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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.

Galaxy Science Fiction, January 1955: A Retro-Review

Galaxy Science Fiction, January 1955: A Retro-Review

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Galaxy Science Fiction, January 1955. Cover by Ed Emshwiller

It’s been a while since my last Galaxy review, but the best things come to those who wait. This one is for the January, 1955 issue. The cover is by Ed Emshwiller and is titled “Scene: Milady’s Boudoir.” It’s an eye-catching visual of a futuristic bedroom with devices that could replace services from a salon, and the artwork contains interesting colors and shapes for the furniture and electronics. But I’m not really here to get into the artwork, of course, so let’s move on to the fiction.

“The Tunnel Under the World” by Frederik Pohl — Guy Burckhardt wakes up on June 15th, screaming from a dream. In the dream, he felt an explosion that killed him. He continues through his day as best he can. And the next morning awakes on June 15th again, and once again awakes in terror from a nightmare of dying in an explosion. The horrors of the nightmare are alarming, but the deeper issue is the recurring date.

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Wooden Pirates, Group Therapy for Super Heroes, and Crab Gods: July-August 2023 Print SF Magazines

Wooden Pirates, Group Therapy for Super Heroes, and Crab Gods: July-August 2023 Print SF Magazines

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July/August 2023 issues of Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Asimov’s Science Fiction,
and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Cover art by 123RF, Eldar Zakirov
(for “Bridges”), and Mondolithic Studios

The big news for the print SF magazines this month isn’t good. In March Amazon stopped selling Kindle subscriptions to Asimov’s SF and Analog, and current issues will only be available for purchase until September 4, 2023. After that, Amazon will only offer access to the magazines through their Kindle Unlimited program.

This is a major blow to the magazines, which have come to rely on Amazon digital subscriptions for a substantial portion of their income. But they have rolled with the punches, and on July 20 Asimov’s SF and Analog announced a new digital subscription method. You can subscribe now to get the July/August issue and have Sept/Oct delivered on August 8th, and then the 8th every other month going forward. It costs just $6/an issue, and downloads are available as EPUB or PDF. Order directly here.

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GW Thomas on Interplanetary Graveyards, Cemetery Worlds, and Junkyard Planets

GW Thomas on Interplanetary Graveyards, Cemetery Worlds, and Junkyard Planets

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Art by Chris Foss

GW Thomas’s Dark Worlds is one of the better blogs out there, at least for fans of classic SF, comics and pulps. In just the last few weeks he’s discussed Sword & Sorcery at Warren (Part 10: 1980), Bronze Age DC Werewolves (Parts 1, 2, and 3) and Golden Age Plant Monsters.

No one else is doing scholarship on plant monsters, and Thomas clearly deserves an award for that alone. But my favorite recent piece was his 2-part article on interplanetary graveyards, cemetery worlds, and junkyard planets in comics and pulps.

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Reading the Avon Fantasy Reader — Issue 1: What Defines a Classic?

Reading the Avon Fantasy Reader — Issue 1: What Defines a Classic?

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Avon Fantasy Reader #1 (Avon Books, February 1947). Cover artist unknown

On the occasion of this year’s Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention — my fifth — I resolved to learn from past mistakes and come armed with a specific list of items needed to plug holes in my considerable collection of science fiction and fantasy paperbacks and pulps. This year, I came looking to complete my set of all 18 volumes of Donald A. Wollheim’s Avon Fantasy Reader, a digest magazine I’d poked at before due to its propensity to publish works by Clark Ashton Smith, a writer who never disappoints. The convention coughed up all but two of my missing issues, but crucially provided the first volume in the series, which I had never before seen in person. I snagged it immediately, of course, and began reading it that day.

The Avon Fantasy Reader ran 18 issues, from February 1947 to March 1952. Originally intended as a quarterly, it usually managed three issues per year. Wollheim’s introduction to the first volume promises tales of fantasy and imagination about “those strange forces which exist just beyond the boundaries of knowledge.” He further touts a roster of authors that represented “a sure guarantee of the best stories of their kind available.”

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Mummies, Sexy Robots, and an ancient Greek Labyrinth: May-June 2023 Print SF Magazines

Mummies, Sexy Robots, and an ancient Greek Labyrinth: May-June 2023 Print SF Magazines

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May/June 2023 issues of Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Asimov’s Science Fiction,
and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Cover art by Eldar Zakirov
(for “Aleyara’s Descent”), 123RF, and Maurizio Manzieri (for “The Dire Delusion”)

There’s a lot of great reading in store for us in this month’s print magazines. Including a classic mummy horror tale, stories of fox-gods and conjure houses, and a new tale of Cascor the Discriminator by Matthew Hughes (in F&SF); a sexy apocalypse robot, a Star Trek-like tale of the coldest spot in the universe, and a hero in an ancient Greek Labyrinth (in Asimov’s SF); and a Raymond Chandler-esque noir in space, an action-packed novella of terrifying aliens on an alien world, a berserk mech on Mars, and a wry narrator with hangover in a dystopian London (Analog).

