Flash Fiction Online April 2014
Tags: Andrea Pawley, Brynn MacNab, David Barber, Flash Fiction Online, Gary B. Phillips, Magazine Spotlight, Weightless Books
In less time than it takes to make a peanut butter and melted Peeps sandwich, you can read one of the excellent stories in Flash Fiction Online.
April’s issue encourages readers to contemplate what the solar system would be like as a carnival, whether it’s worth losing bad memories if the good ones disappear, too, and how a poor woman differs from the noble she imagines herself to be. This last piece, “I Imagine Myself as Rath Ducha” by Brynn MacNab, is particularly compelling for such a personal view of the sameness in disparate situations. Flash Fiction Online tends toward speculative fiction, but the editors promise they’ll publish well-written stories regardless of genre.
“Mrs. Darwin Has Visitors” by David Barber, was my favorite piece in March’s issue. In that story, Barber inadvertently makes the case that a 19th-century woman who wants to protect her family would do best to master the defensive arts, and not just the verbal ones. In February’s issue, “Love in the Time of Cthulhu,” Cassandra wants her speed dating session to land her the great Yog-Sothoth. Like any speed dater, she must overcome some disappointment, like when “the elder gods sent a proxy. How hard was it to show up for themselves?”
Flash Fiction Online’s drawings are worth contemplating before you dive into each story. Could March’s man-wolf possibly know someone named Red? What’s February’s fairy whispering to the fellow with the bushy mustache? There’s one way to find out. Flash Fiction Online is available DRM-free in single issues or as a 12-month subscription.
Peter Watts, Karen Hueler, Weekly Sale TK
Tags: ChiZine Publications, Flash Fiction Online, Karen Hueler, Peter Watts, Tachyon
Michael and I are working on a feature we’re looking forward to launching before the end of the year: the Weekly Weightless One Day Sale. Every Thursday we’ll have one book on super sale: at least 50% off. Add your name to the sale email list here.
It’s a busy time here at Weightless, although I like to think the website is going along nice and smoothly from your side. Well, apart from the huge mistake I made last week when I emailed thousands of readers I shouldn’t have. Thanks everyone for being so understanding. Suffice to say I will not be sending out any more emails without running it by Michael first.
We just added Karen Heuler’s collection The Inner City, which, along with Yoon Ha Lee’s The Conservation of Shadows was selected as one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of the Year. Two short story collections in the top 5 sf&f books? Alright!
Another book that’s proving very popular is Peter Watts new collection Beyond the Rift from Tachyon. I don’t know if this is Peter’s first collection (ok, I could check that), but it is flying off the virtual shelf. (Note to self: Need new metaphors.)
Not to be missed: Mary Anne Mohanraj’s The Stars Change. Mary Anne did a Kickstarter for the book a couple of years ago and it is great to see it coming out in all formats.
Also, a personal fave, Maureen F. McHugh’s “Special Economics,” is reprinted in the new issue of Clarkesworld. Hey, reviews of fave (or, er, unfave, I suppose) books are always welcome!
And that’s it for this afternoon. Enjoy your weekend!
Just in time for Halloween . . .
Tags: Beware the Dark, Flash Fiction Online
Amazon have bought you, me, the internet, and Totoro. Boo! Just kidding. I think.
Instead: we have a scary new magazine from the UK: Beware the Dark, edited by Paul Fry. It has a full color interior and is 158 pages of horrorororor from Ramsey Campbell, Jack Ketchum, Kealan Patrick Burke, James B. Carter, Aaron J. French, Jeremy Terry, Timothy McGivney, and much more. Check them out, give them a scare and a welcome to the wild world of magazines.
The other magazine we added this month is Flash Fiction Online, edited by Suzanne Vincent, which comes with fiction by Gillian Daniels (“His Brother’s Bite”), Barbara Barnett (“Swan Maiden”), and Jorie Daniels (“Bats at Dusk”). How to make this one Halloween-y? Um. Fiction in bite-sized chunks?
Also: we have a new feature we want to roll out next month: a weekly 1-day, 1-title sale. Sign up for the sale-only mailing list here.
