Black Gate

The July 2017 issue of Nightmare is now available, with original fiction from Caspian Gray and Caroline Ratajski, and reprints by Stephen Graham Jones and Cynthia Ward. Here’s Valerie A. Lindsey from Tangent Online:

“Promises of Spring” by Caspian Gray opens with Cody asking his high school friend, Tay, to help him stop some high school kids from summoning the witch that granted three of them their desires during a bloody ritual. Gray illustrates the high cost of making wishes without understanding how high the true cost will be. Fortunately, the one who suffered the most is able to make the best wish of all…

Caroline Ratajski’s “And With Her Went the Spring” captured my interest from the first evocative sentences. The story seems to open as you would expect with grieving parents and an outraged town, but it soon becomes more. The story moves smoothly from what happened to the viewpoints of the boy and the dead girl. The missing girl refuses to accept her fate meekly and becomes a retributive force for herself and all the girls before her.

Read her complete review here.

There’s also an editorial from John Joseph Adams (which includes a cover reveal for all of his 2017 titles at John Joseph Adams Books), the latest installment of “The H Word” (Nathan Carson shares the creepy truth about goats), author spotlights, and a feature interview with Donnie Darko’s Richard Kelly.

The complete contests of the issue are listed below.

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In his editorial this issue, Neil Clarke reflects on the heart attack that nearly killed him five years ago.

When the universe calls, you have no choice but to listen. Five years ago this month, it sent me a message in the form of a near-fatal heart attack. It was the sort of thing that not only caught me off guard, but my family, friends, and doctors as well. As I lay there in the critical care unit, the weight of what happened hit me hard, providing an odd sort of clarity and a revised outlook on life. I had some choices to make, a lot of alone time before visitors to think about it.

Over the years, I’ve blogged and editorialized many of the details of that time, but today is about celebrating an anniversary and pushing forward. Not only did I survive, but I learned a lot of valuable lessons. It was a crappy way to get the message, but I’m very glad I did. At the end of the first year, I took back the anniversary by returning to Readercon — the scene of the crime — and successfully ending the Kickstarter campaign for Upgraded, my first anthology.

Five years later, I have a year’s best series and several more anthologies, watched Clarkesworld turn ten, and made it to my fiftieth birthday. Earlier this year and thanks to my wife’s return to the workforce, I was able to quit the day job and have the time to pursue my dream of becoming a full-time editor. Technically, I am full-time now, but the goal was always to be making a full-time income — with healthcare covered — and I’m still working towards that.

Speaking as someone who still believes SF magazines are the heart of the field, I’m enormously grateful Neil is still with us.

The July Clarkesworld contains original fiction from Zhang Ran, Rich Larson, Robert Reed, Bo Balder, and Nicole Kornher-Stace, plus reprints by Joe Haldeman and Lavie Tidhar. The cover, “Genetics Lab,” is by Eddie Mendoza.

Nicole Kornher-Stace, author of Archivist Wasp, writes that her tale is “the first short story I’ve written in approximately forever. It’s also the first tie-in story I’ve written in the Archivist Wasp world. More of those to come.”

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I’m trying something a bit different with our Magazine Rack this month. Rather than just recap the last eight magazines we’ve covered, I want to make this report a little more useful by actually focusing on magazines cover-dated July 2017. That means there are three magazines above — Back Issue, Grimdark, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies — that we’ve haven’t covered yet this month. But I’m including them here because they’re cool, they came out in July, and you should know about them. Plus, they look good.

As usual, you can get details on the other magazines above by just clicking on the thumbnail images. Our additional magazine coverage in the past few weeks includes Bookriot‘s entertaining post on on 5 SF and Fantasy Magazines You Should Be Reading, Fletcher’s May Short Story Roundup, Rich Horton’s Retro-Review of Amazing Stories, October 1963, and Adrian Simmons’ Retro-Review of Amazing Stories, November 1969.

Our June Fantasy Magazine Rack is here.

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I think of Shimmer primarily as a magazine of contemporary fantasy. While they also publish science fiction (and “a dash of literary horror,” according to their guidelines), I generally consider them a home for fantasy with a decidedly modern spin.

They’re certainly not my go-to publication for sword & sorcery or adventure fantasy, anyway. So I was surprised and pleased to find them stake out some more familiar terrain with their latest issue. Here’s the description for the July 2017 issue, now on sale.

Sometimes, especially now, you need a dash of the old-fashioned adventure story. You’ll find a couple of those herein, but we’ve also thrown old-fashioned out the window, because we’re Shimmer, and that tends to be what we do.

I first heard about it from Martin Cahill, whose new adventure fantasy tale is in this issue.

My new short story, “Salamander Six-Guns,” is now live at Shimmer Magazine! If you like queer, weird westerns of desperate men fighting anthropomorphic alligator people on the shores of a terrible swamp, then this is the story for you! Special thanks to my Clarion Class of ’14, who critiqued this as the last story of our six weeks together, and without whose help this wouldn’t be the story it is. Werecorgis for life! Please give it a read, and let me know what you think.

Shimmer #38 also contains new fiction by Andrea Corbin, Heather Morris, and Victoria Sandbrook. I looked all over the website but couldn’t find any mention of who did the cover, but I’m pretty sure it’s Sandro Castelli.

