Flash Fiction Online Issue #63 December 2018
Tags: No Author Royalties CollectedThe December 2018 Issue of Flash Fiction Online. Fantasy, science fiction, horror, and literary short fiction for the modern reader.
A selection of literary short stories from Flash Fiction Online curated by Editor-in-Chief Suzanne W. Vincent.
As the story goes, a smattering of years over 2000 ago, a young Jew and his wife sought refuge in an inn in the town of Bethlehem–a donkey-back journey of about 4 days south-southwest from Jerusalem. Instead, they found a place in a stable.
Many stories have been written–mostly fictional–of exactly what went down that night. But we do know that out of this story came a man who, from that day to this, has been both worshipped and villified, studied and parodied.
Assuming the historical record is at least somewhat correct, what we know about this man is that his life was one of refuge sought, refuge offered, refuge lost.
As a child he was taken even further from home–to Egypt–where his parents sought refuge from an edict that would have taken the boy’s life. His teachings offered spiritual refuge from the troubles of a broken and frightening world. In the end, any refuge he might have taken he refused–he gave himself up to authorities who, ultimately, put him to death. In the very act of dying, he secured a refuge for his mother, beseeching one of his friends to take care of her after he was gone. His ardent followers believe that his life, his teachings, and his death, have provided a way by which we might seek refuge from death itself.
This month, Christians the world over remember his birth in that stable a smattering over 2000 years ago. And now, as then, people seek refuge anywhere they can find it.
A friend of mine once told me that even the most broken and downtrodden people–even the most hateful and unlovable–in our lives are doing what we are all doing–seeking a refuge in some kind of happiness. The trouble is that some of us seek happiness in things, ideas, or habits that eventually bring only emptiness or misery. The spiteful old woman in the apartment across the way may be achieving that through her sense of self-superiority over others. The guy sleeping in a cardboard box in the alley may have once thought he could find it in a needleful of heroine.
Do any of us know where we can find the refuge of true happiness?
Psychologist and lecturer, Tara Brach, wrote: “True refuge is that which allows us to be at home, at peace, to discover true happiness. The only thing that can give us true refuge is the awareness and love that is intrinsic to who we are.”
This month’s stories are about people seeking refuge in different ways. Some find it, some don’t. Some have help along the way, some must find their own path. All face obstacles, because without obstacles we wouldn’t need refuge. Nor would we have much of a story, because that’s what stories are–characters facing obstacles and sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing, always getting under our skin and into our hearts.
Like young Pigeon, whose older sister wanders, and who looks for solace in her makeup and her hand holding his. Na, who finds refuge in music as her son and husband come to blows in front of her. Mrs. O’Reilly, who, in the wake of unspeakable tragedy, looks for peace in thoughts of what might have been. And, finally, a refugee of a different sort, but whose experience speaks for all refugees everywhere.
”Goodnight, Pigeon” by Angie Ellis
”Bike” by Elliott Thornton
”M&M” by Douglas W. Milliken
”Across the Hard-Packed Sand” by Holly Schofield
And a new writing column by Jason S. Ridler!
We hope you enjoy, and that you find peace and happiness this season and always.
Suzanne
Locus December 2018 (#695)
Tags: No Author Royalties CollectedThe December 2018 issue of Locus magazine has interviews with Kim Stanley Robinson and Becky Chambers. The issue lists US and UK forthcoming books titles through September 2019.
News includes the World Fantasy Awards and convention report, Prometheus sells Pyr, Gascoigne leaves Angry Robot, Moldow retires and Touchstone closes, Parneros vs B&N, Nebula Awards rules changes, Gilman’s Endeavour win, a report on SF in Brazil, and much more. Kameron Hurley’s column is entitled “Genre Conventions and Conferences: What Makes Great Events”. Dave Duncan, William Goldman, and Stan Lee are remembered with obituaries, and there are additional appreciations for Pat Lupoff, whose obituary ran in the November issue. Reviews cover new titles by N. K. Jemisin, Aliette de Bodard, Michael Bishop, Priya Sharma, Shaun Tan, Molly Tanzer, Juliet Kemp, David Weber, Genevieve Cogman, Marshall Ryan Maresca, Charles Stross, Alastair Reynolds, Jordy Rosenberg, Ben Aaronovitch, John Scalzi, Katie Williams, Tricia Sullivan, Ling Ma, Laura van den Berg, Dacre Stoker & J.D. Barker, John Locke, Alec Nevala-Lee, Victoria Schwab, Nova Ren Suma, Mira Grant, Nicky Drayden, Ben Aaronovitch, Mercedes Lackey, Brandon Sanderson, and many others.
