To be honest, there are already enough short fiction podcasts to make it tough to keep up with them, but the latest addition is far too cool to ignore: TTA Press, the publishers of the UK's major sf/fantasy and horror fiction magazines, as well as a rather good (if excessively infrequent) crime one, have launched Transmissions from Beyond, podcasting selected stories from their huge, multi-genre back catalogue. I'll be listening.

Another new podcast: Reality Break is putting out interviews with authors, most of them originally done for radio in the 1990s. Some notably big guns have already been deployed: Will Eisner, Cory Doctorow and the late Robert Jordan.

Free Fantasy Reading: you can download a free pdf of Black Gate magazine no. 12. Got to admit I haven't actually read it, but the magazine's got a pretty good reputation, and there's certainly a lot of content: 224 pages of it.

Since Watchmen featured in the last post here, thought I'd mention an interesting transcript of a 1988 round table discussion about the series. But first: BEWARE! This is as SPOILERIFIC a discussion as could possibly be contrived by the wit of Man. If you have not yet read Watchmen, or if you want to see the upcoming movie without actually knowing every last detail of the plot in advance (and, believe me, you really do), FLEE! The imminent link will utterly and completely ruin the whole thing, including all of the many surprises the story has up its sleeves. Seriously. For those who have already read Watchmen, it's a fascinating discussion, because Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons are involved, and it unpicks in great detail a lot of the story's many layers, influences and concerns. It can be found here.

An interesting historical side note: The Picts appear to have had a whole lot more going on in their part of the world (Scotland) than was previously thought.

Thanks to everyone who's e-mailed asking about a release date for Fall of Thanes. It's nice that people care enough to be interested! I wish I had a more definitive answer to offer, but at the moment I don't. It's taken longer than I hoped and intended to finish the thing off, for a mixture of writing and non-writing related reasons, but it is almost done. Should be going to the publisher for consideration in the next few weeks. In the past, it's taken about a year to get from that point to publication. Sorry I can't be any more specific than that yet. More news as and when it's available.

It has been raining all day. Raining hard, for a lot of it. Frankly, it's all a bit disappointing, as the weather has been for weeks and weeks. So I thought I'd post a photo, grabbed in one of the few sunny interludes I remember from the last couple of months. It commemorates the chance discovery of a wonderful country lane, thick with wildflowers, bees and butterflies. As I sit here listening to the rain gurgling along the gutters and down the drainpipes, perhaps it will provide a little remembered warmth, and remind me that we do still notionally have things called summers, even if these last couple of years the only possible description of that season has been 'damp squib'.

Labels: Comics, Fall of Thanes, History, Magazines, Photos, Podcasts

Blogger Play is a website that consists entirely of a slideshow of photos people have recently put up on their blogs. Clicking on any photo takes you straight to the relevant blog post. It's completely pointless, but an interesting way of going on a random walk through the world's blogs for a few minutes.

After many delays, including last-minute printing palavers, Black Static magazine has finally made it off the starting blocks. I've not seen the first issue yet, but I confidently predict it'll be worth checking out for those who like their fiction dark and unsettling. It's the successor to what I thought was the most interesting UK short fiction mag of the 1990s, The Third Alternative, so it ought to be good.

There's a bit of a mini-eruption of Winterbirth reviews around the interwebs at the moment, a couple of which have caught my eye for one reason or another.

I particularly like this one, because it says about the battle scenes: 'if Braveheart was put into writing, I think it would be something like this'. I like that partly because I was consciously trying for a vaguely cinematic, vivid feeling in the action scenes, and it's nice to see it working for at least one reader. Secondly, I loved the battles in Braveheart: at the time, I thought they were the most exciting and convincingly vicious imitation of medieval combat I'd ever seen in the cinema. Not sure they've been surpassed even now.

The other review I found particularly interesting is this one. It's brief and very positive, but what surprised me about it is that it's been put out by the Associated Press news agency. I, in my ignorance, hadn't even registered that organisations like AP or Reuters put out reviews like this - I guess I assumed they just did news items. Anyway, will be interested to see if the review turns up anywhere else now it's gone out on the AP 'wire' or whatever it is that happens to such things ...

Labels: Magazines, Reviews

Short story ideas wriggle about in my head like seductive caterpillars, tempting me to try and catch them and turn them into butterflies. More often than not, when I've attempted that transformative trick in the past, I've ended up with ... well, not butterflies. Still, the siren call of those caterpillars is persistent. It reminded me that I'm a bit out of touch with the world of UK sf/f/h magazines, so I had a mini spending spree.

Interzone is an old acquaintance, but it's still pretty much the gold standard for this kind of thing, and has now reached its 25th anniversary. That's an immensely advanced age as sf magazines go, and well deserved given the quality of its design, fiction and non-fiction.

There are some newer mags around these days that tickle my fancy too, though. Postscripts has been going for a little while, and seems pretty well thought of. Judging by the one issue I've now read, it's a class act: good, varied stories, a clean and clear layout and really nice covers. It's the most expensive of the magazines, but then it is a bit chunkier than the others. The next issue, #10, looks to be a giant-sized cornucopia of dark fiction.

