Black Gate

British horror magazine Black Static #53, cover-dated July-August, is now available. Over at Dread Central, Gareth Jones has penned a rave review of the entire issue. Here’s a snippet:

One of the best stories to appear in Black Static in recent months (and that’s saying something!), Priya Sharma’s “Inheritance or The Ruby Tear” kicks off Black Static’s 53rd issue in formidable style. Part gothic romance, part Bone Tomahawk-esque rescue/revenge story, “Inheritance” follows the sorrows of Lord William Mansell, a wealthy aristocrat whose wife and daughter appear lost to the sea when their wagon falls from the cliff edge and is dashed upon the rocks… a thoroughly absorbing novelette that deftly blends elegant tension, mystery, frenetic violence and stark horror…

Harmony Neal’s “Dare” sees a group of teenage girls sitting around playing Truth or Dare whilst drinking vodka mixers. As expected for a genre work, things quickly get dark – the girls’ own unique demons sending them down a path of unified expression that sees “keeping up appearances” extend to collective disfigurement.

“The Rim of the World” by Kristi DeMeester paints an increasing sense of foreboding as it progresses, telling the story of couple Laurel and Jacob as they return to the ramshackle home of Laurel’s deceased grandmother. Laurel’s reminiscing reminds Jacob of the horrific run-up to his own sister’s death, tied in with a mysterious sand pile located not far from where the couple now lay. Atmosphere is the name of the game in this entry, DeMeester painting the sense of unseen, esoteric horrors lurking in the shadows, just waiting for the right moment to make themselves known…

Read the complete review here.

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Looks like Fletcher has been working a lot harder than me in the back half of the month — I thought I was doing pretty well by covering three August magazines (Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, and The Dark), but he’s managed detailed reviews of no less than six: Cirsova, GrimDark, Swords and Sorcery, Lackington’s, Weirdbook, and the newcomer, Red Sun. Here’s Flecher:

It turns out there were lots and lots of really good horror and science fiction short stories published this summer… In its short life, Collins has made GdM a consistently exciting publication, and GdM #8‘s two sci-fi stories are not bad at all. The first, “Viva Longevicus” by Brandon Daubs, is about genetically engineered pets going very, very wrong. It’s told by a colonel in the U.S.S. AeroCorps sent to investigate an infestation on a colonial world. A monster hunt on an alien world just isn’t the most original plot, but if it’s told with verve and intensity (and just the right amount of crazy)… “Burying the Coin” by Setsu Uzumé is about a sky-pirate’s sidekick getting her own ship at her boss’ expense. Nothing extraordinary but well done, decent tension, some real depth of characters, and an ending with real weight.

Finally, we come to newcomer Red Sun Magazine… I really like the first story, “The Orion Incident,” by David W. Amendola. It’s a paranoid excursion into the hull of a ghost starship. Believed lost several years ago, when it makes a sudden reappearance and looks to be on a collision course with Earth, its lone survivor is sent with an exploration team to see what’s going on. Suffice it to say, things goes less well than hoped for. The other story that grabbed me was Brenda Kezar’s “Star Jelly.” We already know from the movies that one blob from outer space is bad. This story explores, in gory detail, what would happen if a whole bunch of blobs fell at once.

Read Part One of Fletcher’s Summer Short Story Roundup here and Part Two here.

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It’s a little ironic that The Dark finally makes a long-anticipated leap from quarterly to monthly publication in May… and then I promptly miss the next two issues. It doesn’t really help that the magazine is published every month if I only make time to read it once a quarter. (Of course, I’m still reading fiction at Tor.com from back in April, so I suppose everything’s relative.) Let’s just cut our losses and jump back in with the August issue, mm’kay?

The Dark is edited by Sean Wallace, with assistance by Jack Fisher. Here’s the Table of Contents for issue #15, cover-dated August 2015.

“Floodwater” by Kristi DeMeester
“Wheatfield with Crows” by Steve Rasnic Tem (from Dark World: Ghost Stories, 2013)
“Some Pictures of Monsters” by Rhonda Eikamp
“Hairwork” by Gemma Files (from She Walks in Shadows, 2015)

You can read issues free online, or help support the magazine by buying the ebook editions, available for the Kindle and Nook in Mobi and ePub format. Issues are around 50 pages, and priced at $2.99 through Amazon, B&N.com, Apple, Kobo, and other fine outlets — or subscribe for just $1.99 per issue.

