Black Gate

Issue #197 of Beneath Ceaseless Skies features a sword & sorcery tale by Tony Pi and a fanciful animal fantasy by Kelly Stewart, two podcasts by Tony Pi, and a reprint by Tina Connolly. Nicky Magas at Tangent Online liked the Stewart, and had mixed feelings on the Pi:

Ao has a fairly unique ability in Tony Pi’s “The Sweetest Skill.” Although he appears to be naught but a candy maker, Ao’s family has a long symbiotic history with the zodiac spirit animals that grant him the ability to form magical constructs out of simple materials. But absolute loyalty to the spirits is required for such power, and the penalty for disobedience can be awful, as Ao well knows. So when the spirit of King Tiger shows up one night with a request to rescue a divine tigress in need, Ao is more than a little wary. On the other hand, he owes a debt of gratitude to the injured spirit and all debts must be paid, even if that means going up against the sorcery of the Ten Crows gang… “The Sweetest Skill” is a neatly packaged sword and sorcery story set in a broader narrative world. The characters, the setting, and the plot are all decently constructed, but lack a stylistic charm to be truly eye-popping…

Aril knows that you ought never invite Rabbits into the garden, in Kelly Stewart’s “Rabbit Grass.” There’s no getting rid of them or fixing the damage they do if you’re silly enough not to heed that bit of advice. All the same, there’s something about the little Rabbit Picket that Aril can’t ignore. And conversation never hurt anyone, did it?… But Picket won’t stop going on about the non-existent Rabbit Grass, and when he shows up at her window one night looking desperate and worried, Aril won’t rest until she’s aided her unlikely companion, even if it means venturing into the Rabbit warrens herself. Part Peter Rabbit and part Alice in Wonderland, “Rabbit Grass” is… a lovely pastoral fantasy.

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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Delia Sherman is the author of The Freedom Maze, which won the Andre Norton Award, the Prometheus Award, and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature in 2012. She’s also the author of Through a Brazen Mirror (1988), The Porcelain Dove (1993, also a Mythopoeic winner), and The Fall of the Kings (2002, with Ellen Kushner).

“The Great Detective” is an alternate history Sherlockian SF tale available free online at Tor.com — right up Bob Byrne’s alley, now that I think about it.

When Sir Arthur Cwmlech’s home is robbed and the Illogic Engine – his prize invention – stolen, it is only natural that he and his clever assistant Miss Tacy Gof consult with another inventor, the great Mycroft Holmes, about who has taken it. But it is really Mr. Holmes’ Reasoning Machine who they are there to see, for it is only fitting for one automaton to opine on a matter concerning the fate of another of its kind. This charming story by award-winning fiction writer Delia Sherman is a delightful romp set within an a slightly altered version of one of our most beloved literary universes.

Patty Templeton interviewed Delia Sherman for Black Gate here, and C.S.E. Cooney reported on her Podcastle story “The Wizard’s Apprentice” here. She is also the editor of Interfictions: A Journal of Interstitial Arts; we reported on the latest issue here.

“The Great Detective” was posted at Tor.com on February 17. It was edited by Liz Gorinsky, and illustrated by Victo Ngai. It’s available here.

We last covered Tor.com with K. M. Ferebee’s dark fantasy “Tom, Thom.” For more free fiction, see our recent online magazine coverage.

This month we started our coverage of Mike Resnick’s bi-monthly magazine Galaxy’s Edge with the March/April 2016 issue, packed with intriguing stories by Sylvia Spruck Wrigley, Larry Hodges, and many others… including Kary English and Robert B. Finegold’s tale of an assassin dispatched to kill the latest incarnation of the Goddess of Kindness. Michelle Ristuccia reviews the story at Tangent Online.

In “Shattered Vessels” by Kary English and Robert B. Finegold, M. D., Shevirah’s purpose as an assassin falters when he falls in love with an incarnation of Chesed (Kindness). English and Finegold’s deftly woven kabbalist tale pits destiny against love through multiple reincarnations of the characters, spanning thousands of years. The narration brings these large themes down to a personal level so that readers will identify with the protagonist’s plight despite the large time-span. Readers do not need to be familiar with the Kabbalah to enjoy this story.

In his March Short Story Roundup, Fletcher Vredenburgh reviews the latest issues of Swords and Sorcery and GrimDark magazines — including a Dinosaur Lords story by Victor Milán, “Red Seas, Red Sails,” which “gives readers savage pirates, brave knights, and of course, a dinosaur. Specifically, a Pliosaurus funkei, a huge aquatic beast that GMD‘s editors knew would make a great cover.” For our vintage magazine readers, Rich Horton reviewed the February 1972 Analog and an anthology of tales from Science Fiction Adventures, Matthew Wuertz continues his issue-by-issue re-read of perhaps the greatest SF magazine of the 50s with the April 1953 issue of Galaxy, and Doug Ellis shared a remembrance of a 1936 party attended by H.P. Lovecraft.

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

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The April/May issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction, a big double issue, contains a brand new novelette from Black Gate blogger Derek Künsken, “Flight from the Ages.” It also offers a novella from Suzanne Palmer, novelettes by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Alexander Jablokov, and others, and short stories by James Van Pelt, Robert Reed, Esther M. Friesner, and others. Here’s the full description from the website:

Suzanne Palmer delivers April/May 2016’s thrilling novella, “Lazy Dog Out.” In a race against time and an unknown enemy, a tugboat captain must depend on her crew and her ingenuity to defend her space station. Betrayal and intrigue abound in this life and death struggle to protect humans and aliens from a sinister organization.

