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March/April 2017 Analog Now on Sale

March/April 2017 Analog Now on Sale

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Analog Science Fiction and Fact March April 2017-smallI’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 34 Now Available

Weirdbook 34 Now Available

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Weirdbook 34-small Weirdbook 34-back-small

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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Galaxy, October 1968: A Retro-Review

Galaxy, October 1968: A Retro-Review

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Galaxy October 1968-small Galaxy October 1968-back-small

An issue of Galaxy from fairly late in Fred Pohl’s tenure. There’s one fairly notable story here, and a couple more good ones, but to me the most interesting feature was Algis Budrys’ book review column.

But let’s begin at the beginning. The cover is by Douglas Chaffee. Interiors are by Jack Gaughan, Joe Wehrle, Jr., Dan Adkins, Virgil Finlay, Larry S. Todd illustrating his own piece (not surprising, as Todd, then just 20, became fairly well-known later for his comics work), and two artists whose full names I didn’t know: Brand and Safrani. Buddy Lortie identified them for me: Brand was Roger Brand, a fan artist who became a pro, and did comics work as well; and Safrani was Shehbaz Safrani, who seems to still do fine art. I should note that the magazine was very thick in this era — 196 pages (including covers). My copy has staples: I don’t know offhand if that was normal.

The features include Willy Ley’s long-running science column, “For Your Information,” discussing Explorer-1. Fred Pohl contributes an editorial, discussing the upcoming Presidential election (the one in which Nixon beat Humphrey and Wallace), and speculating about computerized voting from one’s home (even on laws, declaration of war, etc. — i.e. direct democracy). There is a Bio feature, Galaxy’s Stars, giving tidbits about a few of the authors. One piece, “The Warbots,” by Larry S. Todd, is designated a “Non-Fact Article,” and it discusses the history of tanks, basically, far into the future.

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The Late March Fantasy Magazine Rack

The Late March Fantasy Magazine Rack

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Asimovs-Science-Fiction-March-April-2017-rack Clarkesworld-March-2017-rack Lightspeed-March-2017-rack The-Digest-Enthusiast-January-2017-rack
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine January February 2017-rack The-Dark-March-2017-rack The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction April May 2017-rack Sword and Sorcery Magazine February 2017-rack

Lots of great reading for short fiction fans in the back half of March. As usual, Michael Penkas did most of the heavy lifting on our magazine coverage, with in-depth reviews of recent issues of the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (two issues), Nightmare, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and Asimov’s Science Fiction (two issues!). Fletcher Vredenburgh checked in with his regular February Short Story Roundup, plus reviews of two vintage SF novels originally serialized in Astounding SF/Analog: H. Beam Piper’s Space Viking and Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement. Matthew Wuertz contributed the latest installment in his long-run project to review every issue of the legendary Galaxy magazine, with a report on the September 1953 issue. And finally, we had a look at what happens when cats read science fiction magazines.

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

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March 2017 Lightspeed Magazine Now Available

March 2017 Lightspeed Magazine Now Available

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Lightspeed March 2017-smallI don’t get to read Lightspeed magazine as often as I like, but the March issue looks like a good place to play catch up. Here’s Charles Payseur at Quick Sip Reviews on “The Worldless” by up-and-coming author Indrapramit Das.

This is a lovely and complex story that unfolds in a port, in a place between places, where gravity isn’t quite high enough and Dunyshar, those without a world, live and work and die and dream of something more. The story focuses on two people, NuTay and their offspring Satlyt, as they scrape a life together. And I love the way that the story evokes place and the feeling of being detached from place. Orphaned in some important way. Without a culture because culture is associated with planets and not with ports, the place that ships are only ever moving through. It’s obvious from the story that some not-great-s#!t is happening and I like that this is revealed slowly, revealed with all the terrible weight of it… An amazing read!

Read Charles’ complete review of the March issue here.