Black Static #66
Tags: No Author Royalties CollectedThis issue contains new cutting edge horror fiction by Ralph Robert Moore (novelette), Steven Sheil, Joanna Parypinski, Giselle Leeb, and Nicholas Kaufmann (novelette). The cover art is ‘Take Death’ by Joachim Luetke, and interior illustrations are by Joachim Luetke, Vincent Sammy, and Ben Baldwin. Regular features: Into the Woods by Ralph Robert Moore; Notes from the Borderland by Lynda E. Rucker; Case Notes book reviews by Georgina Bruce (includes interview with Kerry Hadley-Pryce), Mike O’Driscoll, Laura Mauro, Daniel Carpenter, Philip Fracassi, and David Surface; Blood Spectrum film reviews by Gary Couzens.
Interzone #278
Tags: No Author Royalties CollectedThe November–December issue contains new cutting edge science fiction and fantasy (this time with a specific theme) by Tim Lees, Fiona Moore, Natalia Theodoridou, Eliza Ruslander, Sheldon J. Pacotti, and Louise Hughes. The cover art is by Vince Haig, and interior colour illustrations are by Richard Wagner, Dave Senecal, and Martin Hanford. Features: Ansible Link by David Langford (news and obits); Mutant Popcorn by Nick Lowe (film reviews); Book Zone (book reviews, including an interview with Aliya Whiteley); Andy Hedgecock’s Future Interrupted (comment); Aliya Whiteley’s Climbing Stories (comment); guest editorial by Tim Lees.
Space and Time Magazine Issue #132
Tags: No Author Royalties CollectedThe Fall 2018 issue of Space and Time Magazine.
This issue features fiction by Rahul Kanakia (“The Ones Who Have Not Yet Woken”) and David Sandner (“Stinky, Stinky Little Pig”), an author’s self-portrait by Ty Drago, poetry by Linda Neuer and Kurt Newton, and more!
Uncanny Magazine Issue 25
Tags: No Author Royalties CollectedThe November/December 2018 issue of Hugo Award-winning Uncanny Magazine.
Featuring new fiction by Isabel Yap, T. Kingfisher, Naomi Kritzer, Monica Valentinelli, and Cassandra Khaw. Reprinted fiction by Sofia Samatar, essays by Diana M. Pho, Steven H Silver, Sarah Goslee, and Nilah Magruder, poetry by Beth Cato, Hal Y. Zhang, Leah Bobet, and Sharon Hsu, and interviews with Isabel Yap and Monica Valentinelli by Caroline M. Yoachim, a cover by John Picacio, and an editorial by Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas.
Apex Magazine Issue 114
Tags: No Author Royalties CollectedApex Magazine is a monthly science fiction, fantasy, and horror magazine featuring original, mind-bending short fiction from many of the top pros of the field. New issues are released on the first Tuesday of every month.
EDITORIAL
Words from the Editor-in-Chief — Jason Sizemore
FICTION
Master Brahms — Storm Humbert
Godzilla vs Buster Keaton, Or: I Didn’t Even Need a Map — Gary A. Braunbeck
Toward a New Lexicon of Augury — Sabrina Vourvoulias
Riding the Signal — Gary Kloster
NONFICTION
Interview with Author Storm Humbert — Andrea Johnson
Interview with Cover Artist Godwin Akpan — Russell Dickerson
Boy A, Girl A, Slender Man — Paul Jessup
Clarkesworld Magazine – Issue 146
Tags: No Author Royalties CollectedClarkesworld is a Hugo and World Fantasy Award-winning science fiction and fantasy magazine. Each month we bring you a mix of fiction (new and classic works), articles, interviews and art.
Our November 2018 issue (#146) contains:
* Original fiction by Rich Larson (“Octo-Heist in Progress”), H. Pueyo (“What the South Wind Whispers”), E.E. King (“Ghost Island”), Nina Allan (“The Gift of Angels: an introduction”), Peng Simeng (“The Love Letters”).
