Mammoth Book of Best New SF 19 Read online

  It’ll be interesting to see what happens in this market in coming years. As you can see, e-magazines are proliferating at a rapid rate, and some pundits are already saying that they’re the future of the genre short story and will be around long after the print magazines have died, but, as has always been true of print semiprozines and even commercially backed SF magazines, the question is, how long are any of them going to last? In spite of much lower production costs and overheads, a significant bonus (although the money to pay for the stories still has to come from somewhere, even ignoring staff costs), e-zines to date are just as vulnerable to cancellation due to economic factors as the print magazines are; patrons can change their mind or get tired of digging into their pockets, and sponsored sites are vulnerable to the whim of the sponsor, who can pull the plug any time they decide they’re not getting their money’s worth in one sort of coin or another (publicity, prestige, etc.), just as the publishers of print magazines can decide at any time that they’re not getting enough money back to make the expenditure worthwhile. The big question in this market is, as it has been for several years, how can you reliably make money“publishing” fiction online? Until someone figures a way to “publish” an e-magazine and make a good steady profit from it, so that it’s not vulnerable to the whim of a patron or sponser, I don’t believe that e-magazines will really come into their own as “the future of genre short fiction.” Until then, e-magazines aren’t any more secure than print magazines, even with the very real advantages that they enjoy.

  It was not a particularly good year in the print semiprozine market. After returning miraculously from a four year absence with an issue in late 1999 and another in mid-2000, nothing was heard from the prominent fiction semiprozine Century in 2001 — not surprisingly, following the tragic death of the magazine’s coeditor, Jenna Felice, in early 2001.The most recent word, however, is that editor Rob Killheffer does plan to continue the magazine, and promises new issues of Century in 2002. Much of the print fiction semiprozine market was in disarray in 2001, in fact. The long-running Australian fiction semiprozine Eidolon seems to have vanished altogether, although in 2000 a plan was being discussed to revive it online as an online-only “electronic magazine”; so far this doesn’t seem to have happened, although their website (www.eidolon.com) is still there, there doesn’t seem to be much new content on it. Another distinguished and long-running Australian fiction semiprozine, Aurealis, published a final double-issue in 2001 (which we didn’t see; we’ll have to consider the stuff from it for next year) under longtime editors Stephen Higgins and Dirk Strasser, who then sold the magazine and stepped down; Aurealis supposedly will continue, but under the editorship of a new editor, Keith Stevenson. Two newer Australian print fiction semiprozines, Altair and Orb, suspended publication and went on, perhaps, permanent “hiatus,” never a good sign in the semiprozine market; although the editors usually promise that “They’ll be back some day,” the hard fact is that they seldom are. So the Australian fiction semiprozine scene, which seemed to be booming only a few years back, has been left in ruins. Promising American fiction semiprozine Terra Incognita also went “on hiatus” this year. And although I believe they’re still supposed to be in existence, I didn’t see an issue of Tales of the Unanticipated or of Irish semiprozine Albedo One this year either.

  Of the surviving fiction magazines, the titles consolidated under the umbrella of Warren Lapine’s DNA Publications — Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, Weird Tales, Science Fiction Chronicle, the all-vampire-fiction magazine Dreams of Decadence; and Lapine’s original magazine, Absolute Magnitude, The Magazine of Science Fiction Adventures — seem to be doing pretty well overall, with some gains in circulation for Absolute Magnitude, Weird Tales, and Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, although the DNA group lost one magazine this year, Aboriginal Science Fiction, which died after a final issue in 2001.Some of the DNA magazines are still having trouble maintaining their announced publishing schedules, with Absolute Magnitude only publishing three issues and Fantastic Stories of the Imagination only managing two, but Weird Tales, Dreams of Decadence, and Science Fiction Chronicle each published all the issues they were supposed to this year, a big improvement over last year.

