A Look at Current Sci-fi and Fantasy Magazines By David Soyka Copyright 2007 by New Epoch Press. All rights reserved. Paradox describes itself as “The Magazine of Historical and Speculative Fiction”; the most current issue of Winter 2006-2007 (due to a change in bi-annual publishing schedule, the next issue won’t appear until October 2007), favors primarily alternative history. Sarah Monette’s “Amanta Dorée” posits a prostitute/spy with a secret in a nineteenth-century New Orleans where France maintains ownership of the Louisiana…
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by David Soyka So, you’ve finished your latest issue of Black Gate, and now you are wondering what other magazines feature fantasy in the short form that you might enjoy. Here are a few — hardly complete — suggestions. Interzone Editor/publisher Andy Cox’s resurrection of Interzone has made this self-proclaimed “Britain’s longest-running science-fiction magazine” a leading choice for edgy stories showcased in a striking visual design that pays tribute to the pulp tradition in a high glossy style. Given that…
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by David Soyka Fantasy Magazine, Issue 2 [Prime Books, edited by Sean Wallace, $5.95] Realms of Fantasy, August 2006 [Sovereign Media, edited by Shawna McCarthy, $3.99] Heliotrope, August 2006 [Fantasy Book Spot, www.heliotropemag.com] In an August 4, 2006 blog post, Charles Stross remarks that, Fantasy is, almost by definition, consolatory and escapist literature. Pure fantasy doesn’t really tell us anything about the world we live in… Of course, that depends on how you define “fantasy,” pure or otherwise, which, as…
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A Look at Current Fantasy Magazines By David Soyka Copyright 2007 by New Epoch Press. All rights reserved. Apple has just announced its highly anticipated iPhone and, whether you really need one of these things or not, you have to admit it’s pretty cool-looking. Of course, it doesn’t matter much if it doesn’t work as well as it looks. Apple wouldn’t be the success it is without its ability to match good design with content people want, like portable music…
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A Look at Current Fantasy Magazines By David Soyka Copyright 2007 by New Epoch Press. All rights reserved. Philip Roth can write an alternate history, Cormac McCarthy an end-of-the-world tale, Margaret Atwood a Frankenstein parable even as she claims she doesn’t write science fiction junk. No one calls Thomas Pynchon a fantasy writer, though whatever the hell he writes surely is fantastical. But they don’t become tarnished as genre writers when they write genre. But, times are changing. In the…
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A Look at Current Sci-fi and Fantasy Magazines By David Soyka Copyright 2007 by New Epoch Press. All rights reserved. Greatest Uncommon Denominator is a new biannual that features decidedly strange stories, poetry, essays and artwork. The Spring 2007 debut, identified in an apparent attempt to be clever as Issue #0, has a cover page with the torso of a young boy whose stomach has a very large mouth with a lolling tongue. Gives you some idea of its savory…
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A Look at Current Sci-fi and Fantasy Magazines By David Soyka Copyright 2007 by New Epoch Press. All rights reserved. The novel serialization was a grand tradition of newspaper entertainment that has long since fallen by the wayside. One reason why Dickens has so many plot turns is that he frequently wrote in installments, and leaving readers wondering what happens helps sell next week’s paper. The marketing value of this practice began to decline when the proliferation of inexpensive mass…
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A Look at Current Sci-fi and Fantasy Magazines By David Soyka Copyright 2007 by New Epoch Press. All rights reserved. As defined by the Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy, horror is “the creation and exploration of the emotion of fear or dread” (p. 392). According to Wikipedia, it’s anything “intended to scare, unsettle or horrify” with the element of “the intrusion of an evil…supernatural element…Some modern practitioners of the genre use vivid depictions of extreme violence or shock…
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By David Soyka Copyright 2008 by New Epoch Press. All rights reserved. The Third Alternative (TTA), a quarterly magazine whose title suggested alternative horror, slipstream (whatever that is) and science fiction that might be considered too “edgy” for the mainstream, first appeared way back in 1994. When editor/publisher Andy Cox acquired long-running British science fiction magazine Interzone in 2005, he put TTA on hiatus after forty-two issues. The initial reasoning was to focus on revamping the graphically- (and some would…
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224 pages, $9.95 On Sale January, 2002 Edited by John O’Neill Published by New Epoch Press Cover Art by Hung Vinh Mac Interior Art by Richard Corben, Chris Pepper, Bernie Mireault, Denis Rodier, Brian Hughes, Allen Koszowski, Drew Christopher, and Dave Sheppard Buy this issue — only $9.95 plus shipping & handling! FICTION “Iron Joan” by ElizaBeth Gilligan She was the daughter of a High Chief, shamed by her father’s house… but gifted in her mother’s secret arts. “The Knight…
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