This month’s Lightspeed offers original fantasy by Marta Randall and Greg Kurzawa, and fantasy reprints by Eileen Gunn and Caitlín R. Kiernan. It also has original science fiction by Indrapramit Das and Adam-Troy Castro, plus SF reprints by Rachel Swirsky and Julian Mortimer Smith. The non-fiction includes an editorial from John Joseph Adams, author spotlights, TV reviews by Joseph Allen Hill, Book Reviews by Amal El-Mohtar, and a feature interview with Nnedi Okorafor.

The exclusive content in the ebook version this month includes an exclusive reprint of Holly Phillips’ novella “Proving the Rule,” and an excerpt from Taiyo Fujii’s novel Orbital Cloud.

The cover this month is by Reiko Murakami, illustrating Indrapramit Das’s story, “The Worldless.” Here’s the complete contents for the March issue.

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Asimov’s Science Fiction, Vol. 41, Nos. 3 & 4 (March/April 2017)

Asimov’s Science Fiction, Vol. 41, Nos. 3 & 4 (March/April 2017)

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Asimovs 2017 3-4Asimov’s continues its 40th anniversary celebration with its March/April issue. Thirteen stories, half a dozen poems, and plenty of little asides about what the magazine means to the various contributors.

It begins with “Soulmates.com” by Will McIntosh, a story about love in the digital age which reads like it was meant to be charming, but came off rather creepy. Both characters behave like vengeful stalkers at different points in the story and it all got tied up far too neatly, with the one of the characters essentially “hacking” all of the problems away.

Next up is “Number Thirty-Nine Skink” by Suzanne Palmer. The story concerns a robot designed to colonize an alien world by producing perfect duplicates of various Earth lifeforms and dispersing them across the planet’s surface. The robot continues with this project, despite most of the colonization crew leaving and the only human who stayed behind dying. On top of the robot coping with the concept of loneliness, there are also some native lifeforms that object to a robot that mass-produces invasive species. This one’s a bit tricky to follow at first as the reader figures out what’s going on. The cover art by Tomislav Tikulin depicts a scene from this story.

Next up is “Three Can Keep a Secret …” by Bill John and Gregory Frost. Strip out the mimic suits and space travel and what you’ve got is a basic caper story in which a professional assassin is hired by two separate clients to kill one another. Like the best capers, the solution is right there in plain sight, but not obvious until the story’s end.

“The Ones Who Know Where They Are Going” by Sarah Pinsker is less of a science fiction piece and more of a thought experiment on the virtues of sacrifice.

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Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement

Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement

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Astounding Science Fiction April 1953-smallOnce upon a time, there was a strand of science fiction called hard science fiction, dedicated to the exploration of scientific puzzles and more-or-less accurate studies of the physical sciences. The roots of this strand would seem to lie in the technology-focused stories of Jules Verne. Sometimes there’s an adventure involved (Larry Niven’s Ringworld), sometimes not so much (Robert Forward’s Dragon’s Egg). Whatever the type of story, in hard sf it was the science that occupied center stage. One of the foremost practioners of this style of science fiction was Hal Clement (1922-2002).

Hard science fiction still exists, obviously. Cixin Liu, Vernor Vinge, and Greg Bear are all writing science-heavy stories. Now, though, there’s less of the puzzle-solving variety, and a greater emphasis on exploring the effects of science on people and society. Larry Niven won a Hugo for the story “Neutron Star,” which hinges on its hero understanding how tides work. I’d be curious if anyone’s written a story like that in the last ten or twenty years. In his overview of The Best of Hal Clement, John O’Neill examined the possible causes for the decline in popularity of hard sf.

Clement published his first story, “Proof,” in 1942, while still an astronomy student at Harvard. After the Second World War (during which he flew 35 bombing missions as a B-24 pilot and co-pilot) he taught astronomy and chemistry at Milton Academy for many years. His first novel, Needle (1950), the story of a symbiotic space detective, was written in response to William Campbell’s claim that a true sci-fi mystery couldn’t be written. His third novel, and today’s subject, Mission of Gravity (1954), is an exemplar of hard science fiction at its diamond-hardest.