  Other hearty survivors included the long-running Canadian semiprozine On Spec, the lively mixed horror/SF semiprozine Talebones, Fiction on the Dark Edge, and the leading British semiprozine, The Third Alternative. On Spec has seemed sunk in the doldrums to me in recent years, with its fiction largely gray and uninteresting, but it seems to have turned the corner in the last year or two, and has been publishing some more interesting stuff, including, this year, interesting stories by James Van Pelt, Steve Mohn, Vera Nazarian, and others; On Spec also published all four promised issues in 2001 (although the Winter 2001 issue arrived late enough that we’ll have to consider the contents for next year). Talebones remains vigorous and fun to read, and seems to me to be leaning a bit away from horror toward fantasy and even science fiction, which to my taste is all to the good; they only published three issues this year, but featured some strong stuff by Ken Scholes, Steve Mohan, Jr., James Van Pelt, and others. The slick, glossy, and handsome The Third Alternative publishes little science fiction, leaning heavily toward slipstream, literary surrealism, and soft horror instead, but the literary quality of their stories, whatever pigeonhole you find for them, is very high, thoroughly professional; they managed three issues as well this year, and published thoroughly professional-level work by Alexander Glass, Simon Ings, Danith McPherson, the ubiquitous James Van Pelt, and others.

  A relative newcomer, Artemis Magazine: Science and Fiction for a Space-Faring Society managed two issues this year, featuring good work by G. David Nordley, Jack McDevitt, and others; I’m pleased to see that they have given up on (or at least loosened up on considerably) their too-limiting policy of only publishing stories about moon colonization, and it’s good to see a semiprozine that concentrates on core science fiction rather than horror or slipstream. Artemis’s biggest challenge is going to be to shake the widely held opinion that it’s only Analog-lite and forge a new identity for itself. Another interesting newcomer, worlds apart from Artemis in editorial personality, is Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, which leans heavily toward the slipstream/literary surrealism end of the spectrum, but which is often entertaining and freshly written, and often features stories of that sort from well-known SF professionals.

  Black Gate, a slick large-format fantasy magazine that supposedly concentrates on “Sword & Sorcery” and “High Fantasy,” managed two thick issues this year, an encouraging sign, as last year it was rumored to be in trouble, which it apparently has survived.

  I don’t follow the horror semiprozine market enough any more to make even a partial survey worthwhile, but as far as I can tell, the most prominent magazines there seem to be are Talebones and the highly respected Cemetery Dance.

  Little has changed, as usual, in the critical magazine market. Your best bets, and by far the most reliably published, are the two “newszines,” Charles N. Brown’s Locus (which celebrated its thirtieth anniversary this year) and Andy Porter’s SF Chronicle (which, after an erratic period, has reestablished a reliable publishing schedule as part of Warren Lapine’s DNA Publishing Group), and David G. Hartwell’s eclectic critical magazine The New York Review of Science Fiction. Lawrence Person’s more freewheeling and playful Nova Express managed only one issue this year, although it was fun to read. A new magazine that reviews short fiction, The Fix, brought to you by the same folks who put out The Third Alternative, was announced this year, and could be a very welcome addition to this market, but we haven’t seen it yet.

