Black Gate

The July 2016 issue of Locus is numbered #666… so naturally it’s the horror issue, with lengthy interviews with Peter Straub and Joe Hill, and a photo story on “Stephen King and George R.R. Martin in Conversation.” The magazine is also packed with the usual reviews, news and features — including a photo spread on the Nebula Awards weekend, held here in Chicago.

But the big news for me was the detailed results of the annual Locus Awards. Amongst all the vote counts for Best Novel, Best Collection, and Best Editor, were the surprising results for Best Magazine. Surprising to me, anyway. 27 magazines were ranked by the readers of Locus; here’s the Top Ten.

1. Asimov’s SF
2. Tor.com
3. Fantasy & Science Fiction
4. Clarkesworld
5. File 770
6. Lightspeed
7. Analog
8. Black Gate
9. Uncanny
10. Strange Horizons

I was surprised and pleased to see Black Gate ranked above such excellent magazines as Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Interzone, Nightmare, Shimmer, and Weird Tales. I want to thank everyone for their support — believe me, it means a lot.

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The complete July issue of Lightspeed is now yours to enjoy free online. This month brings new fantasy by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz and Kenneth Schneyer, and fantasy reprints by A. Merc Rustad and Spencer Ellsworth, plus original science fiction by Ted Kosmatka and Jilly Dreadful, along with SF reprints by Genevieve Valentine and Seth Fried.

In his editorial, editor John Joseph Adams shares some award good news, plus intriguing news about his new book line with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt:

We’re thrilled to report that Alyssa Wong’s story, “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers,” from the Queers Destroy Horror! special issue of Nightmare (Oct. 2015), won the Nebula Award for best short story! Congrats to Alyssa and to all of the other winners. You can find a full list of the winners at SFWA.org/nebula-awards…

John Joseph Adams Books News

In my role as editor of John Joseph Adams Books for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, I just acquired two books in a new series by Molly Tanzer (author of Vermilion).

The first book is Creatures of Will and Temper, a Victorian-era urban fantasy inspired by The Picture of Dorian Gray, in which epee-fencing enthusiast Evadne Gray and her younger sister are drawn into a secret and dangerous London underworld of pleasure-seeking demons and bloodthirsty diabolists, with only Evadne’s skill with a blade standing between them and certain death.

Publication of book one will likely happen in late 2017. Can’t wait for you all to read it!

I’m especially intrigued by the Book News. We covered Molly Tanzer’s Vermilion here, and I’m very interested in seeing her latest. John has proved to be an editor with a very keen eye… What other wonders will he offer us through John Joseph Adams Books? I’m looking forward to finding out.

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I was delighted to receive a copy of the latest issue of Weirdbook in the mail. The last one, Weirdbook 31, the first new issue in nearly 20 years, was an unqualified success. This one seems to be packed largely with unknowns, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Best of all, it appears barely 9 months after the previous issue, which is a hopeful sign — and no easy task for a trade-paperback sized magazine that clocks in at 173 pages.

The issue contains no less than 25 tales of dark fantasy and the weird, as well as 9 poems. Here’s the complete table of contents.

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I don’t know much about Carol Hightshoe’s online magazine The Lorelei Signal, but Amy Bisson has been nudging me to check it out. And now that she has a story in the latest issue, I promised I’d have a look. The website is clean and easy to navigate, and Carol has a fine intro on the first page that explains exactly what the magazine is all about.

The Lorelei Signal is a web based magazine dedicated to featuring 3 dimensional / complex female characters in Fantasy stories.

This does not mean I don’t want to see complex male characters either, balance is the key. I just don’t want to see female characters who are weak, having to be constantly rescued, etc. Females in the story should have the same strength of character as their male counterparts and not be there as window dressing. This has been changing over the years in fantasy writing – the idea of the female character being nothing more than a sidekick, the princess to be rescued, etc. has faded significantly. But, she still shows up occasionally.

The title of this magazine was taken from the Animated Star Trek episode by the same name. In that episode the men of the Enterprise fell under a siren song and it was Lt. Uhura who had to take command of the Enterprise.

It was a pretty hokey set-up to finally get a female in the command chair of the original Enterprise, but at least she got there.

This issue includes no less than a dozen short stories and one poem. Here’s the complete TOC.