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The Digest Enthusiast #5 Now Available

The Digest Enthusiast #5 Now Available

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The Digest Enthusiast January 2017-small The Digest Enthusiast January 2017-back-small

Unplug the phone and cancel my Netflix subscription. The Digest Enthusiast #5 is finally in the house.

Okay, maybe it seems strange to some of you that there’s a magazine out there devoted to collectors of vintage digest magazines. (But it can’t have escaped you that a healthy percentage of Black Gate‘s contributors are obsessive digest magazine collectors, right? Right?) Though I think the thing that might really surprise you is just how fascinating this magazine is to anyone with an interest in 20th Century genre fiction.

Last issue my favorite feature was Steve Carper’s affectionate and detailed look at The Galaxy Science Fiction Novels, and so this time I turned with high anticipation to his 20-page survey of Ellery Queen Selects, a line of 10 novels and collections published between 1947-1950, including work by Dashiell Hammett, John Dickson Carr, O. Henry, and others. And I was not disappointed — it’s a lively behind-the-scenes look at an interesting chunk of literary history. But the article that really grabbed my attention was Peter Enfantino’s insightful issue-by-issue examination of Robert A.W. Lowndes’ Magazine of Horror, one of the most collectible pulp horror periodicals of the 20th Century.

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March 2017 Clarkesworld Now Available

March 2017 Clarkesworld Now Available

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Clarkesworld March 2017-smallThe March 2017 issue of Clarkesworld, issue #126, comes packed with tales of apocalypses. Here’s Charles Payseur from Quick Sip Reviews.

Clarkesworld Magazine for March [contains] five original stories including a great novelette in translation… these pieces are concerned with new forms of intelligence and with the end of the world. Or maybe just with the end of certain aspects of it. But at least two of the stories are more specifically apocalyptic, and many besides are about doubt and depression, anxiety and seclusion. These stories show people closing themselves off from the rest of the world — out of fear or hurt — and then having to decide whether to open up again. It’s a wonderful issue…

“Goodnight, Melancholy” by Xia Jia, translated by Ken Liu (11,932 words)

This is a wrenching and beautiful story about despair and about loneliness. About machines and machine intelligence and people in need of a voice and presence. The story breaks itself between two storylines, between parts that involve Alan Turing, which are semi-historical and reveal a man desperate for connections but deeply worried about make thing, and parts that involve a young woman who is using machines as part of therapy to help her through depression and anxiety. The parts with Turing reveal his situation as a gay man in a world where being gay was a crime, where every conversation he had might lead him to ruin. To embarrassment and worse. To what did ultimately happen to him… It’s an amazing story that is deep and lyrical even as it captures something of a biographical tone.

Find Charles’ complete review here.

The March issue of Clarkesworld contains original fiction from Robert Reed, J.B. Park, Nomi Kritzer, Octavia Cade, and Xis Jia, plus reprints by Ian R. MacLeod and Alexander Jablokov.

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Space Viking by H. Beam Piper

Space Viking by H. Beam Piper

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Analog November 1962 Space Viking-smallOver the past three-and-a-half years, I’ve written thirty-eight short story roundups (covering about 200 short stories) and one-hundred book reviews for Black Gate. The vast majority of what I’ve read has been swords & sorcery. As much as I love the stuff, I’m getting a little tired and I need to take a break. Not from reviewing, mind you, but S&S. A major point of reviewing was to get myself to read more, and I want to keep that up, but I need some variety.

With the encouragement of our esteemed editor, John O’Neill, I’m going to start by focusing on the science fiction books I devoured in my younger days, as well as some classics I missed the first time around (I just started Hal Clement’s Mission of Gravity). Books by C.J. Cherryh, Gordon Dickson, and Poul Anderson are among the first I’m thinking about reviewing. I hope we all have fun with this, and I’m looking forward to reading everybody’s own recollections about these works. So come along, and let’s get started with one of the foremost novels of the well-loved SF writer, H. Beam Piper: Space Viking (1963).

H. Beam Piper (1904-64) didn’t publish his first story until 1947. Until his death at his own hand, he published nearly thirty more stories and ten novels. Most were science fiction, but he also wrote several mysteries, and was a member of the Mystery Writers of America.

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