  (Locus, The Newspaper of the Science Fiction Field, Locus Publications, Inc., P.O. Box 13305, Oakland, California 94661–$56.00 for a one-year first class subscription, 12 issues; The New York Review Of Science Fiction, Dragon Press, P.O. Box 78, Pleasantville, NY, 10570 — $32.00 per year, 12 issues; Nova Express, P.O. Box 27231, Austin, Texas 7875
5-2231 — $12 for a one-year (four issue) subscription; On Spec, More Than Just Science Fiction, P.O. Box 4727, Edmonton, AB, Canada T6E 5G6 — $18 for a one-year subscription; Aurealis, the Australian Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Chimaera Publications, P.O. Box 2164, Mt. Waverley, Victoria 3149, Australia — $43 for a four-issue overseas airmail subscription, “all cheques and money orders must be made out to Chimarea Publications in Australian dollars”; Eidolon, the Journal of Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy, Eidolon Publications, P.O. Box 225, North Perth, Western Australia 6906 — $45 (Australian) for a 4-issue overseas airmail subscription, payable to Eidolon Publications; Altair, Alternate Airings in Speculative Fiction, PO Box 475, Blackwood, South Australia, 5051, Australia — $36 for a four-issue subscription; Albedo, Albedo One Productions, 2 Post Road, Lusk, Co., Dublin, Ireland — $34 for a four-issue airmail subscription, make checks payable to “Albedo One”; Pirate Writings, Tales of Fantasy, Mystery & Science Fiction, Absolute Magnitude, The Magazine of Science Fiction Adventures, Aboriginal Science Fiction, Weird Tales, Dreams of Decadence, Science Fiction Chronicle — all available from DNA Publications, P.O. Box 2988, Radford, VA 24142-2988 — all available for $16 for a one-year subscription, although you can get a group subscription to all five DNA fiction magazines for $70 a year, with Science Fiction Chronicle $45 a year (12 issues), all checks payable to “D.N.A. Publications”; Century, Century Publishing, P.O. Box 150510, Brooklyn, NY 11215-0510 — $20 for a four-issue subscription; Terra Incognita, Terra Incognita, 52 Windermere Avenue #3, Lansdowne, PA 19050-1812 — $15 for four issues; Tales of the Unanticipated, Box 8036, Lake Street Station, Minneapolis, MN 55408 — $15 for a four-issue subscription; Space and Time, 138 W.70th Street (4B), New York, NY 10023-4468 — $10.00 for a 2-issue subscription (one year) — $20.00 for a 4-issue subscription (two years); Artemis Magazine: Science and Fiction for a Space-Faring Society, LRC Publications, 1380 E.17th St., Suite 201, Brooklyn NY 11230-6011 — $15 for a four-issue subscription, checks payable to LRC Publications; Talebones, Fiction on the Dark Edge, 5203 Quincy Ave SE, Auburn, WA 98092 — $18 for four issues; The Third Alternative, TTA Press, 5 Martins Lane, Witcham, Ely, Cambs. CB6 2LB, England, UK — $22 for a four-issue subscription, checks made payable to “TTA Press”; Black Gate, New Epoch Press, 815 Oak Street, St. Charles, IL 60174, $25.95 for a one-year (four issue) subscription; Cemetery Dance, CD Publications, Box 18433, Baltimore, MD 21237; Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Small Beer Press, 360 Atlantic Avenue, PMB #132, Brooklyn, NY 11217 — $12 for four issues, all checks payable to Gavin Grant. Many of these magazines can also be ordered online, at their web-sites; see the online section, above, for URLs.)

  2001 proved itself to be an even weaker year for original anthologies than 2000 had been. There were a couple of anthologies with first-rate material in them, but nothing that clearly stepped forward to unequivocally seize the title of “Year’s Best Anthology,” as has been the case in other years. In fact, I’d gladly give that title to Futures (Warner Aspect), edited by Peter Crowther, which was stronger than either of the anthologies I’m about to consider as the year’s best choices, but as the novellas it contains were all published as individual chapbooks in Britain in 2000, and the anthology as a whole was itself published before in Britain last year, I finally decided it belonged in the reprint anthology section (you can read more about it there).

  Discounting Futures, the best of the remaining lot, by a good margin, were probably Starlight 3 (Tor), edited by Patrick Neilsen Hayden and Redshift: Extreme Visions of Speculative Fiction (Roc), edited by Al Sarrantonio, although both books were uneven, with as many mediocre-to-poor stories as good ones.

  Starlight 3 struck me as the weakest of the three Starlight volumes (although it still featured much worthwhile material), and had the drawback — for me, anyway, with my own particular bias toward science fiction — of featuring more fantasy and horror stories than science fiction stories, and what science fiction stories there were seemed weaker in literary quality than the fantasy stories. The best story here is clearly Ted Chiang’s horrific “Hell Is the Absence of God,” followed by Susan Palwick’s equally emotionally grueling “Gestella,” and Maureen F. McHugh’s “Interview: On Any Given Day,” the only science fiction story to make it into the top slice. A step below these would be Andy Duncan’s “Senator Bilbo” and Colin Greenland’s “Wings.” The anthology also features interesting stories by Stephen Baxer, Terry Bisson, D.G. Compton, Susanna Clarke, Cory Doctorow, Alex Irvine, and others. Not a bad value overall, for the cover price, but not as substantial as the previous volumes had been, either.