Hub is the really new kid on the block, with only one issue out so far. It's got a distinctive design and layout - which maybe needs a little tweaking - but there's some decent stories there, and a ton of potential. Definitely deserves the chance to establish itself. Dark Tales and Forgotten Worlds are rather more basic productions, though Dark Tales in particular is quite nicely put together. Both of them quite appeal to me, for their enthusiasm as much as anything.

I haven't managed to get hold of a copy of Farthing yet (I did try, honestly), so all I can say about it is that I love the covers. Gorgeousness. And the magazine I most want to buy, I can't, because it doesn't exist yet: Black Static, the much-anticipated reincarnation of The Third Alternative, which was arguably the best UK short fiction magazine of any kind in the 1990s.

My main, earth-shattering conclusion: I like sf/f/h short story magazines. I like them as objects, I like their enthusiasm, I like the whole idea of them. There's a lot of people putting in a lot of effort to produce these things (much of it for minimal, or negative, financial reward, I imagine) and it warms the cockles of me heart it does. Short fiction is the fertile humus of the genre (certainly for sf, somewhat less so for fantasy maybe) where many of its innovations and quite a few of its novelists germinate.

What the long term future for print magazines is, who knows (see this for one view), but personally I'm a fan of the whole paper and ink thing. As Cory Doctorow has pointed out, there's reader resistance to e-books, and in my case that resistance extends to e-zines. I'm happy to read all kinds of stuff from a computer screen, but not, it turns out, fiction. I think I find the whole exercise of reading fiction on a monitor too cold and non-immersive. The technology seems to have a distancing effect that a good old-fashioned book or magazine doesn't for me. It's irrational in many ways, but a physical magazine somehow feels to me less disposable, more deserving and more demanding of my attention. Maybe that makes me a dinosaur, but if so I'm happy in my dinosaurhood, for now at least.

Anyway, there's 42 stories in the magazines pictured, each one of them a different world and different voice. You might not like all of them - in fact it'd be downright odd if you did - but somewhere in there is stuff you'd love: go on, give one or two of them a test drive.

Labels: Magazines

There's a very friendly review of Winterbirth over at Pat's Fantasy Hotlist. If all goes according to plan, I should be doing an interview for that site soon, too.

A PS to my last post about Interzone: I discover (via the excellent UK SF Book News) that there's an ambitious newcomer on the UK sf/f/h short fiction scene: Hub Magazine. While idly poking about their website, I further discover that they have a competition in their first issue, in which they seem to be giving away copies of Winterbirth. Now if that doesn't tempt the masses into subscribing nothing will. Maybe. Or not. Anyway, quite aside from their excellent taste in competition prizes, any new fish in the small pond of UK genre magazines is to be welcomed.

Plus: Looks like another European sale of the Godless World trilogy is sorted out, this time for the Czech Republic. Hooray.

And finally: I'm looking forward to this. Rumour has it, it's pretty good once it gets going.

Labels: Magazines, Reviews, Translations, Winterbirth

Twenty-two years elapsed between the publication of these two issues (#s 9 and 207, the first I ever bought and the most recent) of INTERZONE, Britain's leading sf short story magazine. In fact, next year is Interzone's 25th anniversary. That kind of longevity, given the nature of the UK short fiction market, is a frankly astounding achievement. Much of the credit belongs to David Pringle, who was a key player in the magazine's creation and, from the late 80s on, its sole editor and driving force, and to Andy Cox who took over the reins a couple of years ago and re-invented it (perhaps even saved it) for the 21st century.

#s 206 and 207 are the first issues I've read cover to cover in a while, and they're good enough to make me think I should get a subscription again, having let my last one lapse years ago. I'd almost forgotten how much I like a good short story mag - there's a particular kind of uncertain, optimistic anticipation, since you never know quite what you're going to find inside, and somehow reading a magazine always feels to me like a more participatory experience than reading a book. Anyone who likes their sf varied, well-written and nicely presented (not to mention accompanied by some good non-fiction) should give at least one issue of INTERZONE a try.

That illegible list of contributors on the cover of #9, by the way: Brian Aldiss, JG Ballard, Thomas M Disch, M John Harrison. Wow. Those were the days.

I bought my Interzones from Transreal Fiction (doing my bit to support my local independent bookseller and all that) which gives me a tenuous but convenient excuse to mention the signed copies thing. I didn't imagine there'd be any particular interest in getting my autograph on copies of Winterbirth, which just goes to show how little I know (fortunately, I'm sufficiently accustomed to being proved wrong that it came as a mere surprise rather than some kind of terrible shock). There's still just about time to join in. Contact Transreal - details on their website - and they'll willingly sell you a signed (and dedicated, if you like) copy: the perfect Xmas present, since it not only makes the giver and receiver happy but also me and the guy who runs Transreal. Everybody wins!

Labels: Magazines