Order [book in series=yearoffirstbook.book# (eg 2014.01), stand-alone or one-author collection=3333.pubyear, multi-author anthology=5555.pubyear, SFM/MM=5000, interview=1111]: 5000

Beneath Ceaseless Skies has just published its 100th issue, and it’s a double issue in celebration. That means there are four stories instead of two, and they’re very good stories at that.

The first, “In the Palace of the Jade Lion” is by Richard Parks, who is rapidly becoming one of my favorite short story writers. It’s set in the Kingdom of Zhao, which seems an awful lot like China. The protagonist is a poor young scholar named Xu Jian, who has won a posting as an Official Censor in a remote northern province.

Murky Depths is a quarterly magazine of “dark speculative fiction” — I’d call it simply horror — that marries illustration — specifically, graphics (or comics, if you prefer that term) — and story in a way different from any other magazine I’ve seen. The black and white drawings sometimes intensify the effect of a story beautifully; sometimes, however, they seriously detract from a story by making it seem comic or by giving too much of a story away. It’s an interesting approach that appears to be giving greater exposure to a number of new illustrators and writers.