C.W. Johnson spins an exciting tale about people ensnared inside an alien creature whose size defies speculation. It’s not long before you realize that characters should be as fearful “Of the Beast in the Belly” as they are of the leviathan. Derek Künsken  escorts us into the deep future for an all out “Flight from the Ages”; “Matilda” and her pilot face enigmatic aliens in Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s terrifying new novelette; and brave souls must take on the “Starless Night” of a distant planet in a new story by Robert R. Chase. The violence and endless repercussions of war rage back on Earth in new to Asimov’s author T.R. Napper’s “Flame Trees”; Alexander Jablokov invites us to the eerie reunion of three men who revisit their past to uncover multiple truths about “The Return of Black Murray”; Esther M. Friesner turns to a far more distant past to examine the suffering of “The Woman in the Reeds”; James Van Pelt reveals that some people will have art at any cost in “Three Paintings”; Robert Reed brings us a chilling tale about “The Days of Hamelin”; and Dominica Phetteplace presents us with a new perspective as her unusual experiment continues in “Project Synergy.”

April/May’s Reflections finds Robert Silverberg “Thinking About Homer”; Peter Heck’s On Books examines works by Charles Stross, C.A. Higgins, Seth Dickinson, Stephen Baxter, and Peter Cline; plus we’ll have an array of poetry and other features you’re sure to enjoy.

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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Tangent Online is, as usual, more on top of things than I am. Their review of the latest issue of Clarkesworld magazine was posted yesterday, before I’d even had a chance to look at this month’s cover. Reviewer Jason McGregor does a fine job of writing intriguing summaries for each story (a subtle art, and I know that from experience.) Here’s his summary of “Touring with the Alien” by Carolyn Ives Gilman.

Avery is a woman with something in her past which leads her to a strange and rootless life, so she is able to go on a journey at a moment’s notice when an employer calls her with a strange job. Alien artifacts have appeared all over North America (why just North America?) and humans who may be abductees eventually appear from them. Avery is to drive one of these, and an alien, to St. Louis. Along the way, she reflects on her life (ultimately revealing the great tragedy of her life, which the reader suspected in a general way), her strange companions, the nature of consciousness, and makes a decision with enormous consequences.

Read his complete review here.

Clarkesworld #115 has four new stories by Carolyn Ives Gilman, Chen Qiufan, Gregory Feeley, and Sara Saab, and two reprints by Garth Nix and Elizabeth Hand.

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Issue #196 of Beneath Ceaseless Skies introduces new artwork by Geoffrey Icard, and features original short fiction by Alter S. Reiss and C.A. Hawksmoor, a podcast by Alter S. Reiss, and a reprint by Oliver Buckram.

“Sea of Dreams” by Alter S. Reiss
There was nothing Ierois could say; he made his way back to his house and took up the book he had been given. But there was something stale in the words. Over his years on the island, he had been given nine other books, but they had become outworn, nothing in them to distract him.

“The Stone Garden” by C.A. Hawksmoor
They rose with the light and worked long into the sunrise clearing a space beneath the broken roof, like the hollow an animal makes in the bracken by circling itself to sleep. Unloading the wood-burner from the wagon and coaxing it into place against the chimney breast was harder, and the tear in Gwyn’s shoulder tugged like wool caught in a wall.

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Mike Resnick’s Galaxy’s Edge magazine has been published since March 2013; it’s a bimonthly that has both print and digital editions. Truth be told, I thought it was a straight-up science fiction magazine, and didn’t pay much attention until recently. I finally took a closer look this month, and it seems like Galaxy’s Edge could be of interest to fantasy fans after all. The latest issue, #19, is cover-dated March 2016; Mike’s editorial includes a reprint of the last of his F&SF columns from the 90s, which celebrates forgotten treasures. Here’s a taste.

Readers of this column know that the late C. L. Moore is one of my favorite writers. Her Northwest Smith and Jirel of Joiry stories are classics of their type, and she was also able to produce truly brilliant works of art such as “Vintage Season.”

I’d like to tell you about one of her less well-known books. It’s called Judgment Night, and it’s sort of a transition between her early days as a Weird Tales fantasy specialist and her later career, in collaboration with her husband Henry Kuttner, as a creator of highly-polished, fast-paced science fiction.

Every pulp writer referred to “pleasure planets” — but only Catherine Moore created one that was worthy of the title: “Cyrille, where beauty and terror were blended for the delectation of those who loved nightmares.” It’s the world where much of Judgment Night takes place.

And, in an era when girls in science fiction stories were just lumpy boys, fit only for holding the equivalent of the hero’s horse, Moore created yet another powerful, competent woman, fully the equal of Jirel — the memorable Juille, who rebels against a rebellion.

The March issue of Galaxy’s Edge includes new fiction by Sylvia Spruck Wrigley, Larry Hodges, Steve Pantazis, Dantzel Cherry, Ian Whates, Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, Sunil Patel, and Kary English & Robert B Finegold, plus reprints from Robert Silverberg, Janis Ian, David Drake, and Jean Rabe. It also includes Part Two of Leigh Brackett’s 1955 SF novel The Long Tomorrow.

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