Some of the usual magazines, plus a print anthology and a novella chapbook. The Good Story award goes to Robert Reed, who has two stories this month in online venues. If all goes well, we’re also trying something new: direct links to stories published online. I’d like to know if readers find this feature helpful. [...]

While major publishers can be forgiven for emphasizing the familiar in blurbs, especially for the start of a new fantasy series, Orbit’s touting of The Dragon’s Path by Daniel Abraham (Book One of The Dagger and the Coin) as ‘‘the epic fantasy launch of the year,’’ with its ‘‘swords, magic, intrigue, and war,’’ may manage [...]

Margo Lanagan always seems to be a couple of steps ahead of us, like a tricksterish lightning bug that is never in the jar you thought you’d put it in. A little over a year ago, Interfictions 2 published a story by Will Ludwigsen in which a house uproots itself and starts traveling to Florida, and [...]

Not a lot of stories this time, but not many disappointments, either. I give the good story award to the very short piece by Kat Howard in Apex. Publications Reviewed Realms of Fantasy, April 2011 Subterranean, Spring 2011 Apex Magazine, March 2011 cover image not available Realms of Fantasy, April 2011 Damnation Press is celebrating [...]

Discussing the new sequel to his 2007 debut The Name of the Wind in a Locus interview last August, Patrick Rothfuss said ‘‘I’d like to find out how many normal-sized books The Wise Man’s Fear would equal in terms of wordcount (I’m guessing it’s at least three).’’ Name, first in fantasy trilogy The Kingkiller Chronicle, [...]

Both: We had one hope going into Battle: Los Angeles: That it would be better than Skyline. Thankfully, it met this very, very low criteria for success. Beyond that, the question of whether you’ll it like boils down to this: How much originality do you require in your science fiction films? If the answer is [...]

by Gary Westfahl Almost fifty years after the Mariner 4 space probe first established beyond any doubt that the planet Mars was barren, and almost certainly lifeless, humanity still clings to its visions of an ancient, advanced, but decadent Martian civilization, a mythology persuasively crafted long ago by that masterful science fiction writer who called [...]

One of the things you quickly realize while reading Robert Silverberg’s second essay collection Musings and Meditations (the first was Reflections and Refractions back in 1997) is that there are not many people you can talk to who remember what he remembers, and fewer who remember it with such acuity, charm, and a graceful even-handedness that sometimes borders on [...]

by Gary Westfahl The operatives of Hollywood’s Adjustment Bureau had gathered to map out strategies for their latest assignment: given this quirky little story by Philip K. Dick, “Adjustment Team” (1954), how could they “adjust” its plot to transform it into a crowd-pleasing blockbuster? A few problems were obvious, like the story’s protagonists, a working-class [...]

Previewing an anthology along with the usual first-of-the-month ezines. The good story award goes to the overt horror of Norman Partridge’s “Vampire Lake” from the Subterranean anthology. Publications Reviewed Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy 2, edited by William Schafer Intergalactic Medicine Show #21, February 2011 Clarkesworld #54, March 2011 Redstone Science Fiction #10, March 2011 [...]