Black Gate

Here’s some Amazing news. Just think what the Golden Agers who wrote for this magazine back in the 1940s might wonder about an online pulp magazine?

Actually, one of them, Ray Bradbury, considered the Internet a “waste of time.” I guess his problem was he never spent any time on the Internet.

We don’t have any of Shakespeare’s plays that he wrote in his actual hand, but we do have the plays as transcribed by members of his acting troupe. These days, it wouldn’t be profitable to have an Amazing Stories magazine if it weren’t for the Internet. Even Uncle Ray would be down with that, wouldn’t you think?

Speaking of the Bard and online magazines, I had two “minor” fields of study for my English M.A. (if you must know, or care, the major field was Rhetoric), which were science fiction and Shakespeare.

When I say that, some people think there’s a discipline called “Science Fiction and Shakespeare” and maybe there should be, as certainly the Elizabethan fantasist has inspired many a modern one.

Case in point is the latest edition of Apex Magazine, which is a Shakespeare-themed issue featuring the work of Kate Elliott, Kat Howard, Sarah Monette, Merrie Haskell and Patricia Wrede.

Together again, TTA Press releases Interzone and Black Static in the same month as part of its new publishing scheduling. (I understand the economic reasons why the publishers are doing this, but I liked the old way of alternating issues. Ah, well, if it’s the price to be paid for having a magazine that is actually printed instead of pixalated, it’s well worth it.)

The Nov–Dec issue of Interzone is the second in the new slightly more compact format, with novelettes by Jon Wallace, and Jason Sanford, plus stories by Chen Qiufan (translated by Ken Liu), Caroline M. Yoachim, and Priya Sharma. Cover art is ‘The Star’ by Ben Baldwin.  Features include “Ansible Link” by David Langford (news and obits); “Mutant Popcorn” by Nick Lowe (film reviews); “Laser Fodder” by Tony Lee (DVD/Blu-ray reviews); book reviews by Jim Steel and the team, including an interview with Adam Roberts conducted by Paul Kincaid.

Black Static features cover art by Richard Wagner; novelettes by Jackson Kuhl, Steven J. Dines, and Victoria Leslie; stories by Seán Padraic Birnie, Steven Pirie, and James Cooper; illustrations by Ben Baldwin, David Gentry, and Rik Rawling; comment columns by Stephen Volk and Christopher Fowler; book reviews by Peter Tennant; and DVD/Blu-ray reviews by Tony Lee.

Issue 42 fiction include “Splinter” by Shira Lipkin, “Sprig” by Alex Bledsoe, “Erzulie Dantor” by Tim Susman, and “The Glutton: A Goxhat Accounting Chant” by Eleanor Arnason.

Non-fiction includes “The 21st Century SF/F Professional at Conventions” by editor Lynne M. Thomas, “Behind the Convention Curtain: Programming” by Steven H. Silver, and “An Interview with Alex Bledsoe” by Maggie Slater.

The cover art is by Nicoletta Ceccolli.

Visit the magazine at www.apex-magazine.com.

Apex Magazine is having a subscription drive from now until November 15^th. Featuring the work of folks such as Catherynne M. Valente, Mary Robinette Kowal, Sarah Monette, Ken Liu, Elizabeth Bear, Rachel Swirsky, Jennifer Pelland,  Kij Johnson, Geoff Ryman, and Maureen McHugh, Apex Magazine earned a Hugo Nomination for Best Semiprozine in 2012. Here’s the pitch:

Yearly subscriptions are available through the Apex website and Weightless Books. For $17.95, $2.00 off the normal subscription rate, you can have 12 months of Apex Magazine delivered to you in the file format of your choice: ePub, mobi, or PDF.  That’s at least 24 brand new short stories dropped into your eager little hands for the price of an anthology. Plus, you get the reprints, poetry, nonfiction and interviews. Quite a deal, right?

Subscribe via Weightless Books
Subscribe via Kindle
Subscribe via Apex

Not convinced you want to commit to a whole year or (I like this scenario better) don’t want the hassle of having to renew your subscription each year, Amazon can help you out.  For only a $1.99 a month, Apex Magazine will be auto-delivered straight to your Kindle. You never have to think about it again. On the first Tuesday of every month the new issue will be right there waiting for you, ready to go with you wherever you want to take it, no more need for a clunky computer or an internet connection once it’s downloaded.

Steampunk is a literary subgenre that has also sprouted a lifestyle that encompasses fashion, music, and art based loosely on a philosophy of hands-on, do-it-yourselfness in an age of touchscreen virtual experience. To my knowledge, Sean McMullen’s “Steamgothic” is the first steampunk story that is also about the sensibility of the steampunk community. The narrator is an expert restorer of steam engines whose day job is to customize ultralight aircraft motors. He’s approached by a couple who have possession of an 1852 Aeronaute, a steam-powered aircraft which, had it actually flown, would predate the Wright Brothers by a half-century. He’s invited to participate in a restoration with the intent of proving this possibility. The initiative becomes the subject of a reality TV show called The Aeronauteers, and plenty of drama ensues, much of it more human than mechanically-related, with hidden motivations gradually revealed beyond postulating how if the Aeronaute had actually flown, would history have changed?

Recommended reading, even if you have only a slight interest in how the cogs actually turn. You can find it in the current Interzone.

August’s Apex Magazine features  “Armless Maidens of the American West” by Genevieve Valentine (who is interviewed by Maggie Slater), “Murdered Sleep” by Kat Howard, “Waiting for Beauty” by Marie Brennan and “Undercity” by Nir Yaniv. Cover art by Ekaterina Zagustina. Nonfiction by Jim C. Hines and editor Lynne M. Thomas.

Apex is published on the first Tuesday of every month.  While each issue is available free online from the magazine’s website, it can also be downloaded to your e-reader from there for $2.99.  Individual issues are also available at  Amazon, Nook, and Weightless.

Twelve-issue (one year) subscriptions can be ordered at Apex and Weightless for $19.95; Kindle subscriptions are available for $1.99 a month.