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As I mentioned in my last magazine review, I’m a guy who tends to skim magazines. I’m looking for something new, something different, something… yeah, I have no idea what I’m looking for these days. I’m just impatient and I skim. Don’t hate me.

Tangent Online is my enabler. They publish up-to-date magazine reviews (that I skim), and these reviews tell me everything I need to know to form a plan of attack in, like, 45 seconds. For example, they tell me that the latest issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction has terrifically intriguing tales from Alexander Jablokov, Rich Larson, and James Gunn, among others. Asimov’s, prepare to be boarded.

This issue of a magazine which is celebrating forty years of publication features a balance of fast-paced, high-tech adventure stories and intimate character studies. Fittingly, a pair of linked stories by an author with nearly seven decades of experience combine both action and introspection.

Leading off the issue is “How Sere Picked Up Her Laundry” by Alexander Jablokov. The setting is a planet where a large number of alien species live, often inhabiting structures left behind centuries ago by other beings. The narrator is hired to find out who leased a large portion of one such giant building, and why an exterminator died while working on a tunnel within it. She encounters a number of strange creatures while uncovering the mystery. The author creates a complex background and interesting alien biology…. “An Evening with Severyn Grimes” by Rich Larson is set in a future where a wealthy man can rent the body of a young, healthy man as a place to house his mind. The protagonist is hired by a group of terrorists who violently oppose this practice. Her consciousness is downloaded into the many linked computerized devices which fill this world in a plot to assassinate the man, but she has plans of her own… a fairly effective cyberpunk story.

First published in 1949 and named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2007, James Gunn proves that he is not just resting on his laurels with two stories set in his Transcendental universe. Both “Transcendental Mission: Riley’s Story” and “Weighty Matters: Tordor’s Story” depict the lives of characters who will eventually set out on a mission to discover the nature of a device which is rumored to produce perfection in any individual. The reader may be reminded of the pilgrims bound for Canterbury in Chaucer’s famous poem. Inevitably, both tales are expository and open-ended. The second story may be more interesting because the author creates an entire alien culture.

Read Victoria Silverwolf’s complete review of the latest Asimov’s SF here.

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Over at SF Revu, Sam Tomaino sheds some light on the latest issue of The Dark.

The first new story is “A Performance for Painted Bones” by Kelly Stewart… In a town where the populace is just skeletons, a dancer and a hunter have skin. They are kept alive as long as they do their jobs. But one could take the train east if there was a good reason to, like returning an object to its rightful owner. Written like a proposal for a movie, this is wonderfully atmospheric. Works perfectly.

The other new story is “A Lasting Legacy” by Osahon Ize-Iyamu… Ogu is from a disgraced family and wants to get respect by becoming the leader of the machi. He wants to find something that will ensure that. But his uncle is a disgrace and burden to the family. What can he do? A grim, sad story but very effective.

The Dark has its own brand of unique horror and is certainly worth reading. It deserves your support.

The July cover is by Vincent Chong. Here’s the Table of Contents for issue #26, cover-dated July 2017.

“A Performance for Painted Bones” by Kelly Stewart
“Girl, I Love You” by Nadia Bulkin (from Phantasm Japan,, 2014)
“A Lasting Legacy” by Osahon Ize-Iyamu
“Harvest” by Michael Harris Cohen (from From Their Cradle to Your Grave, 2013)

The Dark is co-edited by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Sean Wallace, with assistance by Jack Fisher. It is published monthly online and in digital formats, and includes two original stories and two reprints each issue. You can read issues free online, or help support the magazine by buying the ebook editions, available for the Kindle and Nook in Mobi and ePub format. Issues are around 50 pages, and priced at $2.99 through Amazon, B&N.com, Apple, Kobo, and other fine outlets — or subscribe for just $1.99 per issue. If you enjoy the magazine you can contribute to their new Patreon account here. You can also support The Dark by buying their books, reviewing stories, or even just leaving comments.

Read the July issue here, and see their complete back issue catalog here. We last covered The Dark with the May issue. See our June Fantasy Magazine Rack here, and all of our recent Magazine coverage here.

There’s a lot of fascinating content in The Digest Enthusiast. I’m a guy who skims magazines, stopping to read a story when an author’s name or a piece of interior art catches my eye, and TDW sure don’t make it easy. Their June issue, the sixth, is crammed full of the kinds of pieces that you start out skimming and end up reading front to back.

There’s too much here for me to catalog it all, but the highlights include: Editor Richard Krauss’ News Digest, 12 pages of news and gossip on Down & Out: The Magazine, Nostalgia Digest, Paperback Parade, Weirdbook, Pulp Literature, The Pulpster, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Broadswords & Blasters, and other fine publications; an interview with publisher and writer Edd Vick, Steve Carper’s fascinating piece on “the bestselling digest paperback of all time,” Bob Hope’s self-published They Got Me Covered; Richard Krauss’ survey of 60s SF mag International Science Fiction; Krauss’ review of Weirdbook #34; and Joe Wehrle Jr’s review of Brian Aldiss’ Hothouse story cycle.

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