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Arin Komins on the September 2016 Locus

Arin Komins on the September 2016 Locus

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locus-september-2016-smallLocus magazine publishes a quarterly Forthcoming Books wrap-up, and have been doing so for at least the last 25 years, and the latest one appears in the new September issue. In years gone past I spent a lot of time pouring over those lists, making shopping lists and then calling Mark Zeising Books in California to make an order (or two). So reading the following brief post by my friend and follow book collector Arin Komins brought back a wave of nostalgia.

Spent the evening with the quarterly Locus Mag forthcoming books list in hand, highlighting happily (books to buy for the next 6 months or so.)

This will be followed by the quarterly pre-ordering frenzy, I suspect.

This says something sad about me, I am sure 🙁

It’s funny how publishers catch and lose my interest, too. Finding less and less on the Tor list (with a few notable exceptions), and more and more on the Titan one. Still have a few holdouts with Ace, Roc, Del Rey, etc, but Pocket is all but dead to me anymore.

Still, well pleased to see a new Norman Spinrad coming… and 2 new Kim Newman books. A couple of new Ken MacLeod. The expected 2 new L.E. Modesitt Jr books (of which Recluce Tales is what I am most waiting on.). No new non-Star Wars Alan Dean Foster (sad!). A handful of fun looking anthologies. Jared’s new book! New non-YA by Rachel. New Simon R. Green (Moonbreaker). Misc various others, including guilty pleasure reading (latest Cal Leandros book, newest Valdemar, Butcher anthology, new Chris Golden anthology, some Ari Marmell,etc.). Latest pretty thing from Charnel House that I won’t be able to afford.

Ah the exciting life of a book fiend. Don’t you envy me? (Hah!)

As a matter of fact I do, Arin! These days I spend all my time writing blog posts, and not nearly enough reading magazines. But I did recently renew my subscription to Locus. So that’s a step in the right direction.

See all the details on the September 2016 issue of Locus here. We last covered Locus with the July 2016 issue.

September 2016 Clarkesworld Now Available

September 2016 Clarkesworld Now Available

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clarkesworld-september-2016-smallThe September Clarkesworld, issue #120, is packed with new fiction by Jack Skillingstead, Rich Larson, Bogi TakĂĄcs, and others, plus reprints by Tom Crosshill and Nick Wolven.

Here’s the complete list of stories.

“The Despoilers” by Jack Skillingstead
“Aphrodite’s Blood, Decanted” by Jennifer Campbell-Hicks
“The Green Man Cometh” by Rich Larson
“The Opposite and the Adjacent” by Liu Yang
“Toward the Luminous Towers” by Bogi TakĂĄcs
“The House of Half Mirrors” by Thoraiya Dyer
“The Dark City Luminous” by Tom Crosshill (from The Baltic Atlas, 2016)
“No Placeholder for You My Love” by Nick Wolven (from Asimov’s Science Fiction, August 2015.)

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Support Beneath Ceaseless Skies: Buy a Copy of The Best of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Year Seven

Support Beneath Ceaseless Skies: Buy a Copy of The Best of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Year Seven

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the-best-of-beneath-ceaseless-skies-year-seven-smallI met Scott H. Andrews at Worldcon last month, and congratulated him on his 2016 World Fantasy Award nomination. One of the things we talked about was The Best of Beneath Ceaseless Skies Online Magazine, Year Seven, his upcoming collection of the top fantasy tales from BCS last year, and I’ve been looking forward to it ever since.

I saw Scott’s announcement last week that the book is now available. At just $3.99, it’s a terrific way to introduce yourself to the best adventure fantasy magazine on the market — and if you’re already a fan of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, it’s a fantastic way to help support the magazine. All proceeds go to BCS authors and artists. Here’s the description.

A seer of the dead must find the king’s illegitimate nephew so he can be executed…

A mother escaping with her baby follows a coyote into a strange and dangerous dreamland…

A bride who is not what she seems takes an ancient artifact to betray her colonial husband…

A wing-maker fights her father’s addiction and her own fear to save her family trade…

These and other awe-inspiring stories await in The Best of Beneath Ceaseless Skies Online Magazine, Year Seven, a new anthology of eighteen stories from Beneath Ceaseless Skies, the Hugo Award-finalist online magazine that Locus online credits with “revive(ing)… secondary-world fantasy as a respectable subgenre of short fiction, raising it from the midden of disdain into which it had been cast by most of the rest of the field.”

