Thoughts on Dell Magazines Publication Schedule Change and the Role of Short Fiction

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AFF_JanFeb2016_400x580This isn’t any breaking news, just something I’ve been ruminating about lately.  Back in November, Dell magazines announced that their four fiction magazines would be going to a bimonthly schedule.  Those magazines, in case you’re unaware, are Analog, Asimov’s, Ellery Queen, and Alfred Hitchcock.

Up until a few years ago I picked them up on the newsstand since I didn’t like how the USPS tended to tear things up.  (I learned this because F&SF wasn’t always available on the newsstand, so I had and still have a print subscription.  My copy came today, partially accordianized.)  When digital subscriptions became available, I switched over.  (Shelf space had a lot to do with it as well.)

Now, instead of ten issues per year, two of them double, the magazines will have six 208 page double issues.  The current schedule already contained two double issues.  I can remember when Analog published thirteen issues a year, two of them double issues IIRC.  But then I’m a dinosaur.  Sheila Williams, editor of Asimov’s, has said this will allow them to add 16 pages more than their current double issues as well as holding subscription prices steady.  I suspect cost more than anything is behind this move. Continue reading →

Professor Tolkien’s Birthday

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tolkien academicJ. R. R. Tolkien was born on this date, January 3, in the long-ago year of 1892.

The Lord of the Rings has cast such a long shadow over his life that it’s easy to forget that Tolkien was a university professor.  I wonder what it would have been like to take one of his classes.

Of course, there’s a good reason that TLotR has cast such a long shadow over Tolkien’s life.  The thing is a masterpiece.  It’s been well over a dozen years since I last read TLotR. I may try to fit it in sometime later this year if things let up a bit.

Obligatory First of Year Post

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new year cartoonThanks to the wonder and magic of prescheduling, it’s 2017 was you’re reading this but still 2016 as I’m writing.  Consider this my shot across the bow of general plans for the next year.

I’ve never been a huge proponent of New Year resolutions.  I’ve always thought that if something needed changing, you put a plan in place to make sure things change in the way you need them to, don’t wait a around unless you’ve got a really good reason.  And if you’re content with the way things are, why change them.  (This latter view is largely a reaction to hype about something changing your life, when really all that will happen is your bank balance changing if you buy the product.)

So here’s where I’m at and what I intend to change over the next year. Continue reading →

Obligatory End of Year Post

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new year quoteAs I sit down to write this, there are slightly more than 24 hours left before 2016 departs to no one’s regret.  I’m not going to talk about politics (in the sf field or the wider world), nor will I recite a litany of celebrity deaths.

In the past I’ve given an overview about the things I’ve read over the past 12 months.  This has not been a good year for reading.  There was too much going on to keep up the pace I had been maintaining.  The best book I read all year wasn’t fantasy or science fiction.  It was a mystery, A Brilliant Death by Robin Yocum.  The characters stayed with me for days after I read the last paragraph and closed the book.  That doesn’t happen very often.

Overall, based on what I’ve seen, this hasn’t been a great year for publishing.  The major publishers haven’t exactly set sales records this year.  I’ve seen reports from indie authors that they’re not seeing the sales they’ve seen in the past.  What this means, I don’t know.  Maybe the market for reading material, especially genre material, is saturating.  Maybe everyone has been too distracted by current events.

Things have ramped up both at work and at home.  My son started high school, which has caused some time constraints ranging from attending more band events to increased homework help.  Enrollment is up, which means my load, both in the classroom and outside, has intensified.  The end result is less time to read, blog, or write my own fiction.  I’ve got several projects that I’ve back-burnered.  Hopefully I can get back to them once things settle down and all the holiday travel is over.  More on that in tomorrow’s post.

In conclusion, 2016 was not a great year.  It’s almost over.  This is probably good thing.

Another Year’s Best Anthology

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Horton years best 2016The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2016
Rich Horton, ed.
Prime
Trade Paper $19.95
ebook $6.99

This is the, what, fourth? year’s best science fiction and/or fantasy anthology I’ve looked at this year.  Fifth if you include the Datlow best horror anthology.  I’ve still got a couple more to go if I finish this project.  (The others were the Clarke, Strahan, and Afshararian volumes.)

