Paula Guran

Black Static 7/23 The Deadlands 7/23 The Sunday Morning Transport 8/13/23, 8/6/23, 7/30/23, 7/16/23, 7/2/23, 6/25/23 Uncanny 7-8/23

Established by Andy Cox in December 1993, British SF/fantasy/slipstream/horror magazine The 3rd Alternative ran for 42 issues. It re-emerged in 2007 as Black Static with a tighter focus on weird fiction and horror. The magazine has always been an at­tractive publication with good black-and-white art, standout non-fiction, and consistently first-rate fiction. Combined ...Read More

The Sunday Morning Transport 5/7/23; 5/14/23; 5/18/23; 5/28/23; 6/4/23; 6/11/23; 6/18/23 Tor.com 5/10/23; 5/24/23; 6/4/23; 6/7/23; 6/11/23; 6/18/23 The Deadlands 5/23, 6/23 The Dark 5/23, 6/23

The Sunday Morning Transport contin­ues to publish excellent fiction. Victor Manibo’s “An Incomplete Catalog of the Birds of New York” is a sweet and optimistic story. A young woman, Amaya, learns how to help the birds crashing into the glass of ...Read More

Nightmare 6/23, 7/23 PodCastle 4/11/23; 5/9/23; 5/23/23 Baffling 4/23

Ozzie M. Gartrell’s “The Seconds Between Light and Sound” in Nightmare #129 centers on a horned, island-dwelling people who worship a goddess personified by an eternal storm. There are some arresting concepts, but I felt it read a bit like a preface to a longer work. A botanist journeys to Argia in “and its place remembers it ...Read More

Podcastle 4/11/23 PseudoPod 4/14/23 Weird Horror Spring ’23

“The Girl Who Never Was” by Harold R. Thompson (Podcastle 782) is an intriguing story about a daughter and a life that never existed.

Richard Dansky’s “Swing Batter Batter” (PseudoPod 861) is a twist on the old tale of a baseball player selling his soul to the devil, but it’s still a good read.

Weird Horror #6 offers ...Read More

Uncanny 3-4/23, 5-6/23 Tor.com 3/29/23, 4/26/23 Apex #137

This month, instead of covering all the stories in an issue as I usually do, I’ll only be discussing those I feel are the most notable.

My favorite stories from Uncanny #52 are ‘‘The Mausoleum’s Children’’ by Aliette de Bodard and ‘‘The Rain Remembers What the Sky Forgets’’ by Fran Wilde. In the former, Thuận Lộc, haunted ...Read More

The Deadlands 4/23 The Sunday Morning Transport Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet 11/22

The standout story in The Deadlands #24 is Katie McIvor’s “Things We Did by the Wind­mill”. Even though Edith is dead, she shows up as usual to share the protagonist’s life. Edith eventually departs but she leaves something that, like Edith herself, must eventually be given up.

E.L. Chen’s “Mother’s Teeth” in ...Read More

Uncanny 1-2/23 Tor.com 2/1/23, 2/8/23, 2/22/23

The year is off to an awesome start with an abundant amount of admirable fiction! I have a few quibbles here and there, but still find everything mentioned here to be worthwhile reading.

Issue 50 of Uncanny is double-sized and probably the best one yet. Lead-off “Collaboration?” by Ken Liu & Caroline M. Yoachim is a creative collaborative effort that explores creative collaboration. Interesting ...Read More

The Sunday Morning Transport 1/8/23, 1/18/23, 1/22/23, 2/5/23, 2/12/23, 2/19/23 Apex 1/23

The Sunday Morning Transport started 2023 on January 8 with the first of a two-part novella, “Tears Waiting to Be Diamonds” by Sarah Rees Brennan. The second part was published January 28. Brennan revisits the Borderlands from her acclaimed novel In Other Lands. Set about ten years after the novel begins, the hero, Elliot ...Read More

The Deadlands 11/22, 12/22 PodCastle 12/20/22 Dark Matter 11-12/22

The Deadlands is a monthly speculative fic­tion magazine. They “publish short stories, poems, and essays about the other realms, of the ends we face here, and the beginnings we find elsewhere. It is an adventure into the unknown, to meet those who live there still, even though they may be dead. Death is a journey we all will take, but we’d ...Read More

Tor.com 12/1/22, 12/24/22, 1/11/23, 1/18/23, 1/25/23 The Dark 11/22, 12/22 Nightmare 11/22, 12/22 The Sunday Morning Transport

I’ll start 2023 off by looking at three January stories from Tor.com as well as a couple from December 2022. Chances are, you still haven’t caught up with all of end-of-the-year fiction, so we’ll then look at more from last year.

‘‘Time: Marked and Mended’’ by Carrie Vaughn (Tor.com 1/11/22) is ...Read More