The Best of BCS, Year Seven features such authors as K.J. Parker, Carrie Vaughn, Yoon Ha Lee, Aliette de Bodard, Richard Parks, and Gemma Files, Rich Larson, and Fran Wilde.

It includes “The Punctuality Machine, Or, A Steampunk Libretto” by Bill Powell, a finalist for the Parsec Awards, and “Grandmother-nai-Leylit’s Cloth of Winds” by Rose Lemberg, a finalist for the Nebula Awards.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies is edited by Scott H. Andrews and published twice a month by Firkin Press. Issues are available completely free online; you can also get a free e-mail or RSS subscription. See our coverage of the latest issue here, and get your copy of The Best of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Year Seven here.

Check Out the Recent Fiction at Tor.com

Check Out the Recent Fiction at Tor.com

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lullaby-for-a-lost-world-aliette-de-bodard-small her-scales-shine-like-music-rajnar-vajra-small up-from-hell-david-drake-small

Tor.com has become one of the top sites on the internet for genre fiction — and I love the artists and writers it’s been attracting recently. I don’t have time to keep up with it every week…. but that’s what Tangent Online is for, to point out the stuff really worth my time. Here’s Kevin P Hallett on Aliette de Bodard’s “Lullaby for a Lost World,” illustrated by Alyssa Winans (above left).

Charlotte has died a brutal death to save the house in this short fantasy set in a bleak future. Her torn body allows her master and the house to live on. Interred, she struggles to have some meaning, to influence the world, to put an end to this cycle of death. When her master prepares a new girl, Charlotte strains against the earth of her entombment; can she play a role again? It is hard to put this short story down once you’ve begun…

And here’s Jason McGregor on Rajnar Vajra’s “Her Scales Shine Like Music,” illustrated by Jaime Jones (above middle).

In this first-contact story, “Poet” is a bodyguard on a small commercial interstellar mission to a planet that’s not expected to be very interesting but turns out to have a sort of abandoned campsite with alien tech. Legally, someone must stay behind to keep this claim for the finders and their company and it falls to Poet to be the guy. Some of the story is taken up by the narration of Poet’s battle against loneliness and depression and the (cold) elements and so on, in a pretty usual castaway tale. Things change considerably when something emerges from the lake near the two campsites… the gigantic alien seemed quite novel and fascinating… an enjoyable read.

And finally, here’s Jason again on one of the last stories selected by David Hartwell for Tor.com, “Up from Hell” by David Drake, illustrated by Robert Hunt (above right).

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Ares Magazine 3 Now Available

Ares Magazine 3 Now Available

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ares-magazine-3-smallSPI’s Ares Magazine was one of the best things about the 70s and 80s. Seriously, a top-notch game magazine with an original SF or fantasy boardgame crammed into every issue? You know that was just too cool to last.

It didn’t, of course. The magazine folded after only  19 issues, but in that time it produced many games that are still fondly-remembered today, like Greg Costikyan’s Barbarian Kings, the Alien-inspired The Wreck of the B.S.M. Pandora, the post-apocalyptic strategy title The Omega War, the haunted house exploration game Nightmare House, and lots more.

In early 2014 Matthew Wuertz reported here on the successful rebirth of Ares Magazine. The first issue shipped that year, and issue #2 arrived late last year. I was especially intrigued by the fantasy-themed third issue, containing the extremely ambitious game Born of Titans, a game of quests and heroes in Mythological Greece.

Born of Titans is the issue game in Ares issue 3. It is a game of heroism in the world of ancient Greek mythology. One to four may play, with special rules at the end for one and two-player games. Each player portrays a hero from legend who undertakes quests to battle with fierce monsters and retrieve epic artifacts.

Each player controls the actions of one Hero selected at the start of the game. Hero counters are moved on the map… A Hero with no remaining Crew is essentially alone on a raft. Her crew is dead or has run off…

In the fashion of good mythology, BoT relies on a generous amount of Prophesy… This is important so a player can know what sort of challenge she faces on her next Quest or what a particular Sea Monster is… The first player to gain a third Completed Quest wins the game!

