http://www.Fictionwise.com Fictionwise.com: Best-Selling Titles From Dell Magazines http://www.Fictionwise.com/ebooks/ebook83472.htm Adam-Troy Castro is back in our May issue with "Among the Tchi," a sneaky bit of satire that I suspect will ring a bell with lots of readers. It has a great variety of company, with stories by Tom Ligon, Alexis Glynn Latner, Robert R. Chase, Shane Tourtellotte, and Steven Gould featuring an invigorating mix of adventure, alien worlds, and a touch of romance, among other things--always including, above all, imagination and thought-provoking entertainment. Richard A. Lovett's science fact article has a very long title, beginning with "Geology, Geohistory, and iż˝Psychohistory,'" but the essence of it is the perennial debate between "uniformitarians" and "catastrophists": scholars who see history in terms of broad, long-term trends and those who see it in terms of sudden pivotal events. As usual, such a dichotomy is an oversimplification, and the truth is more like this.... CONTENTS Reader's Department: EDITORIAL: NOISY SIGNALS by Stanley Schmidt Novelette: AMONG THE TCHI by Adam-Troy Castro Science Fact: GEOLOGY, GEOHISTORY, AND "PSYCHOHISTORY": THE (CONTINUING) DEBATE BETWEEN UNIFORMITARIANS AND CATASTROPHISTS by Richard A. Lovett Novelette: QUICKFEATHERS by Alexis Glynn Latner Novelette: RENDEZVOUS AT ANGELS THIRTY by Tom Ligon Reader's Department: IN TIMES TO COME Reader's Department: RADIOACTIVE DECAY AND THE EARTH-SUN DISTANCE by John G. Cramer Novelette: A STORY, WITH BEANS by Steven Gould Novelette: THE SLEEPING BEAUTIES by Robert R. Chase Reader's Department: GUEST REFERENCE LIBRARY by Don D'Ammassa Reader's Department: MINI-REFERENCE LIBRARY by Tom Easton Reader's Department: BRASS TACKS Reader's Department: UPCOMING EVENTS by Anthony Lewis http://www.Fictionwise.com/ebooks/ebook83471.htm Next month we celebrate all that is fine and good about science fiction in our April/May double issue; a bargain at any price, for it has two excellent novellas on offer, as well as a piquant melange of shorter works, all by some of the best writers in the genre. Our lead novella, with a striking cover image courtesy of SF artist Paul Youll, is Kristine Kathryn Rusch's "The Spires of Denon," a stand-alone addition to her popular "Diving into the Wreck" universe. This time we find a group of archaeologists, a crack duo of cave divers, and a no-nonsense security-leader, all with cloudy motives, somehow working together to comprehend the alien purpose of the titular spires. By story's end, you'll find that nothing on Denon is quite what it seems. Next, we have Brian Stableford's grand conclusion to his series of not-exactly-Elizabethan space operas, "The Great Armada." Dee, Drake, and the rest of the motley historical cast (with some surprising additions, as well as a golem) must take the initiative against the Selenites directly into space, with the aid of their own flotilla of etheric attack ships. The final battle versus these invaders will surely lead to Fleshcore, arachnid, and human casualties. Who lives? Who dies? Read and find out. But that's not all: SF legend Kate Wilhelm returns with the discomfiting story of "An Ordinary Day with Jason"; Deborah Coates charms with an SF concept straight out of the pleasant dreams of this managing editor: "Cowgirls in Space"; Chris Beckett returns with P.K. Dick-inspired mind-mangler "Atomic Truth"; Nancy Kress gives us a sneak-peek at a future-culture game of telephone in "Exegesis"; Robert Reed considers the merits and dangers of "True Fame"; Michael Swanwick and Eileen Gunn team up for the nightmare invasion of "The Armies of Elfland"; Jack Skillingstead pens the tale of a desperate, paranoid man's "Human Day"; and Damien Broderick's fine "This Wind Blowing, and This Tide" explores a mysterious alien shipwreck on Saturn's moon Titan with a decidely unusual science team! Our April/May issue will be on sale at your newsstands on March 3, 2009. CONTENTS Department: EDITORIAL: 400 by Sheila Williams Department: REFLECTIONS: REREADING VAN VOGT by Robert Silverberg Novella: THE GREAT ARMADA by Brian Stableford Short Story: TRUE FAME by Robert Reed Short Story: AN ORDINARY DAY WITH JASON by Kate Wilhelm Poetry: SMALL CONQUERORS by Geoffrey A. Landis Short Story: ATOMIC TRUTH by Chris Beckett Novelette: THE ARMIES OF ELFLAND by Eileen Gunn and Michael Swanwick Poetry: We