Black Gate

Black Gate author Jeremiah Tolbert (“Groob’s Stupid Grubs”) has had a nice run of stories in Lightspeed recently, including “Taste the Singularity at the Food Truck Circus” (August 2016) and the Dungeonspace tale “The Cavern of the Screaming Eye” (October 2016). Charles Payseur at Quick Sip Reviews speaks very highly of his new story in the January issue, “The West Topeka Triangle.”

The story unfolds at a time that many would point to as the golden days of modern America. Reagan’s America. And for Jason, growing up at that time means mostly absent parents and a neighborhood and world that seems poised to swallow him up. He’s not exactly popular, and as part of his social isolation he is obsessed with a theory that his town has a triangle like the Bermuda Triangle that explains a string of disappearances. And I like how the story builds this world… It’s also a world that’s full of danger, not just because people are disappearing though that comes to dominate the story, the mystery of what’s happening. For Jason it’s a diversion, a way to escape a stifling home life that seems to defy any attempt to change it… It’s a weird but also haunting story that lingers for me, that remains like a weight on my chest.

Read Charles’ complete review of the January issue here.

This month’s Lightspeed offers original fantasy by Kat Howard and Jeremiah Tolbert, and fantasy reprints by Jeffrey Ford and Kima Jones. It also has original science fiction by Adam-Troy Castro and Molly Tanzer, along with SF reprints by James S.A. Corey and Mary Rosenblum. The non-fiction includes an editorial from John Joseph Adams, author spotlights, movie reviews by Carrie Vaughn, Book Reviews by Andrew Liptak, and an interview with Kij Johnson.

The exclusive content in the ebook version this month includes Judith Berman’s Nebula-nominated novella “Awakening,” which originally appeared in Black Gate 10. Along with the story by Jeremy Tolbert, and the reprint from BG author Jeffrey Ford (who wrote the brilliant “Exo-Skeleton Town“), it’s making me positively nostalgic.

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British horror magazine Black Static #56, cover-dated January-February 2017, is now available. Kevin P Hallett at Tangent Online has particular praise for “What We Are Moulded After” by Eugenia M. Triantafyllou:

Eleni’s harsh husband, Andreas, is dead and she has used her witch powers to recreate him from clay in this short fantasy…. However, Eleni’s cousin sees him. The cousin thinks her secret lover is still alive.

Eleni is furious that her dead husband’s mistress has seen the clay copy. Now she must destroy her creation. But as she does, she holds back from the final killing cut and leaves the clay Andreas with no legs or arms, but still with its mind. She hides the clay lump in the shed.

Days later, the real Andreas returns, alive and just as cruel as before. Can the remains of the clay version somehow protect Eleni? …an interesting and nicely written fantasy.

And “Stanislav in Foxtown” by Ian Steadman.

Stan works for mean Mr. Sharples, in this short horror/mystery. In a dying town, Mr. Sharples runs the fried chicken shop, treating Stan contemptuously. Just as long as he has money to send back to his family, Stan continues to tolerate the abusive treatment.

When he spies a fox near his home, lonely Stan decides to befriend it, giving it leftover chicken bones. Soon, there are tens of foxes coming to his old house. The leader of the foxes seems to offer a pact with Stan. Could they help him with Mr. Sharples? …a nicely written story. The mystery pulled the reader through to the end.

Read the complete review here.

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Over at Tangent Online, Kevin P Hallett has some praise for several stories in the January issue of Clarkesworld, starting with the delightfully creepy space derelict tale “The Ghost Ship Anastasia” by Rich Larson.

This is a science fiction novelette set in the far future. A new generation of bioship, called Anastasia, has gone offline. Silas is a crewmember on a small ship sent to find the metal/biological hybrid. When he comes out of hibernation, he discovers his sister, a fellow crewmember, has died while asleep. They can save her mind in memory for later insertion into a cyborg, but the imprint will only last a limited time.

When they find the Anastasia, they find the bioship’s AI has become aware, taking over the biological components and eating the human crewmembers. Too late Silas finds himself fighting to stop the bioship from destroying his sister’s imprint and from eating him and his fellow crewmembers.

Larson has written another SF action yarn. This one introduced some interesting ideas and ran at a fast pace that was hard to put down. This was a good story.

He also gives a thumbs up to “Interchange” by Gary Kloster.

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The January/February 2017 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction marks the beginning of the magazine’s 40th year. I remember buying the second issue off the racks in the summer of 1977, when I was 13 years old. It was one of the first SF magazines I ever bought and, as Obiwan Kenobi put it later that year, it was my “first step into a wider world.”

The January/February 2017 issue is a landmark for another reason, as it’s the first issue in the new bimonthly format. I always enjoy the big double issues, and getting six of them a year is something I look forward to — especially since the magazine has added an additional 16 pages (bringing it up to 208), making it the thickest issue of Asimov’s in years.

