Are You Watching Carefully?
Whenever you see a trick performed you know from the outset that you are going to be tricked, so you set up certain mental safeguards, trying to see where and how the conjuror could possibly deceive you.
Oct. 2011 (Issue 55)
Welcome to issue fifty-five of Fantasy Magazine! Here’s what we’ve got on tap this month … Fiction: “The Secret Beach” by Tim Pratt, “Absolute Zero” by Nadia Bulkin, “Unnatural Disaster” by Kristine Katherine Rusch, “The Invisibles” by Charles De Lint. Nonfiction: “Feature Interview: Richard K. Morgan” by Andrew Liptak, “The Downsides of Dating a God” by Genevieve Valentine, “Five Ocean-Dwelling Creatures That Look Like Aliens (But Aren’t)” by Jeremiah Tolbert, “Are You Watching Carefully?” by Christopher Priest.
Author Spotlight: Charles De Lint
I’d argue that’s the basis for all good fantasy stories: Ground the reader in the familiar so that when you do bring more improbable elements on stage, they’re more readily accepted.
The Invisibles
Here’s what you do, Jerry says. You get one of those little pipe tobacco tins and you put stuff in it. Important stuff. A fingernail. Some hair. A scab. Some dirt from a special place.
Five Ocean-Dwelling Creatures That Look Like Aliens (But Aren’t)
This week, we at Fantasy Magazine bring you five aquatic organisms that could easily be confused for alien or paranormal life (but are actually real).
Author Spotlight: Kristine Kathryn Rusch
I have many friends in the FBI (that makes my old hippie self shudder) and lots and lots of friends in the legal community. So law enforcement stuff is almost as natural as breathing to me.
Unnatural Disaster
Horizontal rain, darkness, and a nearly empty beach. Jaclyn Tadero trudged through the thick wet sand, listening to the ocean’s waves crash beside her. The Coast Guard helicopter flew overhead.
The Downsides of Dating a God
Dating a deity has a certain ineffable appeal—the carefree demeanor, the kinky shapeshifting, the supernatural transportation options, the lure of immortality.
Author Spotlight: Nadia Bulkin
I think monsters serve as a means of social control, representative of both unsavory behaviors and unsavory punishments. Then there’s also the need we have for an “other” to define ourselves against.
Absolute Zero
It sat on a tree stump the way neighborhood men sat on bar stools, surrounded by a cavalry of thin, burned trees. Max almost recognized this nightmare place as Digby Forest, a festering infection of wild land on the edge of Cripple Creek.
Feature Interview: Richard K. Morgan
Morgan’s first foray into fantasy began with The Steel Remains, a contemporary and violent take on the genre where a privileged yet savage soldier, Ringil Eskiath, finds himself in exile due to his sexuality.