* Reprints by Madeline Ashby (“Death on Mars”) and A.C. Wise (“A Catalogue of Sunlight at the End of the World”).
* Non-fiction by Mark Cole, an interview with Nancy Kress, an Another Word column by A.M. Dellamonica, and an editorial by Neil Clarke.
Forever Magazine Issue 46
Tags: No Author Royalties CollectedForever is a monthly science fiction magazine that features previously published stories you might have missed. Each issue will feature a novella, two short stories, and cover art by Ron Guyatt. Edited by the Hugo and World Fantasy Award winning editor of Clarkesworld Magazine, Neil Clarke.
Our November 2018 issue features a novella by Neal Asher (“The Other Gun”), a novelette by Nick Wolven (“The Metal Demimonde”), and a short story by James L. Cambias (“Balancing Accounts”).
Locus November 2018 (#694)
Tags: No Author Royalties CollectedThe November 2018 issue of Locus magazine has interviews with Andy Duncan and a special feature on SF in Israel with an introduction by Sheldon Teitelbaum, with spotlights on Israeli authors Shimon Adaf, Yael Furman, Guy Hasson, Aharon Hauptman, Keren Landsman, and Ehud Maimon, alongside a report on ICon 2018 in Tel Aviv.
Main stories include Link’s Genius Grant win, Gorinsky’s new Erewhon Books publishing company, the British Fantasy and Aurora Awards winners, and more. Other news includes the Sunburst and Copper Cylinder Awards winners, Condé Wins New Academy Prize, PEN Sues Trump, and more. Estcon 2018 and the Worlds Beyond Here exhibit at Wing Luke Museum in Seattle are covered with photo reports. Cory Doctorow’s column is entitled “What the Internet Is For”. Pat Lupoff, Anthea Bell, David J. Willoughby, and William L. Hamling are remembered with obituaries.
Reviews explore new titles by Lavie Tidhar, Joyce Carol Oates, Andy Duncan, Gardner Dozois, Aliette de Bodard, D.B. Jackson, Amy Rose Capetta, Natasha Ngan, Nancy Kress, Walter Jon Williams, Brian Hodge, Kaaron Warren, Simon Dewar (ed.), Grady Hendrix, Ottessa Moshfegh, Adam Roberts, Mirah Bolender, Tomi Adeyemi, Tom Toner, and others.
Shimmer Magazine – Issue 46 (Final Issue!)
Tags: No Author Royalties CollectedCome with us, into the woods, where we’ll meet a wolf, a witch, an orchard, a rocking chair, a roller derby, a strip mall, a hungry lake, fairies, cups of tea, a feather, a bit of thistledown, a ghost. The culmination of all your hopes and dreams. Are you ready? Really ready? It’s the final Shimmer.
Rotkäppchen by Emily McCosh
The wolf arrives the same day Adeline buries Hugo on the edge of the woods, her boy’s grave forming a raft of upturned earth between two trees, just far enough from the fens that he won’t be drowning. She watches two young village men blanket him in icy soil. His shotgun leans against a nearby tree. His hunting knife is tucked under her shirt, against her back. Bone handle followed by colder steel. A second spine to hold her upright.
The Witch in the Woods Falls in Love For the Third Time, by Kate Lechler
The story as you probably heard it goes, once upon a time, a witch met your great-great-grands in the woods, blessed the good sister, cursed the bad. The sweet one went on to marry some jumped-up slick-faced city boy, while the sorry one lost herself in the woods and was probably eaten by a cougar.
Streuobstwiese, by Steve Toase
Kate’s been out on the roof again. She’s drawn her finger through salt the color of wood ash, the sigils barely holding together on the terracotta slope of the tiles. The gutters are clogged with yellow fat, and dead hares whose eyes are gilded in gold leaf. Across the valley a field of barley whitens with mold and blight.
Lake Mouth, by Casey Hannan
My mother walks up dizzy from the pier with her mouth open and her arms out and dripping. The lizards on the boardwalk drop their blue tails to get out of her way.
40 Facts About the Strip Mall at the Corner of Never and Was, by Alex Acks
A permanent shadow is burned into the cracked sidewalk outside the mattress store, tall and thin, with no head and too many fingers.
