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Author: Adrian Simmons

Booyah! Quatro-Decadal Review, an Introduction to the World as it was in November 1999

Booyah! Quatro-Decadal Review, an Introduction to the World as it was in November 1999

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Some of the print SF magazines of November 1999: The 50th Anniversary issue of
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Analog, and the October-November double
issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction. Covers by Chesley Bonestell, Kim Poor, and Jim Burns

With the ‘69, ‘79 and ‘89 magazines behind me I prepare to delve into 1999. On the one hand, my memories of 30-year-old-me (30 YOM), while closer in time than 20YOM, are perhaps a bit hazier because unlike 20 YOM, 30 YOM could legally buy booze and did!

Still, I had moved from a naïve 20 to a battle-tested 30. The answers? I still had them, but getting there was going to be a problem. Between ‘89 and ‘99 I had finished college, been the poorest I have ever been in my life, got a real girlfriend, got my first professional job, been in a car crash, and transitioned from taking taekwondo to teaching it. …

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A Decadal Review of 1989 Science Fiction Magazines: Wrap-up

A Decadal Review of 1989 Science Fiction Magazines: Wrap-up

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I reviewed five science fiction magazines from mid-2021 to early 2024. Here are my overall notes and rankings.

Asimov’s Science Fiction, September 30, 2022

Edited by Gardner Dozois
Cover by Wayne Barlowe
Ranking 1st out of 5

Megan Lindholm’s (AKA Robin Hobbs) “A Touch of Lavender” and Walter Jon William’s “No Spot of Ground” really elevate this issue.

Allen Steele’s “Ride to Live, Live to Ride” was solid, and two trying-to-get-in-on-the-‘cyberpunk’-wave stories, Robert Silverberg’s “Chiprunner” and Orson Scott Card’s “Dogwalker” had a certain off-base-but-appealing vibe. 

Ronald Anthony Cross’ “The Front Page” was the only story I didn’t really like, and it was short enough that it didn’t bother me.

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Quatro-Decadal Review: Weird Tales, November 1989, edited by John Betancourt, George H. Scithers, and Darrell Schweitzer

Quatro-Decadal Review: Weird Tales, November 1989, edited by John Betancourt, George H. Scithers, and Darrell Schweitzer

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Weird Tales, Fall 1989 (Terminus Publishing). Cover by J.K. Potter

There has been quite the gap in my reviews. I’ve been high-centered on Weird Tales. Many factors played a role in this — mostly that it is not a small magazine by any stretch. Then there is the fact that I read it in early 2023, got distracted by other things, and had to re-read it to write about it.

As readers of these reviews know, I don’t hold back re: spoilers for 35-year old stories. New readers, be warned!

Frequent readers will also recall that I often hypothesize on the thoughts and drives of the editors, but in this case I don’t have to hypothesize — my friends, we live in the future and I was able to get the straight dope right from The Grey Eminence himself: Darrell Schweitzer.

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Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Best-of Volume 4 Anthology Now Available

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Best-of Volume 4 Anthology Now Available

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The Best Of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly 4 (June 6, 2024). Cover Art by Karolína Wellartová

After gathering the cold fire and the breath of virtuous fish we were finally able to forge mithril and orichalchum into a fine mesh, through which we strained the very aether of imagination and distilled it into Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Best-of Volume 4.  From issues #25 to #32 we bring you:

Sixteen stories
Ten poems
Twenty-seven illustrations; and
An essay on the Sword and Sorcery genre by Howard Andrew Jones

It was a labor of love and with copies sent to the contributors and the Kickstarter backers, we are ready to unveil it to the world! Order copies directly from Amazon.

In other news, we are open for fiction and poetry submissions for the month of July, so if you got it, send it!

Adrian Simmons is an editor for Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, check out their Best-of Volume 3  Best-of Volume 4, or support them on Patreon!

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly # 58 Now Available

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly # 58 Now Available

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Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #58 hit the electronic shelves on November 26th.  We’ve got three stories and three poems — a full complement!

Fiction Contents

“Dragon Tears Part II,” by Caleb Williams.  Exiled sorcerer-scribe Larohd du Masiim continues his quest to  gather the rare artifacts needed to gain back his lost love, the princess Yadira.  Catch up with Part I here.

“Isle of the Thousand-Eyed Strangler,” by R. A. Quiogue.  Quiogue returns to our pages with a tale of fantasy south-seas derring-do among the Perfumed Isles.   Young prince Pandara, driven to piracy after the Wulongan Empire has laid waste to his home island, becomes embroiled with the last surviving priestess of a cult of the mythical sunken land of Sundramala.

