Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Author: Terry Weyna

Magazine Monday: Lore 2.2

Lore was originally published from 1995 through 2000, folding when the pressure of events and the emerging careers of the editors and publishers became too much. It has now been resurrected as a trade paperback-sized magazine containing some really decent stories.

The opening story, “Enshrined” by Bridget Coila, seems to be about the afterlife of a group of children and Sala, their adult leader. They have been climbing mountains for days, even as the children garner bruises and broken bones that do not appear to hurt them. At the top of the mountain is a shrine,

February 4th, 2013. Terry Weyna | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |

Magazine Monday: Subterranean Magazine, Fall 2012 and Winter 2013

Welcome news: Subterranean Magazine, a quarterly publication, has announced that it will be available for free download from here on out. The announcement was accompanied by the free editions of the Fall 2012 and the Winter 2013 issues, each of which contains a number of excellent novellas — a length for which Subterranean Press, as well as the magazine, are known. Many, including me, consider the novella to be the ideal length for science fiction, fantasy and horror: it provides the author with enough space for world building, but not more space than many stories need.

Understories: Tim Horvath has an amazing imagination!

Understories by Tim Horvath

Tim Horvath has an amazing imagination. He can take his work in academe (as a writing teacher) and turn it into a story about a dying department of umbrology, the study of shadows, complete with all the political scheming for promotion and infighting about ancient scholars (Galileo or Socrates?) you might expect in such a story. But then he can also imbue it with poetry when describing a lunar eclipse, or with whimsy, as in relating his experiences watching shadows on a ski slope, or even the nature of love (“she told me once she preferred rainy days because on them I looked at her more directly”).

Magazine Monday: Asimov’s, February 2013

The February 2013 issue of Asimov’s is a delight from cover to cover. This time around, it’s the longer pieces that really given it is heft.

“The Weight of the Sunrise” by Vylar Kaftan is a fascinating alternate history novella that offers a pointed perspective on American history, serving as a sort of bookend to the recent film, “Lincoln.” Slavery was an evil obvious even to those who practiced human sacrifice and saw nothing wrong with incestuous marriages of royalty, as did the Incas, as Kaftan makes clear.

Thoughtful Thursday: Books we loved in 2012

We’ve just posted our annual Favorites list — the best books we read which were published for the first time in 2012 in print or audio format. For today’s discussion, we’ll tell you why we like some of these books and ask about your favorite books from 2012. One commenter picks a book from our stacks.

You can find our reviews for each of the novels listed below by clicking on the linked author names.
BE SURE TO VIEW OUR COMPLETE LIST OF FAVORITES HERE!

January 10th, 2013. Terry Weyna | Best of the Year, Giveaway!, Thoughtful Thursday | 12 comments |

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: We love it

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

I’m pretty sure every person in the western world knows who Harry Potter is and knows the basic story line. Harry Potter was The Boy Who Lived. Both his parents were killed by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the evil Lord Voldemort, but he survived the attack, somehow causing Voldemort to disappear. Now Harry is eleven, and off to his first year at Hogwarts wizarding school. But it seems like Voldemort is making a resurgence. Is Harry safe, even under the watchful eye of Headmaster Albus Dumbledore?

Magazine Monday: Nightmare, Issue 3

The third issue of Nightmare is more accomplished than one would expect from a magazine so new. The choice of stories is excellent, and the debut story is especially disturbing.

That debut is “Chop Shop” by J.B. Park, and if it is any indication, Park is going to have a brilliant career as a horror writer. The viewpoint character is a woman who has a horrifying sexual fetish: she is turned on by a man cutting away her flesh, her limbs, her organs slowly but surely. She is able to experience this because a virtual reality program makes it so,

Every House is Haunted: Rogers’ debut collection

Every House is Haunted by Ian Rogers

Ian Rogers must love Shirley Jackson, for his stories are often like hers, gentle on the surface, but with a knife thrust from below. In Every House is Haunted, his debut collection, Rogers writes about haunted houses, yes, but more often about haunted people, or shadows of people. Rogers sometimes has trouble finding appropriate endings, but his stories are always engaging.

The collection is divided into sections named for rooms in a house: the vestibule,

Magazine Monday: Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, November/December 2012

The November/December 2012 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction is a mixed bag. Some of the fiction is excellent; some is not.

The best story in this issue is Naomi Kritzer’s “High Stakes,” a novelette that is a sequel to “Liberty’s Daughter” from the May/June 2012 issue (about which I said that I hoped there would be sequels). The setting for the story is a fictional, near future group of platforms and decommissioned cruise ships and other floating flat places in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that serve as home for several groups who found existing governments distasteful.

The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Four

The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Four edited by Ellen Datlow

Anything Ellen Datlow edits automatically finds a place on my list of books to read. For many years, this included the excellent anthology series The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, which Datlow coedited with Terri Windling. When that series disappeared, much to the dismay of fans of short fiction everywhere, Datlow undertook to publish The Year’s Best Horror, which has been published by the terrific smaller press,

December 3rd, 2012. Terry Weyna´s rating: 5 | A.C. Wise, Ellen Datlow, Glen Hirshberg, John Langan, Laird Barron, Margo Lanagan, Peter Straub, Stephen King, Terri Windling | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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