The big SF magazines are packed with brand new fiction from Sean McMullen, Allen M. Steele, Lavie Tidhar, Matthew Hughes, Zig Zag Claybourne, Frank Wu & Jay Werkheiser, Mark W. Teidermann, Andy Dudak, R. Garcia y Robertson, Tom Purdom, Sandra McDonald, Bill Johnson & Gregory Frost, Chris Willrich, Barbara Krasnoff, Melissa A. Watkins, and many more. See all the details below.

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Total Pulp Victory: Windy City Pulp & Paper Convention 2023, Part II

Total Pulp Victory: Windy City Pulp & Paper Convention 2023, Part II

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David C. Smith and Steven H Silver find priceless treasures in the Dealers Room at Windy City Pulp & Paper

A month ago I wrote a short convention report on the 2023 Windy City Pulp & Paper Show, which took place Friday April 21st to Sunday, April 23rd in Lombard, Illinois. In that article I mostly rubber-necked at the gorgeous Weird Tales pulps and other rare magazines sold during the evening auctions, and took covetous pictures of the pre-auction displays.

Here in Part II, I’ll share a few more photos of the vendors and personalities I met, and showcase a few of the many treasures I dragged home in seven heavy boxes — including vintage comics, science fiction digests, graphic novels, new releases, and of course lots of great old paperbacks. Assuming you enjoy cautionary tales of disastrous self control, it should be an entertaining read.

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A Solid Dose of Weird Adventure: Old Moon Quarterly #3

A Solid Dose of Weird Adventure: Old Moon Quarterly #3

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Old Moon Quarterly Vol III — Winter (119p, March, 2023). Cover by Daniel Vega.

Old Moon Quarterly is a magazine of weird sword-and-sorcery fantasy. In the tradition of Clark Ashton Smith, Tanith Lee and Karl Edward Wagner, it contains stories of strange vistas, eldritch beings, and the bloody dispute thereof by swordsmen and swordswomen both.

Old Moon Quarterly emerged in 2022. This reviews the four stories inside the Winter 2023 issue (Vol III), which delivers solid doses of the weird adventure it promises. The Editor-in-Chief is Julian Barona, flanked by Assistant Editors Caitlyn Emily Wilcox and Graham Thomas Wilcox (who recently debuted here on Black Gate with his review of John Langan’s Corpsemouth and Other Autobiographies, so I gleefully checked this out).  Excerpts best convey the style and elements of what to expect, so you’ll get those here!

Vol III Contents

  • “Evil Honey” by James Enge
  • “Knife, Lace, Prayer” by T.R. Siebert
  • “Singing the Long Retreat” by R.K. Duncan
  • “The Feast of Saint Ottmer” by Graham Thomas Wilcox
  • A review of Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles, edited by Ellen Datlow.

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The Legacy of a Legendary Collector: Denny Lien, September 26, 1945 – April 15, 2023

The Legacy of a Legendary Collector: Denny Lien, September 26, 1945 – April 15, 2023

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A handful of items from Denny Lien’s incredible collection I was able to save from the dumpster

On Wednesday May 3, I drove 379 miles from St. Charles to Minneapolis, to help clean out the last of the legendary collection of the late Denny Lien. I’d been reliably informed that it was the final week his estate would have access to the house; the following Monday, Habitat for Humanity would take possession, and everything left would go in the dumpster.

Denny had the most incredible collection of magazines I’ve ever seen. During the scant few hours I had in the house I found virtually complete runs of Amazing Stories, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Worlds of If, Galaxy, Fantastic, Astounding/Analog, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Locus, Cemetery Dance, and many, many more — far more than I could ever pack and fit in the minivan I’d rented for the trip. Most were unread, in pristine condition.

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Retro Review: Two F&SFs from Robert P. Mills’ Editorship

Retro Review: Two F&SFs from Robert P. Mills’ Editorship

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The November 1958 and May 1961 issues of The Magazine of
Fantasy & Science Fiction. Covers by John Pederson and Ed Emshwiller

I’ve recently looked at a few issues of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction from the early to mid-50s, when Anthony Boucher (at first in collaboration with J. Francis McComas) was the editor. Boucher left that post with the August 1958 issue, and Robert P. Mills took over. (Mills had been the editor of F&SF’s sister magazine Venture for its ten-issue stint running bimonthly from January 1957 through July 1958.) He edited F&SF until the March 1962 issue.

These two issues, then, neatly mark a period early in his term, and one in the last year of his term. So it seems like a good idea to consider them together. (If truth be told, though, I bought these for another reason — they feature two of the very best stories from the first phase of Carol Emshwiller’s career.)

Let’s look quickly at the TOCs of the two issues.

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