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Ares Magazine 4 Now Available

Ares Magazine 4 Now Available

ares-4-smallAres magazines, the Kickstarter-funded gaming publication that ships with a complete game in every issue, is now out with its fourth issue. The game this time is Extractors!, a 2-player game of mining and mech combat on a far-distant alien planet, designed by Karoly Szigetvari and Claudio De Pra.

Doriana, a Sol-like star system in the Sagittarius arm. Doriana-5, a medium sized planet barely suitable to life, is inhabited by bipedal intelligent creatures, organized in “hives.” Not as curious as us, their evolution has been slow, but they have now reached a technology level high enough to put a halt on the centuries-aged wars between hives. Dorians became aware that continuing these wars with weapons more and more deadly would lead to mutual extinction….

5 light-years away, the Avronians develop the ability to send non-living materials through space at effective speed faster than light. Carbophosphate composites, the main organic energy source on Avronia, has now become very scarce but, according to recent probe reports, it is common on Doriana-5.

Whilst most of the Avronian masters are still debating the best way to negotiate their energy crisis, groups of desperate peoples decide to send armed forces (huge semi-autonomous machines) to secure large extraction perimeters on Doriana-5….

Extractors! is a two-player game of medium complexity and medium solitaire suitability. One player controls a company of the Dorian Cellular Forces, consisting of Augmented Infantry Sections organized in cells and support vehicles. They face Avronian Machines whose AI is represented by the second player.

As always, there’s more to Ares magazine than just a game. Issue #4 comes packed with loads of original fiction and features.

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The January Fantasy Magazine Rack

The January Fantasy Magazine Rack

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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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January/February 2017 Analog Now on Sale

January/February 2017 Analog Now on Sale

analog-science-fiction-january-february-2017-smallAs 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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Beneath Ceaseless Skies 215 Now Available

Beneath Ceaseless Skies 215 Now Available

beneath-ceaseless-skies-215-smallIssue #215 of Beneath Ceaseless Skies is now available, completely free on their website. It is dated December 22 and features fiction by Linden A. Lewis and Jordan Kurella, and a reprint by Erin Cashier.

Charles Payseur at Quick Sip Reviews was enthusiastic about both new stories. Here’s the intro to his review of “The True and Otherworldly Origins of the Name ‘Calamity Jane'” by Jordan Kurella.

This story makes me want to know more about history. So mission accomplished on that! It also gets my blood pumping, as it’s an action-packed fantasy Western with a fast pace and a fun (slightly creepy) aesthetic. Seriously, this piece takes a fantastical look back at the Old West to look at Jane, a woman who’s tried to get out of the fairy-hunting game ever since Earl, her partner, disappeared. Of course, with fairies and deals and trying to get out of the game, there’s always something that pulls a person back in. So it is with Jane when a pair of fairies steals an entire town’s worth of people in an attempt to draw Jane into a bad deal…

Read Charles’s complete review here.

Here’s the complete Table of Contents for issue 215.

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December Short Story Roundup

December Short Story Roundup

oie_353335828o37jb-4I hope everybody had a pleasant holiday and is off to a good New Year. For my inaugaral post 0f 2017, I’ve got a bag full of short stories for you from Grimdark Magazine and 2016’s standout newcomer, Cirsova.

I’ve often dismissed grimdark as a marketing device. First, there’s always been cynical and gritty fantasy, and second, a lot of what’s billed as grimdark is not all that dark and grim. Leave it to Grimdark Magazine editor Adrian Collins to find one of the grimmest, most throughly miserable and unpleasant stories imaginable with which to open Issue #9.

“A Length of Cherrywood,” by Peter Orullian, is like a poisoned crossbow bolt to the brain. Jastail J’Vache is a slaver of women and has a serious mother issue. Following his loss at game played for unique stakes — bets are made with items connected to horrible personal deeds — J’Vache decides he must face the fount of darkness in his soul. Maybe I’m a wuss, but I can’t say I liked this one. The story does a stellar job of creating a vile protagonist and exploring his mutilated soul. The game played between J’Vache and several other equally twisted characters is blackly brilliant. Still, “Cherrywood” isn’t something I enjoyed reading. Let me warn you, it’s not for the meek. While there’s some violence, the real grimdarkness lies in the ways the characters treat each other. The story was previously published in Blackguards, edited by J.M Martin, in 2015.