Ignore Him by P M F Johnson Short Story: HUMAN DAY by Jack Skillingstead Short Story: COWGIRLS IN SPACE by Deborah Coates Poetry: BRIDGES by Peter Roberts Novelette: THIS WIND BLOWING, AND THIS TIDE by Damien Broderick Department: NEXT ISSUE Short Story: EXEGESIS by Nancy Kress Novella: THE SPIRES OF DENON by Kristine Kathryn Rusch Department: ON BOOKS: WHAT KILLED TOM DISCH? by Norman Spinrad Department: SF CONVENTIONAL CALENDAR by Erwin S. Strauss http://www.Fictionwise.com/ebooks/ebook1108.htm Analog Science Fiction and Fact began as Astounding Stories of Super-Science in 1930, and has continuously published the vanguard of SF with an emphasis on science--helping to launch the careers of such luminaries as Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Frank Herbert, Anne McCaffrey, and Orson Scott Card, to name a few. This subscription includes a whole year's set of eBook issues: eight monthly single issues (regular newsstand price $3.99) and two double-issues--January/February and July/August (regular newsstand price $5.99). The subscription price is a savings of 25% versus buying each issue at the regular price! Each new issue automatically appears in your bookshelf when it becomes available, and you will receive an email notification when new issues arrive. Subscriptions are convenient and save you money! http://www.Fictionwise.com/ebooks/ebook79794.htm Our April issue offers quite a variety of stories, of all shapes, sizes, and flavors. At one extreme is Adam-Troy Castro's "Gunfight On Farside," a striking case study in why "what everybody knows" isn't necessarily what is. At the other end are a trio of quite different short stories by Eric James Stone, Jerry Oltion, and H. G. Stratmann. In between we have a pair of contrastingly quirky novelettes by Mark Rich and Mary Turzillo, with the contrastingly quirky titles of "Foe" and "Steak Tartare and the Cats of Gari Babakin." In the science fact department, astronomer Kevin Walsh returns with another of his looks at the ever-expanding diversity of planets that we're finally learning exist--or could exist--out there. This time his topic is "Ribbonland," a kind of world long favored by science fiction writers on which habitability is confined to one or more bands of latitude. Just how habitable would those be, and what surprises might they have up their metaphorical sleeves? Read our April issue and find out.... CONTENTS Reader's Department: EDITORIAL: RESEARCH I by Stanley Schmidt Novella: GUNFIGHT ON FARSIDE by Adam-Troy Castro Science Fact: RIBBONLAND by Kevin Walsh Short Story: THE FINAL ELEMENT by Eric James Stone Reader's Department: BIOLOG: ERIC JAMES STONE by Richard A. Lovett Short Story: A JUG OF WINE AND THOU by Jerry Oltion Probability Zero: ARMCHAIR SCIENTIST by David Bartell Reader's Department: THE ALTERNATE VIEW: COLD FUSION TURNS 20 by Jeffery D. Kooistra Short Story: THE INVASION by H. G. Stratmann Novelette: STEAK TARTARE AND THE CATS OF GARI BABAKIN STATION by Mary Turzillo Novelette: FOE by Mark Rich Reader's Department: GUEST REFERENCE LIBRARY by Richard Foss Reader's Department: BRASS TACKS Reader's Department: IN TIMES TO COME Reader's Department: UPCOMING EVENTS by Anthony Lewis http://www.Fictionwise.com/ebooks/ebook79793.htm Periodically, there's idle talk here and there about the apparent death of the short story; of how it seems to be of little relevance or interest to today's readership. We see no such weakening from our vantage point and we think, once you've read what we have to offer in our March issue, you too will agree that the rumors of the short story's demise have, as usual, been greatly exaggerated. As Steven Millhauser so admirably wrote in a recent essay for the New York Times, the short story's "method is revelation . . . its littleness is the agency of its power." We couldn't agree more. To begin with, consider March's novella by multiple award-winner Nancy Kress, "Act One": Barry Tenler, dwarf manager to Desmondesque actress Jane Snow, must somehow juggle his responsibilities resuscitating her flagging career while navigating both his failed marriage and the difficult post-9/11 future Snow finds herself embroiled in. To make matters worse, the bio-terrorists of this future do not wield bombs, but, instead, a more sinister kind of transmitted virus: involuntary empathy. Harry Turtledove returns in March with a bleak and sure to be