I’m starting to see the drawbacks of trying to read all the year’s best anthologies.  The further I go in this project, the more duplicates show up.  The result is that, for this year’s selections at least, there are fewer new stories I like with each of these anthologies I read. Continue reading →

Promises of Copper

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TheCopperPromise-144dpiThe Copper Promise
Jen Williams
Angry Robot
paperback $14.99
ebook $4.99

Wydrin and her companion, the disgraced knight Sebastian, are adventurers for hire.  When they take a contract from a nobleman who has been overthrown, they get a little more than they bargained for.  The Citadel is rumored to contain vast treasures, but no one has ever lived to find out.  They intend on being the first.  What that don’t know is that there is something imprisoned in the Citadel and imprisoned for a very good reason.  Before they’re done a whole lot of people will wish they hadn’t survived. Continue reading →

Happy Birthday, Fritz Leiber

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Fritz LeiberFritz Leiber was born 106 years ago, on December 24, 1910, in Chicago.  He was one of the greatest writers of the fantastic the world has ever seen, being a major writer of fantasy, science fiction, and horror.

It’s hard to know where to start when discussing Leiber.  Probably of greatest interest to readers of this blog would be his sword and sorcery series about the adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.  I’ve always enjoyed his horror stories, especially the ones he wrote in the 1940s.  These days an urban setting for horror is nothing unusual.  Back then it was still fairly new.  Leiber set the bar for that type of horror story, and he set it high.  He also wrote a great deal of science fiction, much of it involving time travel or cats.

20160620_185544 croppedI’ve not read many of Leiber’s novels, something I intend to correct over the next year.  There’s been renewed interest in Leiber’s short fiction lately.  Centipede Press earlier this year released Masters of Science Fiction:  Fritz Leiber (one of two inaugural volumes in that series) as well as the two volume slip-cased Masters of the Weird Tale:  Fritz Leiber.

Both of the above titles are sold out by the publishers, but fear not if you missed or weren’t able to afford them.  (They weren’t cheap.)  About a dozen or so years ago, give or take, Darkside Press/Midnight House published four collections of Leiber’s short work.  And while those books are also sold out from the publisher (who is no longer in business, and weren’t cheap either), they’ve been reprinted in inexpensive electronic editions:  Smoke Ghost; Day Dark, Night Bright; Horrible Imaginings; and The Black Gondolier.  They are also available in trade paperback.  They make great Christmas gifts for yourself.

Joseph Payne Brennan’s Birthday

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Joseph Payne BrennanJoseph Payne Brennan was born 98 years ago on this date, December 20, 1918.  Brennan was a consistent writer of horror, dark fantasy, and weird fiction.  He passed away in 1990.  Primarily a short story writer and poet, Brennan’s work has fallen out of print.  While it’s not impossible to find copies of his work, much of it is moderately expensive.  It might be easier and/or cheaper to get copies of anthologies in which his work appeared.

I reviewed one of Brennan’s collections, the paperback Shapes of Midnight a few years ago.  I was amazed when I looked up how much it cost on the secondary market at the time.  It doesn’t appear to have gotten any more affordable.

Brennan’s work is worth seeking out.  It tends to be of the more quiet style of horror rather than the grisly and gore drenched variety.

Blogging Brackett: “Enchantress of Venus”

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Planet Stories Fall 1949“The Enchantress of Venus”
Originally published in Planet Stories, Fall 1949

I first read this story in high school in the SFBC edition of The Best of Leigh Brackett.  It was my first introduction to Eric John Stark, arguably Brackett’s greatest creation.  In my opinion it is arguably her best work at shorter lengths.

Stark is an Earthman, raised by a tribe of aboriginals in Mercury’s twilight belt.  (The astronomy geek in me is compelled to point out this story was written before Mercury’s 3:2 rotational/orbital resonance was discovered.  Mercury doesn’t have a twilight belt because it doesn’t keep the same face towards the Sun.)

Stark is black, although whether he’s of African descent or permanently burned by the Sun, Brackett never explicitly says anywhere (that I can recall).  His tribal name is N’Chaka, which implies the former rather than the latter. Continue reading →