Previous SFF Author: Martin L. Shoemaker
We thought that Halloween was the perfect occasion on which to combine Magazine Monday with Horrible Monday and bring you a review of a horror magazine. Black Static is a British horror magazine notable not only for the high quality of its fiction, but also for its great commentary and extensive reviews of horror films and books. This was my first experience reading the magazine, but my plan is now to subscribe, because this is great stuff.
Simon Bestwick’s story,
October 31st, 2011. Terry Weyna | Kaaron Warren | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
The Double Shadow by Clark Ashton Smith
Halloween is right around the corner, so I thought I’d get in the mood by reading a collection of spooky stories by Clark Ashton Smith, a writer and poet who’s known for his contributions to the pulp magazine Weird Tales. Smith was a friend of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard and an influence on many of the later pulp writers.
The Double Shadow collects six of Clark Ashton Smith’s excellent short stories.
October 28th, 2011. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Clark Ashton Smith | Audio, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Steel and Other Stories by Richard Matheson
Steel and Other Stories is a collection of stories written by Richard Matheson who is probably best known for his novels I am Legend and The Incredible Shrinking Man. Most were originally published in pulp magazines in the 1950s, though two are recent and have never been collected before. Each is quite short:
October 26th, 2011. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Richard Matheson | Audio, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Occultation and Other Stories by Laird Barron
According to Webster’s, “occultation” means “the state of being hidden from view or lost to notice” or “the shutting off of the light of one celestial body by the intervention of another; esp: an eclipse of a star or planet by the moon.” Both definitions seem appropriate to Laird Barron’s collection, Occultation and Other Stories, the latter as metaphor, because Barron can scare you as much with what remains hidden in his stories as with what he drags from the shadows and exposes to your horrified view.
October 17th, 2011. Terry Weyna´s rating: 5 | Laird Barron | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The New Weird by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer
It’s easy to imagine two different readers reacting in opposite ways to The New Weird. One might find it delightfully odd; the other might find it as terrifying as Kafka on LSD. And a third might find it delightfully odd because it’s as terrifying as Kafka on LSD. Certainly, no one is likely to find it boring.
The New Weird is a well-organized anthology, with a short, useful introduction; a section entitled “Stimuli,” containing older selections (though not very old;
October 12th, 2011. Terry Weyna´s rating: 4.5 | China Mieville, Clive Barker, Jeff VanderMeer, K.J. Bishop, M. John Harrison, Michael Cisco, Michael Moorcock, Steph Swainston | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Even as many mourn the apparent passing of the age of print, it seems that more and more speculative fiction periodicals are coming into being. When I first heard of Fantastique Unfettered, I was certain that it must be an internet-only publication. Yet as far as I can tell, it isn’t even available in electronic format. Instead, it’s a traditional magazine, full-size (as opposed to the digest-size of Asimov’s, Analog and F&SF), and chock-full of black and white illustrations. The stories are fantastical in the best sense of the word: strange and marvelous,
October 10th, 2011. Terry Weyna | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg Volume Six: Multiples 1983-1987 by Robert Silverberg
Since 2006 Subterranean Press has been publishing all of the SFF stories that Robert Silverberg wants in his “definitive” collection in chronological order. I’m a fan of Silverberg’s stories, so I think this series is wonderful — it’s a sure way to get one copy of each of his most important stories in eight tidy volumes. Volume six, titled Multiples, contains fourteen stories and novellas published in the mid-1980s.
In a general introduction to Multiples,
September 28th, 2011. Kat Hooper´s rating: 4.5 | Robert Silverberg | Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The Monster’s Corner: Stories Through Inhuman Eyes edited by Christopher Golden
FORMAT/INFO: The Monster’s Corner is 400 pages long and consists of 19 short stories. Also included is an Introduction by the editor Christopher Golden, and biographies of all of the anthology’s contributors. September 27, 2011 marks the North American Trade Paperback publication of The Monster’s Corner via St. Martin’s Griffin. The UK version will be published on the same day via Piatkus Books.
ANALYSIS: The New Dead was one of my favorite books of 2010,
September 26th, 2011. Robert Thompson´s rating: 4 | Christopher Golden, Clive Barker, Jonathan Maberry, Kelley Armstrong, Kevin J. Anderson, Sarah Pinborough, Simon R. Green | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
The September/October issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction is always a feast: 258 pages packed with stories by some of the top talent in the field. It isn’t unusual for this issue each year to contain at least one story that will show up on the award ballots the following year, and that’s true this year as well. My nomination goes to Geoff Ryman’s “What We Found.” Ryman has been writing lately of third-world cultures, in such a way that the reader becomes immersed in the culture, surrounded by sights, scents,
September 19th, 2011. Terry Weyna | Charles De_Lint, Esther Friesner, Michelle Sagara West, Sarah Langan | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Cyberabad Days by Ian McDonald
Cyberabad Days is a fully realized vision of a near-future India — indeed, of a near-future world in which India is a major player, even more so than today. Ian McDonald’s prose sparkles, the plots of the stories are uniformly tight, but it is the imagination, the picture of the future, that really works here. If you want that “sense of wonder” that science fiction is most famous for, this is the place to find it.
Cyberabad Days is set in the same universe as McDonald’s River of Gods,
September 13th, 2011. Terry Weyna´s rating: 5 | Ian McDonald | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Previous SFF Author: Martin L. Shoemaker
We’re in total agreement David!
I felt just the same. The prose and character work was excellent. The larger story was unsatisfying, especially compared to…
Hmmm. I think I'll pass.
COMMENT Was I hinting that? I wasn't aware of it. But now that you mention it.... 🤔
So it sounds like you're hinting Fox may have had three or so different incomplete stories that he stitched together,…