Antumbra, by Cory Skerry
As you enter the doors of this school for the last time, the girl who your brother slept with last night brightens for just a moment before she realizes you’re not Jesse. She deflates.
The Time Traveler’s Husband, by A. C. Wise
The time traveler’s husband leaves cups of tea throughout the too-empty apartment, waiting for his wife to come home. Sometimes -Â hours or days later – he finds the mugs drained, bearing the ghost imprint of lips, dregs staining the ceramic in dark, overlapping rings. Other times, the mugs are untouched, smelling of jasmine, bergamot, and orange pekoe gone cold.
Tyrannocora Regina, by Leonie Skye
Pursuit of her conjures a centripetal force that sculpts the seething ball of superheated wrongness inside my chest. Otherwise it would shatter my honeycombed ribs and blow a hole in the side of this cherry soda-smelling derby palace.
Rust and Bone, by Mary Robinette Kowal
Grandmother’s rocking chair is made of iron. It is rust and death and blood. Grandmother’s rocking chair sits in the middle of the porch so that she can watch me and pet her turtle. Tortoise, really. It is as old as Grandmother and waits patiently by the chair like an end-table of shell.
From the Void, by Sarah Gailey
The way I miss Esther is a slow-spreading bruise. It started in my belly, and every day, it spreads further across my solar plexus. If it had bloomed across my skin, I would sink my thumb into the center of it, press until the venous blue deepened into black. I would watch the color change with satisfaction, knowing that it would fade with time.
Thistledown Sky, by Stephen Case
The sky is crowded with ghosts. They pilot ships named after our rivers: Indus, Euphrates, Danube, Mississippi, Amazon, Tigris, Nile. My daughter’s is the Potomac, which she says is ironic and self-referential. It will be the eighth American ship, but only the third that has been piloted through our nation’s gate.
Ghosts of Bari, by Wren Wallis
Salvage is the only long-term game in the universe. No tyrant of the star-nets or titan of trade ever admired a salvage crew; we’re the crows on their trash-heaps, the rats in their walls. But I don’t think any of them’s ever considered, either, that when their names have long gone airless and their works are rust and shadow, it’s junkers who write their elegies. Every empire ever raised eventually falls. And sooner or later, the crows always come for the corpses.
The Dark – Issue 42
Tags: No Author Royalties CollectedEach month The Dark brings you the best in dark fantasy and horror! Selected by award-winning editors Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Sean Wallace and published by Prime Books, this issue includes two all-new stories and two reprints:
“The Only Way Out Lies Farther In” by David Tallerman
“Better Angels” by Angela Slatter (reprint)
“Sea-Crowned” by H. Pueyo
“A Pinhole of Light” by Julie C. Day (reprint)
Flash Fiction Online Issue #62 November 2018
Tags: No Author Royalties CollectedThe November 2018 Issue of Flash Fiction Online. Fantasy, science fiction, horror, and literary short fiction for the modern reader.
A selection of literary short stories from Flash Fiction Online curated by Editor-in-Chief Suzanne W. Vincent.
Fred Rogers. Those of us who grew up in the United States are suddenly conjuring up mental images of a tall, gawky, slender man. He stands very erect—so much so that his chin always seems to be tucked far back into his neck, and the narrow folds of the flesh beneath his chin duplicate the perpetual smile on his face. He is associated with a comfortable-looking sweater that zips up the front, and that eternally repeated scene of him coming into his “house,” removing his well-shined work shoes, and exchanging them for a pair of what I grew up calling “boat shoes,” which he laced with care.
As a child, we had two televisions in the house. One was the color set on which my mother watched her daytime soaps and that the family gathered around to watch The Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday nights. The other was an ancient but still-working, black-and-white set that stood in our toy room. It was, in a way, my television. I was the only one of six children who watched it. Our toy room had a single light bulb and no light switch. The light had to be turned on by means of a short chain, and at 5 years old, I was by no means tall enough to reach it. So after kindergarten, I would retreat to that room, with only a little light coming in through the open doorway, turn on that set, wait for what seemed hours for the tubes inside it to heat up and the screen to wink on, fidget a little with the tuning and volume knobs, and watch, with rapt fascination, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.
I liked the puppet scenes and the scenes where he took us to some factory or other to show us how things were made. I distinctly remember the segment about the crayon factory. I can still hear the background music for those segments.
