above a Floor of Stars” alongside Tom Purdom; hear the moving “Confessions of a Con Girl” in Nick Wolven’s bittersweet short story; meet Joel Richards’ desperate “Operators”; join Jack McDevitt for the “Last Dance”; and, with Rick Wilber, we may find ourselves on the wrong side of town “In Dublin, Fair City.”

Robert Silverberg’s Reflections column discusses walls in Westeros and “Gog and Magog”; James Patrick Kelly’s On the Net goes to the “Time Party”; Peter Heck reviews Norman Spinrad, Peter S. Beagle, China Miéville, James P. Blaylock, Jack Womack, and others; plus we’ll have an array of poetry and additional features you’re sure to enjoy.

Over at SF REVU Sam Tomaino praises the whole thing, calling it “a great issue with a Hugo-worthy novella and a Hugo-worthy short story. It’s a great way to wind-up their Fortieth Anniversary.”

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The latest issue of Scott Andrew’s Beneath Ceaseless Skies has been up for less that a week, but Charles Payseur at Quick Sip Reviews already has a detailed review. Charles is routinely a pretty positive guy, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have good insights. His thoughtful comments introducing this issue make a fine example.

Whenever I get a new issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, my first inclination is to find out how the stories fit together. More than any other publication, BCS does an excellent job of pairing its stories. Perhaps because it does just two an issue, but there’s almost always something to link the tales, and this issue is no different. While the stories are thematically rather distant, and aesthetically fairly different as well (though each with perhaps a bit of a Western feel), they are linked by some key ideas. Metal, first and most. The first story deals with Iron, the second with Silver. And in each, these metals are used for magic, for a perceived justice, only to have that justice come into question, and the righteousness of the main characters comes into conflict with the harm that they do. These are stories of elections and revenge, voice and hunger. The pieces go together well, drawing a picture of desperate people and the complex idea of freedom.

Issue #237 contains new fiction from Marissa Lingen and Bennett North, an Audio Fiction Podcast by Natalia Theodoridou, and a reprint from Black Gate alum Rosamund Hodge.

Here’s Charles on “Forgive Us Our Trespasses” by Bennett North, which sounds right up my alley.

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There’s a new face in the crowd this week — Luna Station Quarterly, a speculative fiction journal that showcases emerging women authors. I’ve included issue #31 in the mix above; the magazine is now in its 8th year, so it’s high time we paid attention. Here’s the complete list of magazines that won my attention in late October (links will bring you to magazine websites).

Analog Science Fiction & Fact — fiction by BG writer Bill Johnson (“Mama Told Me Not to Come,” BG4), plus Catherine Wells, Scott Edelman, Robert Reed, Sean McMullen, and many others
Knights of the Dinner Table — Issue #247 has 20 pages of strips, plus “Getting the Band Back Together, and Other Campaign Starters” by James Davenport
Lightspeed — issue #89 has an original Dungeonspace novella from BG writer Jeremiah Tolbert (“Groob’s Stupid Grubs,” BG15), plus Sofia Samatar, Rachel Swirksy, Adam-Troy Castro, A. Merc Rustad, and Aliette de Bodard
Locus — issue 681 has interviews with James Patrick Kelly and Annalee Newitz, a column by Kameron Hurley, an obituary of Jerry Pournelle, reports from Worldcon 75, and plenty of reviews
Luna Station Quarterly — fresh fiction from Jennifer Lyn Parsons, Maria Haskins, Sandy Parsons, Anna Novitzky, Charity West, and many others
The Dark — new fiction from Darcie Little Badger and Davide Camparsi, plus reprints by Angela Slatter and Maria Dahvana Headley
Weirdbook Annual #1: Witches — new stories by BG writers John R. Fultz and Josh Reynolds, plus John Linwood Grant, Adrian Cole, Paul Dale Anderson, Scott Hutchison, Andre E. Harewood, and others
Meeple Monthly — all the news on the latest SF and fantasy board games, with a Starfinder Miniatures cover story, plus Mountains of Madness, The Mystery of Bluebeard’s Bride, 13th Age Bestiary 2, and tons more

Click any of the thumbnail images above for bigger images. Our early October Fantasy Magazine Rack is here.

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If you’ve never tried Nightmare magazine… well, let’s face it, what better time than October? The latest issue has a nice assortment of creepy tales, including Joanna Parypinski’s “We Are Turning on a Spindle,” a short fable about a traveler who tirelessly searches the universe for a very particular castle, with a legendary resident. The universe, it turns out, is downright lousy with castles.

After years of searching, he found the castle on a remote forgotten world in an abandoned corner of the unknown universe. Castles littered the cosmos like dead stars, relics of the ancients…

What is our hero doing way the heck out here?

There was no beauty left in the known cosmos, as far as he could see, and so he had ventured to the unknown cosmos… These are strange worlds that lie on the fringes, so old they may have existed before physics settled down with its proper rules.

Parypinski has a real gift for turning a phrase (“The interior of the castle was likewise ruined and decrepit, its diseased antediluvian stone like a scabbed wound”), and the tale is short, about 2,400 words. While the prose is sparking and new, the tale is a very old one indeed, and the ending isn’t hard to predict. That’s sort of the point, I think, and the horror of the climax isn’t diminished by our ability to see it coming. Check it out here.

The October issue of Nightmare also contains original fiction from Cassandra Khaw, and reprints by Brian Evenson and Robert Shearman.

There’s also an editorial from John Joseph Adams, with all the latest news on upcoming titles from John Joseph Adams Books, including the Hugh Howey collection Machine Learning, and Molly Tanzer’s second novel Creatures of Will and Temper, plus the latest installment of “The H Word,” in which Kristi DeMeester shares her thoughts on horror. There’s also author spotlights, and a feature interview with Josh Malerman.

The complete contests of the issue are listed below.

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