Sadly, Born of Titans experienced several significant delays, and eventually Ares #3 shipped without it. The company store still lists the standalone version of the game for pre-order, with estimated arrival in May 2016. However, sites like FRP Games are now listing the magazine available with game included, for shipment this month.

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Beneath Ceaseless Skies 207 Now Available

Beneath Ceaseless Skies 207 Now Available

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Beneath Ceaseless Skies 207-smallBlack Gate is up against Beneath Ceaseless Skies for a World Fantasy Award this year, and I don’t mind telling you, that’s some stiff competition. BCS has been publishing since October 2008 — nearly 8 years — hitting its bimonthly schedule without missing a beat. Speaking as someone who managed one issue a year, that’s pretty impressive. It’s become one of the top markets for Adventure Fantasy, and has published stories by Aliette de Bodard, Gemma Files, Catherynne M. Valente, Fran Wilde, Kameron Hurley, E. Catherine Tobler, Tina Connolly, Sarah Pinsker, Cat Rambo, Yoon Ha Lee, K.J. Parker, Rachel Swirsky, Bruce McAllister, Saladin Ahmed, Carrie Vaughn, and many others.

Of particular note to Black Gate readers, they’ve also published a fair number of BG authors, including Derek KĂźnsken, Rosamund Hodge, Richard Parks, Brian Dolton, and Chris Willrich.

If you haven’t made the time to check it out, it’s not too late. Issue #207 of Beneath Ceaseless Skies is now available, completely free on their website. It is dated September 1 and features fiction by Marie Brennan and Thomas M. Waldroon, a podcast by Marie Brennan, a Audio Vault podcast by Marie Brennan, and a Novel Excerpt by James Morrow. Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

“To Rise No More” by Marie Brennan
Ada shook her head, staring once more at the Thames. “I do not think what I had in mind will work. The size of the wing, if it is to be large enough to lift me—my body cannot possibly generate enough force to move it. Not with the speed required.” Especially not when she kept growing. Every inch meant more weight for the wings to lift, without a commensurate gain in strength.

“George & Frank Tarr, Boy Avencherers, in ‘Beeyon the Shours We Knowe!!!!’” by Thomas M. Waldroon
Where’s it all come from? George wondered. Where you think it comes from? Frank scoffed. It’s fields and roads and house lots. It’s America, running westwards to somewhere else, anywhere else, someplace maybe better, like Great-Grandpaps did, and like Papa did, and just like we’re doing.

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Gamma 3, 1964: A Retro-Review

Gamma 3, 1964: A Retro-Review

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Gamma 3-smallHere’s a bit of a curiosity — a magazine I had not heard of until quite recently.

Gamma was a short lived digest magazine published out of North Hollywood, CA, between 1963 and 1965. Five issues total were published, the first three edited by William Nolan (best known, probably, for writing Logan’s Run with the recently late George Clayton Johnson, but an active writer since 1956 and still publishing new stuff now, age 88). Because of its location*, perhaps, they attracted some writers associated with the movie business, and in general published a mix of SF and Fantasy, and of writers both from within and without the genre, that reminded me of F&SF, especially in its first few years.

*(Indeed, of the 9 writers in this issue, 7 (as far as I can tell) were based in California, and those who weren’t (Malamud and Highsmith) are the most prominent and the only “non-genre” writers.) The interior art is by Luan Meatheringham, an LA artist active in the ad industry and as a freelancer, who seems to have disappeared from notice.

The cover is called “Expedition to Jupiter,” by Morris Scott Dollens, and it depicts a spaceship and a couple of astronauts on what I take to be Ganymede or Callisto, with Jupiter in the sky.

There is one feature, an interview with the editor (using a false name) of a Soviet publishing house, discussing the state of Soviet SF. (By coincidence, I just read a similar piece in Amazing.)

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August 2016 Apex Magazine Now Available

August 2016 Apex Magazine Now Available

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Apex August 2016-smallI’m long overdue to check in on Apex magazine — I haven’t covered an issue since April. The September issue is due in just a few days, but I love Marcela BolĂ­var’s August cover so much I’m not going to wait for it.

Jason Sizemore gives us the complete scoop on the contents in his editorial.

