Eugie Foster’s stunning novelette, “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast” [originally published in Interzone] is the highlight of Apex Magazine’s August 2009 issue. Each day, the nameless narrator dons a different, exquisitely crafted mask and takes on a persona tied to that mask, complete with unique life circumstances. All of the [...]

In “Dancing for the Monsoon” by Aliette de Bodard, the chosen women perform to entice the gods to bring rain, then suffer paralysis. Nampeng couldn’t go through with it and has redeemed herself by training Khean to take her place and save the suffering people from drought. It didn’t make sense to me that the [...]

Adam-Troy Casto opens this issue of Analog with “Among The Tchi”. It’s not as successful as his “Gunfight on Farside” in the previous issue, but not many stories are. It’s still an intruiging novelette that will remind many readers of the type of archly decadent tales that Mathew Hughes excels at writing. Castro’s human characters [...]

This is the second volume of the Warrior Wisewoman anthologies, billed as “stories about powerful and remarkable women.” Not all the woman here are powerful, not all of them are even truly remarkable – but the anthology certainly delivers a variety of solid, clear stories revolving around women, and that’s pretty interesting on its own. In [...]

Issue 24 of Ian Redman’s science fiction magazine Jupiter begins with “Black Water” by David Conyers. In a future Africa starved of water, Joseph Nuwangi bluffs his way into a wealthy corporation with the intention of stealing some of the pure Grade A stuff. The corporation has dire punishments in store for anyone found to [...]

Earlier this year I immersed myself in online fiction through the annual storySouth Million Writers Award, which it’s my joy to run. The great thing about the award is it’s a fun way to keep up with online fiction trends—and the biggest trend this year was how the number of quality online short fiction venues [...]

Edited by Joe Derrick (formerly Jo Good of ‘QWF’ fame – good to see you back in action, Jo!), The Yellow Room comes in A5 format and comprises a generous 11 short stories, guidelines for the autumn short story competition (£4 entry fee for a story less than 2,500 words or £10 for [...]

Always the source of excellent fiction, issue #14 of Supernatural Tales, David Longhorn’s brainchild, is more captivating than ever, thanks also to the inclusion of a couple of stories which will last long in the readers’ memory as outstanding examples of what the genre, at its best, can produce. First of all let me give inconditionate [...]

Clarkesworld Magazine has delivered its most dream-like issue with its May offering. Its two stories eschew conventional narrative strategies in favor of world-building, setting and poetic experimentation. Neither completely succeeds in my view, but they’re both rewarding and challenging reads, and more memorable than many other stories out there. The fact that Clarkesworld continues to find [...]

The May 2009 issue of Apex Magazine features three stories of characters navigating a changed or changing world. “Hideki and the Gnomes” by Mark Lee Pearson has the haunting quality of a dark fairy tale murmured in the flickering light of a dying fire. Yet it is entirely modern. Hideki looks on as, one by one, [...]

Issue six of Sybil’s Garage from Senses Five Press is fun. Few journals and magazines I’ve read could be described with the “F” word, and probably fewer still aspire to it at all. Liberally illustrated, this issue is crowded with 16 works of fiction, an interview with Paul Tremblay, and 13 poems. Not only that, [...]

If you read just one of the three stories in the April issue of Apex Magazine, make it “Waiting for Jakie” by Barbara Krasnoff. With the help of just a little extra anxiety medication (”who would begrudge it”), an elderly Holocaust survivor journeys back decades and thousands of miles to step into the consciousness of [...]

Editor Jo Derrick shares, in the chatty, comfortable way that women tend to communicate, how the British literary journal The Yellow Room rose from the ashes of Quality Women’s Fiction and Cadenza. And the stories in this anthology read like diaries, psychoanalytic confessions and sometimes, suicide notes. The momentum of the women’s movement in the [...]

“The Artist and His Mother” by Steve Rasnic Tem “Beautiful Calamity” by Maura McHugh “The Place That Makes You Happiest” by T. L. Morganfield “Like a Stone Wall” by Danny Adams “Salt Feels No Pain” by Marie Brennan “Last Voyage” by Natasha Simonova “For Want of Sympathy” by Ernesto Brosa The coolest thing about alternate history stories is you get to view [...]

After a year of reviewing all the Escape Artists stories for The Fix Online, this month From the Podosphere will ring the changes and not cover anything from Escape Pod, Pseudopod or PodCastle. I’ve nothing against the undoubted leader in podcast short fiction, but editorial suggestions have been made about casting the net wider, [...]