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Beneath Ceaseless Skies was nominated for a World Fantasy Award earlier this month (alongside Black Gate, we humbly point out), and I must say, they make for some very stiff competition. BCS is one of the top markets for adventure fantasy, and it just started buying longer stories. At only $15.99 for a full year, it’s a terrific bargain. I finally bought a subscription back in May, and I’ve been heartily enjoying it.

Issue #203 of Beneath Ceaseless Skies is dated July 7 and features fiction by Mishell Baker and Rachael K. Jones, a podcast by Rachael K. Jones, and a reprint by Aliette de Bodard. Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

“Fire in the Haze” by Mishell Baker
And yet everywhere I looked, my periphery supplied ghosts of him: lounging indolently on a couch, reaching up to add a final stroke to a poem, bowing over my hand. And there, of course, pausing at the foot of the narrow stairs to the grand bedchamber. Looking over his shoulder, a half smile adorning the human face he wore even when we were alone.

“The Night Bazaar for Women Becoming Reptiles” by Rachael K. Jones
Hester’s skin itched all over, and she longed for cool sand sliding against her bare belly. One, two, three eggs into her mouth, one sharp bite, and the clear, viscous glair ran down her throat. The shells were tougher than she expected. They tasted tart, like spoiled goat’s milk. She waited for the change, but the sun crawled higher and nothing happened.

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We had several significant firsts in the front half of July. We celebrated the launch of a brand new magazine, Blind Spot, edited by Julien Wacquez and René-Marc Dolhen and dedicated to bringing the best of French SF to English audiences. And just as monumental for me personally, Sean McLachlan covered issue #280 of Strategy and Tactics, perhaps the greatest wargaming magazine of all time. And Matthew David Surridge took a fond look back at Xignals, Waldenbooks’ in-house SF magazine in the late 80s and 90s.

We had plenty for vintage magazine fans this month, too — including a look at The Strange and Happy Life of The Astounding Science Fiction Anthology, and Rich Horton’s Retro Review of the April 1951 Thrilling Wonder Stories.

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

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There’s plenty to like in the latest issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction — including a new Alaric story by Phyllis Eisenstein, and short stories by Dominica Phetteplace, Bruce McAllister, and others. Tangent Online‘s Nicky Magas has particular praise for two of its longest tales, including a new novella by Lavie Tidhar, in his online review.

Gunther Sloam is a romantic in a world with no more heart for romance in Lavie Tidhar’s alternate history, “The Vanishing Kind.” When he receives a desperate message from Ulla, an old fling, that reminds him of the old sort of films that he himself used to write, Gunther travels to a post World War II ravaged London in which the Nazi’s have won, thinking of nothing more than rekindling an old flame. But when he arrives he finds Ulla conspicuously vanished, the Gestapo nipping at his heels, and a mysterious dwarf pulling an unknown number of strings from the sidelines. Gunther is far from the lead in a romantic motion picture and reality is a lot colder and meaner than he is prepared to accept.

“The Vanishing Kind” is an interesting mix of noir and alternate history. True to the noir genre, none of the characters are who they appear to be, and the mystery keeps spiraling deeper into the hole and all the while the reader is begging Gunther to just get on the transport and go home. But of course he must uncover each intricately connected layer of his missing paramour and the readers follow his every footstep with nail-biting anticipation.

Here he is on David Gerrold’s novelette “The Thing on the Shelf,” which features a horror writer who’s been nominated for the coveted Stoker Award.

Some things are better left alone. In “The Thing on the Shelf” by David Gerrold, that thing is a Stoker Award. To anyone outside of the horror community, the award is an honor, a mark of prestige. But for those who live and breathe horror, the Stoker — the creepy little stylized haunted mansion with its open and closed door — represents something else. It’s a heavy cross to bear, but someone must do it to keep that distinctly horrific, ominous presence from accumulating in too great an amount in one place.

“The Thing on the Shelf” is a long piece, filed with tangents, and tangents within tangents, and a Lovecraftian antagonist that is never fully explained or revealed. The protagonist is the author himself relaying the events of the horror convention, his subsequent win of the award, and the strange events that occur afterward. The story thus has one foot in reality and one foot outside of it. It is difficult to wade through all the ramblings that seem to have no connection to the heart of the story, but in the end the author assures readers that they all share a connection — if readers are able to find it.

The cover is by Mondolithic Studios (who also did the cover for Black Gate 8) for “Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful.”

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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