From richard.horton@sff.net Mon Mar 15 23:43:28 2004 Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2004 17:25:13 -0600 From: Rich Horton Newsgroups: sff.people.richard-horton, sff.discuss.short-fiction Subject: Summary: Some Single Issues, 2003 Summary: Some Single Issues, 2003 Here are a few magazines I only saw one issue from in 2003, though each may well have published more. 1. Aurealis This is the longest-lived Australian magazine currently publishing (and for all I know, ever). It survived a near-death experience and was revived last year, and is now edited by Keith Stevenson. This year I saw the Winter issue, #31. This issue had 3 short stories and 3 novelettes for a total of some 40,000 words of fiction. There was also a very extensive non-fiction section, with reviews, interviews, a science article, and other essays. I thought this issue revealed a predilection for rather exotic SF, which I found fairly interesting. None of the stories are brilliant, but I did rather like Adam Browne's "Space Operetta", and Anthony Fordham's "Steely Harbour". 2. Challenging Destiny This is a Canadian magazine, edited by David M. Switzer. I saw issue #16, June 2003. 5 stories, two of them novelettes (and one short story 7400 words by my count, which could easily be off by 100 words), for a total of about 32,000 words. Again, no really brilliant stories, but the three longer stories were all pretty decent: an amusing space medicine story by Uncle River, "General Density"; a sad story of misunderstanding aliens by A. R. Morlan, "Etamin at East 47th"; and nicely exotic fantasy artform story, "Soothe the Savage Beast" by Michael R. Martin. 3. Fables and Reflections This is another Australian 'zine, a fiction-oriented fanzine (or so I understand), edited by Lily Chrywenstrom. I've seen two issues so far, and they've been fairly impressive for a magazine of (I presume) rather limited resources. From 2003 I saw Issue 5, which has 8 stories, all short, about 19,000 words of fiction. Best was, perhaps not surprisingly, the story by Cat Sparks, a well-established Australian writer, "Our Lady of Spatial Anomalies". I was also intrigued by Alinta Thornton's "Tanglehound", a very strange story that ended up not really working but that showed a lot of imagination. 4. Full Unit Hookup Mark Rudolph's 'zine, which fits more or less into what we might call the "Lady Churchill's School" of small SF 'zines, published some pretty solid work in the issue I saw, #3, Spring 2003. 5 short stories, about 13,000 words. Melissa Yuan-Innes is a writer who caught my eye with a few nice stories this year, and "Waiting for Jenny Rex" was one of them: about a young woman who dies of anorexia nervosa and returns from the dead to be a spokesperson for advocacy about the disease. She is not the first ... The other stories were pretty good, too. Stephen D. Rogers's "Dear Reader" was a nice weird metafictional piece about a man who finds a book about his life. Eric Gardner's "The Medusa Dishroom" is amusing stuff about the aliens taking over and making people work in diners. Jennifer Rachel Baumer's "Tidal Pools" is a moving little story about a man and his mother-in-law dealing with the collapse of the man's marriage. There was also, naturally, a Jay Lake story, a decent short-short. Add some decent poems by such folks as Bruce Boston, Sonya Taaffe, Greg Beatty, Gavin Grant, and others, and some articles both political and literature-oriented -- over all, a worthwhile publication.