Black Gate

Lots of great reading for fantasy lovers this month — including some terrific tales at Tor.com, new issues of Fantasy Scroll, Lightspeed, Apex, Clarkesworld, Analog, and many more.

For our vintage magazine readers, Rich Horton reviewed the March 1964 Amazing Stories, and Doug Ellis dug deep into his impressive collection to report on the Early Chicago SF Fan Club, and Otto Binder’s 1937 letter on John W. Campbell, and we introduced you to Gideon Marcus’ website Galactic Journey.

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

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Beneath Ceaseless Skies 195 is the second issue to use Sung Choi’s cover art Research Lab. The next issue, #196 (published this week) changes up the artwork again. They’re moving so fast they’re hard to keep up with these days.

Issue #195 is another Science-Fantasy double-issue, featuring a bonus story and a bonus podcast. It contains original short fiction by Aliette de Bodard, Sarah Pinsker, and Jason Sanford, podcasts by Aliette de Bodard and Sarah Pinsker, a reprint by Chris Willrich, and an Audio Vault reprint by Aliette de Bodard.

“A Salvaging of Ghosts” by Aliette de Bodard
In the darkness at the hole in the ship’s hull, Thuy isn’t blind. Her suit lights up with warnings — temperature, pressure, distortions. That last is what will kill her: the layers of unreality utterly unsuited to human existence, getting stronger and stronger as the current carries her closer to the wreck, crushing her lungs and vital organs like crumpled paper when her suit finally fails. It’s what killed Kim Anh on her last dive.

“The Mountains His Crown” by Sarah Pinsker
The soldier shrugged. His look was almost sympathetic. They turned back toward the fields. I would have liked to tell them to take the road, to stop trampling our remaining crops, but I knew better than to rile them. The soldier’s horse dropped the chewed flower stalk as they disappeared back between the rows.

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It’s a pretty star-studded line up this issue of Apex, with fiction from Lavie Tidhar, Elizabeth Bear, Jason Sanford, and Travis Heermann. Jason Sizemore gives us the complete scoop in his editorial.

Our three original works this month are all over the place thematically. In Lavie Tidhar’s novelette “Agent of V.A.L.I.S.”, the protagonist is a forgotten science fiction writer who gets involved in an adventure containing Philip K. Dick, Jesus Christ, and an all-powerful sentient AI. Jason Sanford’s story “Death Flowers of Never Forgotten Love” posits what if we had the technology to alter our memories of the recently deceased. “Screaming Without a Mouth” by Travis Heerman mines the unsettling fog of J-horror with modern technology in a memorable and depressing manner — a story that our readers will recognize as belonging in no other publication than Apex Magazine.

We welcome Elizabeth Bear back to our pages with “Dolly.” Her reprint about emerging sentience and a murder is a recent classic of the genre.

Russell Dickerson interviews cover artist Vincent Sammy about how to create horror within art without resorting to over-the-top gore. Andrea Johnson questions author Travis Heerman about the use of an epistolary format and productivity. Rounding out the issue are five great poems from five great poets: Rodney Gomez, Caleb J. Oakes, Matthew Chamberlin, Annie Neugebauer, and David Barber.

Our podcast this month is “Death Flowers of Never Forgotten Love” by Jason Sanford.

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

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The cover story for the March 2016 Lightspeed is Caroline M. Yoachim’s “Welcome to the Medical Clinic at the Interplanetary Relay Station, Hours Since the Last Patient Death: 0.” You have to admit, as title’s go, that one’s pretty darn good. The cover artist is Reiko Murakami.

The ebook-exclusive reprint this month is Mark W. Tiedemann’s novella “Miller’s Wife,” which originally appeared in Black Gate 4. Here’s what Rich Horton said about it when he reviewed it in the January 2004 issue of Locus.

The centerpiece of the Fall issue of Black Gate is Mark Tiedemann’s impressive novella “Miller’s Wife.” Egan Ginter is fleeing another failed relationship in the big city; he hopes a couple weeks at a friend’s house in the Ozark town of Saletcroix will heal him. But something odd is going on — Saletcroix’s valley is dying, and a bad run of luck is plaguing the townspeople… Tiedemann maintains the suspense very well, and resolves the story just that little bit unexpectedly to make it memorable.

Rich made “Miller’s Wife” his Recommended Story of the Month.

In his editorial, John Joseph Adams talks about the impressive success Lightpseed and its sister magazine Nightmare have had in the 2016 Awards season.

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We don’t cover every issue of Analog. To be honest, I have my hands full keeping up with 40-odd fantasy magazines, without trying to cover science fiction as well.

But I’ve been trying to work out a system that allows me to showcase the occasional issue, and I think I’ve finally stumbled on it. We’ll cover every issue that has a dinosaur on the cover. Genius!

Here’s editor Trevor Quachri’s description from the website.

This year’s April issue has a bit more gravitas than we typically expect this time of year, with mysteries galore. Our lead story is one such: a corpse and an unusual religious practice might be the keys to a larger mystery than anyone is expecting in “Seven Ways of Looking at the Sun-Worshippers of Yul-Katan” by Maggie Clark. Then dubious deeds are afoot at a radio show, in Edward M. Lerner’s “Soap Opera,” and we have Steven L. Burns’ story of one cop’s fight against his own limitations — and a society rotten beneath the surface — in “Playthings.”

Our fact article is a bit outside the norm as well, with Mark C. Childs’ look at “Composing Speculative Cities.” Then we have our shorter pieces, such as “Alloprene” by Stephen R. Wilk; “Early Warning” by Martin L. Shoemaker; “Sleep Factory” by Rich Larson; “Most Valuable Player” by Eric Choi; and “Diamond Jim and the Dinosaurs” by Rosemary Claire Smith.

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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