“The Third Way,” by Darrell Schweitzer.  A classic reprint!  Grion, the faithful servant of the great warrior Mazantes, flees with his master, along with anyone else who can, from the implacable wrath of Garadis and his army of monsters.  But their flight takes them to strange otherworlds where they hope to make a most desperate gamble.

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Kickstarter for The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Volume IV Launched!

Kickstarter for The Best of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Volume IV Launched!

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HFQ powered through the pandemic and stuck to our regular publishing schedule; but we fell behind on getting our best-of anthologies put together — a situation we aimed to correct with the August 19th launch of our Kickstarter to fund Best-of 4.

As of this writing, we are 85% to our goal of $1,500.  Check out our campaign and help us out if you can!

— Adrian Simmons and the HFQ crew.

P.S. On the fence?  Head over to issue #57 and see what we’re all about.

Quatro-Decadal Review: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1989, edited by Edward Ferman

Quatro-Decadal Review: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1989, edited by Edward Ferman

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The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction,
November 1989. Cover by Bryn Barnard

I thought that Asimov’s was going to rule the 1988 roost, but MoF&SF gives it a run for its money.

The issue jumps straight into the fiction!

Fiction — “Icicle Music” by Michael Bishop

A story told in time jumps, starting on Christmas Eve 1957. Danny Pitts, living with his mother in a small boxy house near the waste dump — is up early, and finds his wished-for shotgun that his single mom must have saved for over the year. His father is a bum, out of the picture for a couple of years. Then Danny hears a strange sound, like icicles breaking and the pawing of something on the roof. Then a man comes down the chimney,

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Quatro-Decadal Review: Asimov’s Science Fiction, November 1989, edited by Gardner Dozois

Quatro-Decadal Review: Asimov’s Science Fiction, November 1989, edited by Gardner Dozois

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An unappealing cover by Wayne Barlowe, more on that in a second

After the somewhat uninspiring November 1989 Analog, I turned next to Asimov’s, and found it to be pretty good.

Editorial — “Half Done” by Isaac Asimov

Starting with the quote ‘Half done is hardly begun,’ Isaac Asimov (That’s Dr. Asimov, if you’re nasty) jumps into looking at how we conceptualize and compare time. Starting with the fact the Earth is 15 billion years old, half of that is 7.5 billion years, before our solar system existed by easily 3 billion years. Earth itself comes into play 4.6 billion years ago., and half of that, 2.3 billion Earth life is just prokaryotes. At 1.4 eukaryotic cells start showing up. Half of that, 700 million years ago, the highest life is just worms, nothing that even has shells.

The exercise is to show how rapidly things start to change. Leading to the question of how long can it go on? How do we get off on setting stories in the future. On thinking we can even realistically do it?

While reading this essay I could not shake the knowledge that Asimov had four years of life left.

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Prequels, Poetry, Plying the South Seas and Double Wolves—Heroic Fantasy Quarterly # 53

Prequels, Poetry, Plying the South Seas and Double Wolves—Heroic Fantasy Quarterly # 53

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Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #53 broke its bonds in August, and it runs amok, featuring three stories, three sort poems, with art and audio.

We’ve got two prequal tales: “The Path of Two Entwined” returns to Gregory Mele’s fantasy Meso-American world of Azaltlán, delving into one of the pre–piracy adventures of Sarrumos Koródu. “The Crown of Azt’nyr” returns us to Mike Adamson’s ringed world of Malovar with the story of how Derros and Princess Therolynn  met before their hard-fought return to the city of Tymass.

Our third story, “The Waking Gods,” by D. H. Rowe introduces a new hero, Hekili, an adventurer who sails the mysterious islands of a fantasy south seas.

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Analog Science Fiction and Science Fact, November 1989: A Retro Review

Analog Science Fiction and Science Fact, November 1989: A Retro Review

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Analog Science Fiction and Science Fact, November 1989. Cover by Janet Aulisio

My quatro-decadal-review system for vintage magazines broke down for a while. What can I say? 2021 was a tough year for everybody! But I’m back in the game with Analog November 1989, which 20-year old me might have enjoyed back in the day. Let’s jump back and jump right in!

First off, though, that cover. It really has an 80s look — like those are Members Only jackets they are wearing.

Editorial: “Town Meeting” by Stanley Schmidt

Mr. Schmidt stood in at a town meeting regarding expansion of a factory. Anti-expansion groups are opposed to it on the basis of ecological impact (which is technically incorrect, they were opposing it because of estimated human health impact). So the whole thing spins on the shadowy art of Risk Assessment.

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