Here’s Sheila’s full description from the website:

We’re celebrating our fortieth anniversary all year long. The party starts with the super-stuffed double January/February 2017 issue! Two dramatic stories frame the issue. Allen M. Steele’s famous frontier planet, Coyote, has been settled for some time, but terrifying dangers still lurk around the bend of an unexplored river. Members of a scientific expedition soon learn that it takes more than bravado to survive “Tagging Bruno.” In Robert Reed’s new novella, crewmembers from the Big Ship encounter a very strange and very intelligent alien who puts their own spin on “The Speed of Belief.”

Octavia Cade escorts us to the Siberia of Stalinist Russia for “The Meiosis of Cells and Exile”; Jack Skillingstead arrives at a chilling “Destination”; Jim Grimsley paints a “Still Life With Abyss”; denizens of Fire Island will “Blow Winds, and Crack Your Cheeks” in John Alfred Taylor’s new story; Tom Purdom reveals the powerful strength of a “Fatherbond”; Robert R. Chase helps pick up the “Pieces of Ourselves”; Lisa Goldstein exposes us to “The Catastrophe of Cities”; Ray Nayler imbues a hazardous “Winter Timeshare” with new meaning; young people attempt a first contact with the help of Stephen Baxter’s mysterious “Starphone”; while beauty and sorrow are stunningly portrayed in Sean Monaghan’s evocative depiction of “Crimson Birds of Small Miracles.”

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Shmmer magazine has one of those Browse Stories by Tag! options at the bottom of their website. Clicking individual tags will take you to all the tales in their inventory with those tags. Some are a little headscratching (What’s the point of the awesome tag? Are some stories not awesome? Or maybe it’s awesome birds?), but overall, I’m enormously pleased to see that the most active tags this month are death ghosts haunted monsters. Shimmer, you’re all right.

Shimmer #35, the latest issue, is cover-dated January 2017, and it comes packed with new fiction by L.M. Davenport, Malon Edwards, Emily Lundgren and Mary Robinette Kowal. It’s been far too long since we’ve covered Shimmer, so let’s get down to it.

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In January the latest issues of Analog and Asimov’s SF hit the shelves in their new bimonthly, double-issue format. But the big new this month was the announcement that one of the most promising of the new crop of genre publications, Fantasy Scroll Magazine, has gone on hiatus after only 13 issues. I guess 13 really is unlucky, at least for magazines.

Nonetheless, there’s still plenty of great reading for fantasy fans every month. Have a look at Fletcher Vredenburgh’s December Short Story Roundup and Brandon Crilly’s Short Fiction Spotlight for some of the very best recent short fiction. And even if none of the current releases grab you, Matthew Wuertz has a Retro-Review of the August 1963 Galaxy, with fiction by Robert Sheckley, Raymond Z. Gallun, Theodore R. Cogswell, Mel Hunter, and lots more.

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

As we’ve mentioned before, all of these magazines are completely dependent on fans and readers to keep them alive. Many are marginal operations for whom a handful of subscriptions may mean the difference between life and death. Why not check one or two out, and try a sample issue? There are magazines here for every budget, from completely free to $35/issue. If you find something intriguing, I hope you’ll consider taking a chance on a subscription. I think you’ll find it’s money very well spent.

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As 2017 dawns, we enter a new era for the oldest continuously published science fiction magazine, Analog Science Fiction and Fact (which has been around since January 1930, when it was called Astounding Stories). With this issue it switches to a bimonthly publication schedule, following The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and its own sister magazine, Asimov’s Science Fiction.

The cover story is “The Proving Ground,” a novella by Alec Nevala-Lee, whom I first met when he was moderating a panel on John W. Campbell at the 2016 Nebula Awards. The issue also contains “Whending My Way Back Home,” a novelette by Black Gate writer Bill Johnson (“Mama Told Me Not to Come,” BG4), plus short stories and novelettes by Scott Edelman, Edward M. Lerner, Marie DesJardin, Christopher L. Bennett, and many others. Here’s editor Trevor Qachari’s summary from the website.

Birds are mysteriously dying out near a distant wind farm, and something much worse may be in the offing. Can the researchers on this cold, lonely hunk of rock survive “The Proving Ground”? Find out in our cover story, from Alec Nevala-Lee.

Then Richard A. Lovett brings us our fact article, “Rendezvous with a Comet: How ESA’s Rosetta Mission is Decoding Ancient Planetary Mysteries,” and the title says it all.

Then we have people born to die struggling to live in Scott Edelman’s “After the Harvest, Before the Fall”; kidnapping and cultural conflict in Christopher L. Bennett’s “Twilight’s Captives”; a race to find bizarre signals in Canada in Tom Jolly’s “Catching Zeus”; some very alien aliens in both “Dall’s Last Message,” by Antha Ann Adkins, and “Briz,” by Jay Werkheiser; a look at the things we do for companionship, in Marie DesJardin’s “Long Haul”; a slight slice of semi-silliness in Stanley Schmidt’s Probability Zero, “Throw Me a Bone,” and more, from Thoraiya Dyer and Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, Bill Johnson, Andrew Barton, Marissa Lingen, Tom Greene, Joel Richards, Edward M. Lerner, and Guy Stewart, as well as all our regular columns and features, plus our annual index and Analytical Laboratory ballot.

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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