Welcome to issue 87 – the issue where we break your heart…

“The Gentleman of Chaos” by A. Merc Rustad is a dark fantasy that shows the rewards of a well-disciplined long game. “I Remember Your Face” by E.K. Wagner is a heartbreaking post-apocalyptic tale of revenge, loss, and sacrifice. “Fall to Her” by flash fiction master Alexis A. Hunter takes us on a journey of unforgettable grief in a thousand words.

Our reprints this month are “Paskutinis Iliuzija (The Last Illusion)” by Damien Angelica Walters and an excerpt from Stay Crazy (Apex Publications, 2016) by Erica L. Satifka. Poetry editor Bianca Spriggs has an impressive lineup of poems for us: “Not Like This” by Mary Soon Lee, “This Earth” by Frank Tota, “The Labyrinth Keeper” by Anton Rose, and “Perplexities” by Peter Venable…

Rounding out our content are interviews with A. Merc Rustad and cover artist Marcela Bolívar and the latest incarnation of A.C. Wise’s short fiction review series “Words for Thoughts.” Be sure to check out the podcast version of “A Gentleman of Chaos” by A. Merc Rustad as read by Mahvesh Murad.

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

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Joe Bonadonna Reports on Weird Tales

Joe Bonadonna Reports on Weird Tales

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Weird Tales 360 back cover-smallBack in May I wrote a brief post asking “Is Weird Tales Dead… Again?”

Since then there’s been no shortage of rumors, grumblings, and premature death announcements… but not a lot of facts. But this week, Black Gate roving reporter Joe Bonadonna checks in with the latest news.

In spite some talk concerning the possible demise of Weird Tales, I’m happy to report that it is still alive and well. I spoke with editor Marvin Kaye and he told me plans are in the works for the future. They had some financial issues, but all is well. The publisher plans to do an “unthemed” issue, followed by a “Halloween Edition” before all else.

I am hoping that the planned “Sword and Sorcery Special Edition” will follow after that. I was not given any specific timeline for the publication of these issues, but let’s hope they’ll all see the light of day within a short amount of time, without too much time-lag between issues. I keep checking Weird Tales websites for updates, but so far haven’t been able to learn anything. Let’s all hope for the best, and I’ll try to keep you all in the loop when and if I learn anything more.

As for new submissions, they are overstocked with fiction. No need to submit. That is all.

We’ll keep you posted as we learn more.

August 2016 Lightspeed Magazine Now Available

August 2016 Lightspeed Magazine Now Available

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Lightspeed August 2016-smallThe August issue of Lightspeed is now fully available online. This month editor John Joseph Adams offers us original fantasy by Adam-Troy Castro and Tristina Wright, and fantasy reprints by co-authors Kevin J. Anderson & Sherrilyn Kenyon, and Delia Sherman, plus original science fiction by Mercurio D. Rivera, along with SF reprints by Kameron Hurley and Maureen F. McHugh.

Best of all, there’s also a brand new SF tale by Black Gate author Jeremiah Tolbert (“Groob’s Stupid Grubs,” BG 15), which has hands-down the best title of the issue, and maybe the entire year: “Taste the Singularity at the Food Truck Circus.” Admit it, you want to read that story.

Here’s what my new favorite short fiction reviewer, Charles Payseur, had this to say about it at Quick Sip Reviews.

This is a story about food. Glorious, glorious food. It’s also a story about friendship and a bout passion and about dreams and about talent. The setting is subtle woven but vivid, an America dealing with rising sea levels and increased scarcity and refugees from the coasts. And the main character, Nico, is working as accountant but passionate about food, having to stifle that passion in the hopes of raising enough money to start out on his own out from under the thumb of a rather oppressive job. Food keeps calling him away, though, and when he bumps into an old friend who introduces him to the food underground…well, things get kinda weird… it is a fun story and one that kept me smiling throughout. So definitely check it out!

Read Charles’ complete review of the August issue here.

I had the opportunity to hang out with John Joseph Adams and Jeremy at George R.R. Martin’s Hugo Losers party at Worldcon, and that was a blast. Both of them are intimately plugged into the pulse of short fiction, and the industry in general, and it was great catching up. JJA also introduced me to Molly Tanzer (Vermilion) and Carrie Vaughn (the Kitty novels), and that was an honor and a pleasure. I took the picture below just before midnight, when the Alfie awards were announced.

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