controversial look at the hazards of "Getting Real"; Holly Phillips, making her welcome return to Asimov's, presents a wholly different sort of bleak as the next ice age descends upon a new, northern fin de siandegrave;cle in "The Long, Cold Goodbye"; Sara Genge regales with a tale of ragged mud-pirates swashbuckling their way across the lumbering lines of alien elephant caravans in "Slow Stampede"; Benjamin Crowell, making his Asimov's debut, the witty "Whatness," that may well prove dogs to be the great intelligence on this planet most worth preserving; and R. Neube contributes his patented blend of funny/scary wit with a tale of a decidedly malignant "Intelligence" Robert Silverberg, in his Reflections column, presents a timely examination of possible "Doomsday"; James Patrick Kelly offers his On the Net column, "The State of Pod"; Paul Di Filippo brings us "On Books"; plus an array of poetry you're sure to enjoy. Look for our January issue at your newsstand on January 27, 2009. Or you can subscribe to Asimov's--by mail or online, in paper format or new-fangled downloadable varieties, by visiting us online at www.asimovs.com. We're also available on Amazon.com's Kindle! brand new stories by Kate Wilhelm, Michael Swanwick, Eileen Gunn, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, R. Garcia y Robertson, Brian Stableford, William Barton, Bruce McAllister, Christopher Barzak, Michael Cassutt, Jerry Oltion, Damien Broderick, and many others! CONTENTS Department: GUEST EDITORIAL: YOU MIGHT GO HOME AGAIN by Brian Bieniowski Department: REFLECTIONS: DOOMSDAY by Robert Silverberg Department: ON THE NET: THE STATE OF POD by James Patrick Kelly Novella: ACT ONE by Nancy Kress Poetry: FIRST BEER ON MARS by David Lunde Short Story: INTELLIGENCE by R. Neube Novelette: THE LONG, COLD GOODBYE by Holly Phillips Poetry: NIGHTLIFE by Sandra Lindow Short Story: SLOW STAMPEDE by Sara Genge Poetry: CABARET by J.E. Stanley Short Story: WHATNESS by Benjamin Crowell Novelette: GETTING REAL by Harry Turtledove Department: ON BOOKS by Peter Heck Department: NEXT ISSUE Department: SF CONVENTIONAL CALENDAR by Erwin S. Strauss http://www.Fictionwise.com/ebooks/ebook1394.htm Asimov's Science Fiction, first published in 1977, has become science fiction's most lauded publication. Stories from Asimov's have earned more Hugos and Nebulas in the past 20 years than any other publication, and the editors of Asimov's have won 16 Hugos for Best Editor in that time. Works in Asimov's range from hard to literary to more fantastical SF, as well as fantasy and a touch of horror. This subscription includes a whole year's set of eBook issues: eight monthly single issues (regular newsstand price $3.99) and two double-issues--April/May and October/November (regular newsstand price $5.99). The subscription price is a savings of 25% versus buying each issue at the regular price! Each new issue automatically appears in your bookshelf when it becomes available, and you will receive an email notification when new issues arrive. Subscriptions are convenient and save you money! http://www.Fictionwise.com/ebooks/ebook1393.htm Analog Science Fiction and Fact began as Astounding Stories of Super-Science in 1930, and has continuously published the vanguard of SF with an emphasis on science--helping to launch the careers of such luminaries as Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Frank Herbert, Anne McCaffrey, and Orson Scott Card, to name a few. This subscription includes a whole year's set of eBook issues: eight monthly single issues (regular newsstand price $3.99) and two double-issues--January/February and July/August (regular newsstand price $5.99). The subscription price is a savings of over 30% versus buying each issue at the regular price! Each new issue automatically appears in your bookshelf when it becomes available, and you will receive an email notification when new issues arrive. Subscriptions are convenient and save you money! http://www.Fictionwise.com/ebooks/ebook1109.htm Asimov's Science Fiction, first published in 1977, has become science fiction's most lauded publication. Stories from Asimov's have earned more Hugos and Nebulas in the past 20 years than any other publication, and the editors of Asimov's have won 16 Hugos for Best Editor in that time. Works in Asimov's range from hard to literary to more fantastical SF, as well as fantasy and a touch