If you enjoy the magazine you can contribute to their new Patreon account. Read the complete announcement, and sign up here. You can also support The Dark by buying their books, reviewing stories, or even just leaving comments.

Read the August issue here, catch up on their June or July issues, or see their complete back issue catalog here. The August cover is by Tomislav Tikulin. We last covered The Dark with the May issue.

See our August Fantasy Magazine Rack here, and all of our recent Magazine coverage here.

I’ve been enjoying Charles Payseur’s short fiction reviews at his website, Quick Sip Reviews. Here’s what he says about the August issue of Clarkesworld:

It’s a month of surprises at Clarkesworld this August, as there is an extra original story plus a story in translation from German instead of the usual Chinese translation. So there’s definitely a lot to see with four short stories and two longer novelettes. The good news is that it’s all weird. Seriously, these are stories that push at the boundaries of the imagination. That conjure up strange worlds and uncertain realities and the vastness and power of both space and violence. Stories that set aliens next to 50’s greasers and mix time travel, tragedy, and immigration. And through it all there’s a sense of yearning that pervades. For a brighter future, a peaceful cooperation, and the comfort of another presence. To the reviews!

To the reviews, indeed. After a lead-in like that, it’s hard to resist. Read his complete review here.

I’m not completely used to longer fiction at Clarkesworld yet — and there are some longer pieces in this issue, including Dale Bailey’s “Teenagers from Outer Space” (11,690 words), and Karla Schmidt’s “Alone, on the Wind” (13,449 words, translated from the German). There’s also original fiction from Kali Wallace, Emily Devenport, Sean Bensinger, and Ryan Row, and reprints by Tobias S. Buckell and Madeline Ashby.

Here’s the complete list of stories featured this issue.

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Tangent Online continues to provide very timely and thoughtful reviews of the latest SF magazines while they’re still on the stands. Here’s a fine example: Michelle Ristuccia’s insightful commentary on James Alan Gardner’s cover story in the August Asimov’s, “The Mutants Men Don’t See.”

Ellie Lee fears that her son will accidentally kill himself in an attempt to activate a mutant gene that he might not even have in “The Mutants Men Don’t See” by James Alan Gardner. Gardner’s engaging urban fantasy inverts a trope or two to focus on an often invisible segment of the population, menopausal women. The title is an homage to the James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice Sheldon) novelette “The Women Men Don’t See” from the December 1973 issue of F&SF. Gardner’s story, because of its subject matter (menopause, and its being the end of the menstrual cycle), also recalls — though in a very different fashion — Connie Willis’s Hugo winning short story “Even the Queen” from the April 1992 issue of Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, which dealt with menstruation in a future where one young woman opted not to have the procedure that would eliminate her cycle, as most others of her age and part of a feminist movement have. “Even the Queen” and “The Mutants Men Don’t See” make interesting bookends, for both address issues surrounding a woman’s child-bearing years, the former at the beginning, the latter at the end. All three stories, though wildly different, also deal with the empowerment of women.

Read Michelle’s complete review here.

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August is the month to try new things — and that’s exactly what we did, by sampling two promising new magazines: The Lorelei Signal, edited by Carol Hightshoe, and Strange Aeons, edited by Rick Tillman. I do sometimes wonder if we’ll ever run out of new fantasy magazines to try… and so far, the answer has been no.

We also had a fascinating guest post from Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas, editors of the World Fantasy Award-nominated Uncanny magazine, titled “Learning the Uncanny Arts: The Secrets of the Uncanny Magazine Covers.” And don’t fret, vintage magazine fans. Matthew Wuertz had you covered with the latest installment in his long-running project to re-read Galaxy magazine, starting with the first issue. This month Matthew took a look at the June 1953 issue, containing fiction by Philip K. Dick, Richard Wilson, Robert Sheckley, James H. Schmitz, and others.

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

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