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Galaxy Science Fiction, August 1953: A Retro-Review

Galaxy Science Fiction, August 1953: A Retro-Review

galaxy-science-fiction-august-1953-smallThe August 1953 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction has an intriguing cover titled “Dome Repairs on Mars” by Mel Hunter. But the cover is just the start of the fun…

“Mind Alone” by J. T. M’Intosh — Muriel Martin doesn’t know who she really is or that she came from the planet Murrane. She’d found out too much about the purpose of the war between Earth and Murrane, but instead of killing her, they wiped her memories and dropped her on Venus.

Though her past is erased, Muriel’s intelligence and curiosity remain. And given enough time, she’s formidable enough to discover those secrets again

This story was really good in a lot of ways. Except that I couldn’t quite buy the romantic tie-in. It seems to be a pattern in these older issues that if there’s a young woman and young man, they will inevitably have a romantic relationship, no matter how forced it might seem. There’s some degree of realism in that kind of premise, I suppose, but I’d also like to see characters who, for whatever reason, are fine with not dating anyone. And I think Muriel would have been a much stronger character if she was solely focused on her own agenda.

“We’re Civilized!” by Mark Clifton and Alex Apostolides — Humans arrive on Mars to claim it for their own. Captain Griswold, who tends to be of a conquering mindset, allows for the possibility of sentient life. If their scientist, Mr. Berkeley, can prove the existence of a civilization, Griswold is prepared to leave. After all, the last thing he wants is to become another villain in history. Well, maybe it’s not quite the last thing.

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Interzone #267 Now on Sale

Interzone #267 Now on Sale

interzone-267-smallThe November–December issue of Britain’s longest running science fiction and fantasy magazine has reached bookstores here in Illinois, which means it’s probably available everywhere. This month has a terrific cover by 2016 cover artist Vincent Sammy (with an evocative title, “The Orion Crusades: Infection” — click the image at right for a bigger version) and new fiction by Harmony Neal, Ryan Row, Sarah Brooks, Rich Larson, Samantha Henderson, and David Cleden. There’s also a feature by Martin McGrath on the James White Award; David Langford’s Ansible Link, film reviews by Nick Lowe; DVD/Blu-ray reviews by Tony Lee; book reviews, an interview with Chris Becket, and columns by Jonathan McCalmont and Nina Allan.

Kevin P Hallett, writing at Tangent Online, particularly liked “My Generations Shall Praise” by Samantha Henderson.

A death-row inmate gets an offer from a rich, but dying, cousin. The cousin wants to have her own mind, her memories and behaviors, mapped onto the inmate’s mind – effectively replacing the death-row inmate’s mind. In return, the rich cousin will set up a trust for the inmate’s daughter and future grandchild.

At first, the inmate sees no reason to ‘die’ any sooner. But after a few days to think it over, she decides that maybe she can hold onto a part of her mind. So she agrees and signs the contract.

With just days to live, the inmate has second thoughts. She puts herself in her cousin’s place and realizes she will use her daughter and future generations to live forever. She can keep breeding new vessels to transfer her mind into. As a death-row inmate she cannot escape the mind swap. Can she find another way to stop her cousin using her future generations?

And “You Make Pattaya” by Rich Larson.

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Fantasy Scroll Magazine on Hiatus

Fantasy Scroll Magazine on Hiatus

fantasy-scroll-13-smallFantasy Scroll Magazine has not published an issue since June of this year. Normally that wouldn’t concern me (Black Gate chugged along merrily for years publishing roughly one issue per year), but Fantasy Scroll has had a nearly flawless bi-monthly schedule since it first appeared in April 2014.

So I reached out to publisher Iulian Ionescu this week to find our what’s up. Here’s what he told me.

