Category: plug

Strange Horizons is a multi-awarded, US-based online speculative fiction magazine founded in September 2000. A non-profit magazine, Strange Horizons receives financial support via “direct donations (through PayPal or by check), arts grants, corporate sponsorship, and affiliate programs through Amazon.com and Powell’s Books”. Every Monday Strange Horizons uploads a new piece of fiction which is accessible free of charge (they also have various non-fiction pieces, as well as reviews, though these follow a different schedule), although of course readers are encouraged to donate if they have the means to do so.

Here are my thoughts on the stories published by Strange Horizons in the month of May. As always, Spoiler Warning applies, so do check out the stories at the website (older stories can be found in the archives) before reading on.

WE HEART VAMPIRES!!!

I saw the multiple exclamation points in this story’s title, and I knew – I knew – I was in for something terribly terrific.

How can you fail, with a paragraph like this?

George found Bob puzzling over the new Clairol “Tru U!” offerings. It seemed to George that every product aimed at their demographic was missing a significant amount of letters. She understood this came from txting and IM. But George dropped letters because it was faster that way, not because she didn’t like the look of the English language. She was worried that soon she’d pass through a strange teenage Ellis Island where smiling marketing interns, like the kind that messaged you on MySpace back when people used MySpace, would refashion her name and give her a new, de-lettered identity. It would be something terrible, too, like Gorg. Bob—Roberta—would get something cool. Like Ta. Or Ro.

Read more here.

I began reading genre fiction simply to entertain myself. Then, I read it to learn and hone my skills as a fiction writer. You may think that if I’m always on the lookout for new ideas while reading, that it would be impossible for these novels to provide escape. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. Good stories give you words, but make you forget the words. All good stories do.

I’ve always enjoyed a good ghost story, whether it be found in a book or via some other medium. I would get terribly sad whenever I missed the Halloween episode of the now defunct Magandang Gabi Bayan (which my siblings and I watched in bed with a blanket around our shoulders – at least the first few iterations of the special, when they were still scary). I also enjoyed reading about different kinds of mental illness, and given my particular affinities, how could I not fall in love with the horror genre, which offered all these and more? I got it into my head that I wanted to write a horror novel, and so I treated every short story and book I read as research, and, more importantly, as a challenge.

Read more here.

In Bob Neihart’s 2007 interview with Stephen King’s son and best-selling horror writer, Joe Hill, Ben Neihart said, “Hill writes in two traditions that he would argue are artificially walled off from each other: genre fiction, with its emphasis on breakneck, often outrageous, plot and metaphor; and literary realism, which values detailed characterization, psychological depth and subtle epiphanies.”

What an excellent description! And what a description that completely escaped me as a child, a young reader who wasn’t aware of these traditions at all, who knew only to categorize stories as either “good” or “boring”. Back then, all I wanted was to get from Point A to Point B–and to get to Point B fast. Who cares about lovely turns of phrases and language and words, who cares about character development? I only cared about one thing: what’s the plot? Is someone going to end up dead? Is there a lot of gore? Is there a twist? Is there a monster in it? During those early years of my life as a reader, nobody told me what to read. Nobody served as a guide, so I read whatever I found amusing, and I read blindly. Reading then was like walking around a dark house during a thunderstorm, and I believed, in my heart of hearts, that I’d be more excited if I reached out a hand and touched a large, slimy creature, than if I came upon a room within which a young woman sat in silence and mourned the sudden end of her youth. (Unless the sudden end of her youth turned her into a large, slimy creature. Then that would be seriously awesome.)

And so I gravitated toward the plot-driven stories, which turned out to belong to the genre fiction tradition.

Read more here.

Part 2 to follow.

Crossed Genres is an online science fiction and fantasy magazine that “supports equal rights and equal treatment regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation or religion”. It releases monthly themed issues, challenging writers to combine that month’s theme genre with science fiction and/or fantasy (hence the name “Crossed Genres”) and has released an anthology called “Year One”, a collection of stories selected from the first twelve issues of the magazine. The theme for May’s Issue 18, the subject of this review, is “Eastern”, broadly defined as any story set in an Eastern culture. Spoiler Warning from here on out, so read the stories for free here (and if you like the issue, donate or buy a downloadable digital copy) then pop on back for the review.

The review.

Expanded Horizons, which began publishing stories in 2008, is an online speculative fiction publication that aims to increase diversity in the field, “both in the authors who contribute and in the perspectives presented”. Its specific objectives include increasing the number of women authors in speculative fiction, and increasing authentic ethnic diversity in stories written in this field.

It recently made the longlist of the British Fantasy Awards under the category, “Best Magazine”.

In its latest issue (Issue 18), Expanded Horizons includes stories set in India, Nigeria, the US, and the Philippines, with protagonists ranging from a lonely ghost to a woman who craves human flesh. Here are my impressions of the various stories–obviously, Spoiler Warning applies, so do check out the issue before reading on.

The stories.