The truly unique thing about Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was how Rogers broke the fourth wall, always addressing his television audience as if they were in the room with him. We traveled all through the neighborhood, visiting the gravelly-voiced Chef Brockett, Handyman Negri, Neighbor Aber, the intrepid Mr. McFeely, and many others. Most of those neighbors would show up at one time or another in the imaginary Neighborhood of Make Believe, populated by a dozen or so hand puppets—King Friday XIII, Prince Tuesday, Daniel Striped Tiger, and Anna Platypus among them.
Rogers knew something. He knew how important human connections are. He knew that the fourth wall being broken was the thing that made his series so long-loved. He made us feel important. He made us feel a part of something.
He once said, “If only you could sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet, how important you can be to people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.”
This month’s stories are all about the human connection. Some turn out better than others. But all are worth reading.
A piece of advice, by the way: if you’re cheating on a lover, don’t order takeout.
From Redfern Jon Barrett, “Delivery”
From Melissa Goodrich, “Ivy”
From Joe Parker, “Trinkets”
From Mitch Berman, “To Be Horst“
And a new writing article from Jason S. Ridler!
We hope you enjoy them as much as we do.
Enjoy!
Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 102 (November 2018)
Tags: No Author Royalties CollectedLIGHTSPEED is an online science fiction and fantasy magazine. In its pages, you will find science fiction: from near-future, sociological soft SF, to far-future, star-spanning hard SF–and fantasy: from epic fantasy, sword-and-sorcery, and contemporary urban tales, to magical realism, science-fantasy, and folktales.
This month’s cover art is by Galen Dara, illustrating an original fantasy short story by Theodora Goss (“Queen Lily”). We also have new short fiction from Matthew Hughes (“Hapthorn’s Last Case”), and fantasy reprints by Cadwell Turnbull (“Other Worlds and This One”) and Sofia Samatar (“Meet Me In Iram”).
We have original science fiction by Theodore McCombs (“Talk to Your Children about Two-Tongued Jeremy”) and Stephen Graham Jones (“Moon Boys”), along with SF reprints by Charles Yu (“America: The Ride”) and Maureen F. McHugh (“Oversite”).
Our nonfiction team brings us our usual assortment of author spotlights, along with our book and media review columns. Our feature interview is with author Andy Duncan. For our e-book readers, this month’s novella reprint is “Trinity,” by Nancy Kress. We also have an excerpt from Molly Tanzer’s new novel, CREATURES OF WANT AND RUIN.
Galaxy’s Edge Magazine: Issue 35, November 2018
Tags: No Author Royalties CollectedA Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy
ISSUE 35: November 2018
Mike Resnick, Editor
Taylor Morris, Copyeditor
Shahid Mahmud, Publisher
Stories by: Brian K. Lowe, Eleanor R. Wood, Harry Turtledove, Larry Hodges, Marc A. Criley, Nancy Kress, Dantzel Cherry, David L. Hebert, Mercedes Lackey, Susan Taitel. Gregory Benford, Robert Silverberg
Serialization: Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Charles Sheffield
Columns by: Robert J. Sawyer, Larry Niven
Recommended Books: Bill Fawcett and Jody Lynn Nye
Interview: Joy Ward interviews Michael Swanwick
Galaxy’s Edge is a bi-monthly magazine published by Phoenix Pick, the science fiction and fantasy imprint of Arc Manor, an award winning independent press based in Maryland. Each issue of the magazine has a mix of new and old stories, a serialization of a novel, columns by Robert J. Sawyer and Gregory Benford, book recommendations by Bill Fawcett and Jody Lynn Nye and an interview conducted by Joy Ward.
Nightmare Magazine, Issue 74 (November 2018)
Tags: No Author Royalties CollectedNIGHTMARE is an online horror and dark fantasy magazine. In NIGHTMARE’s pages, you will find all kinds of horror fiction, from zombie stories and haunted house tales, to visceral psychological horror.
This month, we have an original novelette from Usman Malik (“Dead Lovers on Each Blade, Hung”) that we’ll be serializing over two weeks. Our reprints are by Carole Johnstone (“Better You Believe”) and Lucy Taylor (“Nikishi”). In the latest installment of our column on horror, “The H Word,” A.C. Wise examines the roles mothers play in horror. Plus, we have an author spotlight with Usman Malik and a book review from Terence Taylor.