of horror. This subscription includes a whole year's set of eBook issues: eight monthly single issues (regular newsstand price $3.99) and two double-issues--April/May and October/November (regular newsstand price $5.99). The subscription price is a savings of 25% versus buying each issue at the regular price! Each new issue automatically appears in your bookshelf when it becomes available, and you will receive an email notification when new issues arrive. Subscriptions are convenient and save you money! http://www.Fictionwise.com/ebooks/ebook77920.htm David Bartell leads off our March issue with "Cavernauts," a tense tale of a rescue mission against long odds in a locale much farther out than the ones Bartell has frequented so far. Actually it's a deft interweaving of outer and inner space, in more than one sense: the twisted caves of Callisto, and a much-evolved descendant of the internet that has changed people's attitudes toward themselves and the universe in unexpected ways. But two things that have stayed the same are that outcomes can't be foreseen, and reasons and motives are not always the same thing.... Henry Honken's fact article, "From Token to Script: The Origin of Cuneiform," might be considered "linguistic paleontology": a recent attempt to piece together from early artifacts the actual process by which one of our species' first writing systems came into being. We'll also have stories by Richard Foss, Carl Frederick, and Jerry Craven; an unusual father-son collaboration by H. G. Stratmann and Henry Stratmann III; and the expansive conclusion of Robert J. Sawyer's novel Wake. CONTENTS Reader's Department: EDITORIAL: CAN'T GET THERE FROM HERE? by Stanley Schmidt Novelette: CAVERNAUTS by David Bartell Science Fact: FROM TOKEN TO SCRIPT: THE ORIGIN OF CUNEIFORM Henry Honken Short Story: MADMAN'S BARGAIN by Richard Foss Short Story: AFTER THE FIRST DEATH by Jerry Craven Reader's Department: THE ALTERNATE VIEW: HUMANS AND ESTIMATING PROBABILITY by John G. Cramer Probability Zero: WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS By H.G. Stratmann and Henry Stratmann III Reader's Department: IN TIMES TO COME Short Story: LIFESPEED by Carl Frederick Serial: WAKE: CONCLUSION by Robert J. Sawyer Reader's Department: GUEST REFERENCE LIBRARY by Don Sakers Reader's Department: BRASS TACKS Reader's Department: UPCOMING EVENTS by Anthony Lewis http://www.Fictionwise.com/ebooks/ebook83469.htm Revealed in our May issue: The winners of the 2008 Readers Award! And the wide-ranging stories in this issue include a puzzling case of murder and "Identity Theft" for Jon Breen's detectives Berwanger and Foley; a tongue-in-cheek snapshot of a demonic bureaucrat's daily life in Hell, in Marilyn Todd's "667, Evil and Then Some;" a married couple falling apart after their move to France in Caroline Benton's "L'Etang du Diable;" a new case for Terence Faherty's 1950s Hollywood PI Scott Elliott, in "Unruly Jade"; and Christopher Bundy's "For the Love of Mary Hooks," an evocative historical tale about a Beatles-obsessed teen in small-town Georgia. Jack Fredrickson's "For the Jingle" features PI Dek Elstrom investigating a vagrant's "accidental" death in a blaze; and Patricia McFall offers a different type of PI in Lane Terry, who tracks down a runaway girl not much younger than herself in "Off Paper." Bev Vincent's "Wake Me Up For Meals" centers on a grifter who charms his way onto a New Hampshire bus tour--and into cahoots with the tour guide. Brian Muir illustrates the bizarre relationship between two lounge performers in "Dummy." A camping trip is marred by past misdeeds revealed in Blake Crouch's "Shining Rock," and Argentinean Maciż˝ias Nunes makes his English-language fiction debut in our Passport to Crime department with a short, unsettling post-WWII tale. CONTENTS Fiction: OFF PAPER by Patricia McFall Fiction: WAKE ME UP FOR MEALS by Bev Vincent Fiction: DUMMY by Brian Muir Reviews: BLOG BYTES by Bill Crider Department: 2008 READERS AWARD Reviews: THE JURY BOX by Jon L. Breen Fiction: IDENTITY THEFT by Jon L. Breen Passport to Crime: WITHOUT ANESTHESIA by Maceias Nunes Fiction: SHINING ROCK by Blake Crouch Fiction: 667, EVIL AND THEN SOME by Marilyn Todd Fiction: FOR THE JINGLE by Jack Fredrickson Fiction: UNRULY JADE by Terence Faherty Fiction: L'ETANG DU DIABLE by Caroline Benton Fiction: FOR THE LOVE OF MARY HOOKS by Christopher Bundy