by Gary Westfahl There are at least three approaches one might take in evaluating Rian Johnson’s Looper. Considered in terms of what the film aspired to be – a crowd-pleasing blockbuster that would earn its creators lots of money – it seems a likely success: the film provides more than enough of the thrills and [...]

December already – at least for the digests. Time to start thinking about the Year’s Best lists. Alas, no Christmas stories. Publications Reviewed Asimov’s, December 2012 Analog, December 2012 Jabberwocky, August 2012 Tor.com, August – September 2012 Asimov’s, December 2012 Featuring a rocking novella by Steven Popkes. “Sudden, Broken, and Unexpected” by Steven Popkes Twelve [...]

The most unusual story in Windeye, Brian Evenson’s outstanding new collection of short fiction, is devoid of the reality slips and nods to the supernormal that distinguish the other 24 stories in the book. In fact, it doesn’t even read like fiction. In ‘‘Bon Scott: The Choir Years’’, Evenson, addressing the reader as himself, relates [...]

This generous, stimulating, mammoth compendium commemorates the fifty-two years of Neal Barrett Jr.’s short-story production, and arrives none too soon, while the author is still a sprightly young eighty-three-years old. John Clute notes, in The Science Fiction Encyclopedia, that Barrett “has never published prolifically in shorter forms.” But even a few stories per year over [...]

With Ash and Huntress, Malinda Lo established herself as a go-to author for anyone looking for a fresh take on high fantasy. Lush writing supported stories influenced by classic fantasy storytelling, but incorporating Asian-inspired elements into the world-building and featuring rich, complex love stories between girls. Now with Adaptation Lo turns her focus in an [...]

A Good Story award this time, for the Molly Gloss piece in Strange Horizons. I also have a few remarks on the matter of character namelessness. Publications Reviewed Subterranean, Fall 2012 Strange Horizons, September 2012 Lightspeed, September 2012 Beneath Ceaseless Skies #103-104, September 2012 Subterranean, Fall 2012 Four lengthy stories in this issue, of which [...]

James Blaylock’s career is nearly exactly the same length as my own. Although we’ve had hardly any informal contacts down the decades, I’ve nonetheless always felt a secret kinship that extends beyond my love of his work. After all, we both debuted in the pages of Unearth magazine, that vehicle of sainted memory whose mission [...]

In his brief afterword to ‘‘Relic’’, possibly the most brilliant of the 20 stories collected in his Crackpot Palace, Jeffrey Ford notes that the book ‘‘has many secret passageways that connect its rooms, so that two tales told in different styles and seeming to have different concerns might actually be secretly linked through image or [...]

Catching up with a few stories that didn’t make it into the August column, notably from Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Also the abrupt shutdown of Redstone. Publications Reviewed Beneath Ceaseless Skies #101-102 August 2012 On Spec, Summer 2012 Journal of Unlikely Entomology, Issue 3.5, August 2012 Redstone SF, September 2012 Clarkesworld, September 2012 GigaNotoSaurus, September 2012 [...]