As months went by and life got more and more complex (new jobs, kids in new school, etc.) it seemed unfair to put out the magazine without 100% energy put into it. I’d rather not go on if I can’t produce the level of quality I set my mind to. So, I put the magazine on temporary hiatus hoping that I can turn it back up at some point.

I can’t guarantee when this will be and in the meantime I am releasing first rights back to all authors that have been accepted and not yet published. I sure hope that sometime in the future I will be able to produce the Year 2 anthology because that was a year packed with great stories!

I’m bummed to hear that. Fantasy Scroll is a fine magazine; in the last two years it published original fantasy from Sarah Avery, Ken Liu, Robert Reed, James Van Pelt, Piers Anthony, Laurie Tom, Charles Payseur, and many others. They were especially friendly to new and emerging authors, and the magazine was an excellent place to discover intriguing new writers. Their non-fiction was also enjoyable, and the TOC for each issue was typically packed with interviews, book reviews, science articles, artist spotlights, and film reviews. Their Year One anthology, Dragons, Droids and Doom, was published in November 2015.

Fantasy Scroll Magazine appeared exclusively online and was edited by Iulian Ionescu, Frederick Doot, and Alexandra Zamorski. The last issue was #13; see the complete contents of the final issue here. We last covered the magazine with issue 12.

Short Fiction Spotlight: 2016

Short Fiction Spotlight: 2016

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I’m going to break form to close off 2016, to give a few recommendations from everything I read this past year. Despite the claim by a lot of people that 2016 was the worst year ever (bear in mind the years where tons of people died of the Black Plague) at the very least we weren’t hurting for great reading material. I’ll be posting my Top Ten Novels later, but today I want to focus on short fiction, which doesn’t seem to get discussed as much as I think it deserves. So here are the six short stories that I enjoyed the most in 2016 (since I couldn’t narrow it down to an even five).

“Badgirl, the Deadman, and The Wheel of Fortune” by Catherynne M. Valente, published in The Starlit Wood (Saga Press, 2016)

C.S.E. Cooney has already posted a review of this phenomenal anthology, which reexamines fairy tales in a variety of compelling ways. Valente’s story is subtle fantasy – until the very end, this could just be a story about a father and his drug dealer, told from the perspective of the father’s daughter. Because I’m a teacher with lots of experience working with troubled youth, Valente’s use of the daughter’s narration stayed with me for days after I finished — knowing that little Badgirl is in danger and doesn’t really understand what’s going on makes this story tragic not for its fantastic side, but for its realism.

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December 2016 Apex Magazine Now Available

December 2016 Apex Magazine Now Available

apex-december-2016-smallI’m long overdue to check in on Apex. It releases its content in stages, one week at a time, which leaves me a narrow window at the end of the month to report on the magazine if I want all the content links to work. Since Lightspeed, Nightmare, and a few others do the same thing, it’s inevitable that a few magazines get dropped every month.

Well, enough of my troubles. You want to hear about all the great things in the latest issue, and rightly so. Here’s editor Jason Sizemore with his summation of the December Apex, from his editorial.

Issue 91 closes the year with some compelling and powerful original fiction by Lavie Tidhar (“Red Christmas”), K.T. Bryski (The Love It Bears Fair Maidens”), and Helen Stubbs (“Uncontainable”). These stories are different from one another in terms of subject, tone, and pacing, but they are all stories I feel will inspire some interesting conversations.

Our nonfiction offerings this month is loaded with interviews of author Helen Stubbs and cover artist Billy Nuñez, a reprint of Keffy R.M. Kehrli’s Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling essay “Tropes as Erasers,” managing editor Lesley Conner’s behind the curtains reveal of how she selects cover art, and a feature on the short film I Remember the Future based on Michael A. Burstein’s story of the same name.

Finally, our reprint this month is Burstein’s hopeful Nebula Award-nominated “I Remember the Future.” Not only does it compliment the feature on the short film in this issue, but 2016 has been a tough year for many, so I feel it is appropriate that we close it out with a little light.

Here’s the complete TOC, with links to all the free content.

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