From richard.horton@sff.net Mon Mar 15 23:42:02 2004 Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2003 19:50:49 -0600 From: Rich Horton Newsgroups: sff.people.richard-horton, sff.discuss.short-fiction Subject: Summary: Tales of the Unanticipated, 2003 Summary: Tale of the Unanticipated, 2003 Tales of the Unanticipated has for several years been appearing once yearly. However it is a very nicely produced and generously sized magazine, and it publishes more fiction by word count each year than Say... or LCRW or Talebones or any of several other magazines. TOTU also publishes a lot of poetry, and to my taste, some of the best SFnal poetry that I see. This year TOTU became independent of its founding organization, the Minnesota Science Fiction Society, for financial reason. Eric Heideman remains the editor-in-chief, Rebecca Marjesdatter is the poetry. This issue, #24, featured 18 stories, one of them a novelette, for a total of 75,000 words of fiction. (It was somewhat heartening that the editorial advertised 75,000 words of fiction, and my word counting methods came up with 75,400.) Notable stories include Eleanor Arnason's "Big Black Mama and the Tentacle Man", a posthuman galactic-set tall tale, related to her Asimov's story "Big Ugly Mama and the Zk"; Patricia S. Bowne's "Unite and Conquer", a nice novelette set in her "magic university" milieu (another story in the same setting, "Want's Master" appeared in last year's TOTU*) -- in this one, a professor has to decide whether to accept a promotion while also worrying about another professor who has disappeared; "Miracle Green Adobe" by Uncle River, an odd story set in an odd, apparently post-some-sort-of-apocalypse, future; and Mark Rich's "The School for Old Men", set after a treatment has become available freezing people at a given age. This remains one of the best looking semipro magazines, with some of the best quality fiction. *("Want's Master" was published under the pseudonym "A. B. Ming", which Bowne has since abandoned. She is a regular poster at rec.arts.sf.composition, and I was confused when she mentioned there that her story "Want's Master" was selected for The Year's Best Fantasy. "Wait a minute!", I said, "That's by A. B. Ming!")