Black Gate

In his editorial in the April issue, Clarkesworld founder Neil Clarke reflects on his first few months as a full time editor.

I left my day job at the beginning of February, but it’s only now beginning to feel real. Previously, whenever I had vacation time, I’d shift to full-time editor, so when I finally did quit, it just felt like one of those vacations: lots of work, little downtime. The same here, initially: I had a small mountain of tasks on my to-do list and I’ve been head-down plowing through them. It’s hard to notice your world has changed when you are that focused.

It took nearly two months for me to clearly notice that this is my new life. I’ve been doing some freelance consulting for my former employer — a few hours here and there — so I haven’t fully disconnected from them. It’s all been remote assistance, so when I stopped by to help them with a more difficult problem, I noticed that stress that I had felt while working there, was gone. While there, I talked with friends about the ongoing situation and I sympathized, but it didn’t generate any anxiety. I walked to my car knowing that I was free.

A few days later, I left for a week of back-to-back events… Coming back from all the travel was a return to my new routine. Taking care of a sick child, reading story submissions, sending out contracts, paying the insurance bill, vacuuming the house . . . This is my career now. It’s no longer just what I do on the side. It’s not a vacation, so maybe I need to add one of those to my to-do list. I like the sound of that.

Read Neil’s complete editorial here.

The April Clarkesworld contains original fiction from Robert Brice, Bogi Takács, Vajra Chandrasekera, Juliette Wade, and Fei Dao, plus reprints from Adam Roberts and Michael Swanwick.

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The March-April issue of Britain’s longest running science fiction and fantasy magazine has new fiction by Sean McMullen, Tim Akers, Richard E. Gropp, Christien Gholson, and Steve Rasnic Tem, plus David Langford’s Ansible Link, film reviews by Nick Lowe; book reviews, columns by Jonathan McCalmont and Nina Allan, and a guest editorial by Steve Rasnic Tem. Kat Day, writing at Tangent Online, had lots of good things to say about the issue.

This issue of Interzone brings us five substantial short stories… The illustrations in this magazine also deserve a mention – Richard Wagner has created some absolutely gorgeous images to accompany the first three stories in particular….

In “Still Life With Falling Man,” by Richard E. Gropp… we meet Julian, whose job is to hunt down “nexûs” — places where time has inexplicably slowed so much that it almost seems to be frozen, sometimes trapping people with it. We learn that ten seconds for such victims would last a little over twenty-seven million years, giving them (from their point of view) a speeded up journey to end of the universe. This story is a really clever take on the notion of relativity, and also tackles themes of relationships and the difficult idea of accepting oneself as a tiny part of an infinite reality. This was very much my favorite story in this issue…

“The Common Sea,” by Steve Rasnic Tem (who also writes the editorial in this issue) is set in a near-future where sea levels have risen so much that Tom and his extended family are living in a house sitting in water, raised up on stilts. The only form of travel is by boat. One day he sets off the “the Dock” — a collection of floating barges and platforms connected to a small strip of land. The normal trajectory of such a tale would be to describe a hopeless, dystopian future where everything is awful and everyone is downtrodden and depressed. It’s refreshing that Rasnic Tem doesn’t take this route — instead choosing to reflect on the triumph of the human spirit over adversity. A pleasing end to this issue of Interzone.

Read Kat’s complete review here.

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I’m getting used to Analog and Asimov’s new bimonthly publication schedule. For one thing, the magazines have added an additional 16 pages, which is a substantial bonus.

Here’s Analog editor Trevor Qachari on the impact of the change, and what we can look forward to in the March/April issue.

Effective immediately, with the very magazine you hold in your hands, Analog will be publishing only double issues — six of them per year. Right off the bat, you’ll see more novellas, longer book review columns, and more variety in the themes that thread through the stories. (For example, our next issue will have both the usual lighter April fare as well as a selection of time-travel pieces.)

The main advantage is that this format allows us to hold current subscription prices a bit longer. (You may have already noticed that this issue is 208 pages instead of our customary 192 for double issues; we worked hard to make sure that there wouldn’t be any loss of content.)

So, what kinds of things can you expect in this brave new world? Well, we have two novellas: “Nexus” by Michael F. Flynn, and John Alfred Taylor’s “Plaisir d’Amour”; “Sustainability Lab 101,” our fact article from Stanley Schmidt; and a trio of novelettes — “Europa’s Survivors” by Marianne J. Dyson; “Host” by Eneaz Brodski; and “The Human Way” by Tony Ballantyne — as well as almost a full “single” issue’s worth of short stories, some light-hearted, like “Ecuador vs. the Bug-Eyed Monsters” by Jay Werkheiser, and “Concerning the Devastation Wrought by the Nefarious Gray Comma and Its Ilk,” by Tim McDaniel; and some that involve a relative rarity in these pages: time travel. “Eli’s Coming,” by Catherine Wells; “Grandmaster” by Jay O’Connell; “Alexander’s Theory of Special Relativity” by Shane Halbach; “Time Heals” by James C. Glass; and “The Snatchers” by Edward P. McDermott — all struck a chord with me (for different reasons), and I bet at least some of them will for you, too.

The cover art this issue is by Tomislav Tikulin. Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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Weirdbook editor Douglas Draa shares some good news in his editorial in the latest issue.

It’s hard to believe that we started this endeavor over a year ago. If you look closely, you might just spot a trend:

2015: One Issue
2016: Two Issues
2017: Four issues and one themed annual!!

That’s correct, Weirdbook has gone quarterly this year! As a thank-you to all the readers who made this possible, we will be putting out a themed “2017 Annual” special issue this October. Just in time for Halloween! I hope themed Weirdbook Annuals will become a yearly tradition that everyone looks forward to. This year’s theme will be “Witches.”

Good news indeed! Weirdbook — alongside Skelos, Cirsova, and Grimdark — is leading the recent Weird Fantasy wave, developing talented new writers in its pages and providing a center for this thriving new genre. It’s great to see it thriving, and I’m looking forward to that themed Halloween issue.

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