  Redshift is a pretty good anthology overall, too, but it shoots itself in the foot with its annoyingly shrill and overheated self-hype, which bills it as this century’s Dangerous Visions, an anthology so revolutionary that it’s going to change the future direction of science fiction forever (and trots out once again the tired old line about how these stories would have been too “dangerous” for the timid genre magazine market; simply not true, as far as I can tell, although a few of them may have been rejected by science fiction magazines not because they are so “dangerous,” but because they’re not science fiction).Well, even allowing for the changed social context of the times, which makes the appearance of a true Dangerous Visions-like volume much more difficult, if not impossible, Redshift is no Dangerous Visions; it can’t even claim clear title to being the best anthology of the year, and there have certainly been original anthologies in the last few years (such as Greg Bear’s New Legends anthology, for instance) that were not only better in terms of overall literary quality, but which were more significant indicators of what may be to come for science fiction. And for a cutting-edge science fiction anthology, one that’s supposed to point the way to the genre’s future, Redshift sure contains a lot of mediocre horror stories. Redshift is such a large anthology, though, that by even discounting a good half of it (which you can), you’re still left with some pretty solid and worthwhile material. The best story here is clearly Dan Simmons’s “On K2 with Kanakaredes,” followed by Neal Barrett, Jr.’s surreal “Rhido Wars” (beneath the bizarre surface of which I believe I can discern a-told-by-implication and nearly subliminal actual science fiction story), and James Patrick Kelly’s “Unique Visitors.” A step below these would be Harry Turtledove’s “Black Tulip,” a perfectly fine mainstream story about soldiers on different sides of the Afghan/Russian wars that is cheapened by the addition of an unnecessary and intrusive fantastic element; and Elizabeth Hand’s “Cleopatra Brimstone,” an exquisitely written story about a young girl struggling to come to some psychological accommodation with having been raped, which is also marred by the inclusion of a (rather silly) fantastic element and a well-worn horror-cliche ending that may make you regret the time you put into reading the story’s very well-crafted 20,000 words. Redshift also contains good material by Ursula K. Le Guin, Larry Niven, Gene Wolfe, Stephen Baxter, Joe Haldeman, Jack Dann, Gregory Benford, Rudy Rucker, and John Shirley, and others. On the whole, then, a pretty good reading value for the money, even if it doesn’t come anywhere near to living up to its own self-hype, and even if a good half of the selections are mediocre-to-bad; there’s still a lot of good material left over.

  After this point, you pretty quickly run out of options for other really worthwhile original anthologies. The best of what’s left is probably Bones of the World: Tales from Time’s End (sff.net), this year’s assembled-online “sff.net” anthology (volume IV in the “Darkfire” anthology series) edited by Bruce Holland Rogers. Bones of the World may be the best of these volumes yet in terms of overall quality, although there’s no real standout story able to compete on the same level with the year’s other superior stuff; the best story here is probably Daniel Abraham’s “A Good Move in Design Space,” followed by James Van Pelt’s “The Last Age Should Show Your Heart” and M. Shayne Bell’s “Ragnarok of the Post Humans: Final Transmissions, Sam 43 Unit 763,” although there is also worthwhile mat
erial here by Lois Tilton, David Ira Cleary, Jerry Oltion, Brian Plante, and others.(You won’t find this one in stores, so mail-order from: SFF Net, 3300 Big Horn Trail, Plano, TX 75075 — $14.95 for Bones of the World: Tales from Time’s End; the book can also be ordered online at sff.net, and back titles in the Darkfire series can be ordered either by mail or online).

  After this point, it’s mostly minor anthologies that may well be worth their (usually relatively low) cover price to you in terms of entertainment value, but for the most part contain at best only competent, second-rank work, stuff that may be entertaining but will be largely forgotten by this time next year: Silicon Dreams (DAW), edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Larry Segriff; Past Imperfect (DAW), edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Larry Segriff; and The Mutant Files (DAW), edited by Martin H. Greenberg and John Helfers. And, as usual, L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume XVII (Bridge), edited by Algis Budrys, presents novice work by beginning writers, some of whom may later turn out to be important talents.

  There was actually a shared-world anthology this year that was a better value for your money: The Man-Kzin Wars IX (Baen), edited by Larry Niven, one of the best volumes of this long-running series in some while, featuring four strong novellas, including Poul Anderson’s last science fiction novella, “Pele,” Hal Colebatch’s “The Sergeant’s Honor,” and Niven’s own “Fly-By-Night.”