Paula Guran

Sirenia Digest #164, #165, #166 Black Static 11-12/19 The Dark 11/19, 12/19 Uncanny 11-12/19 Nightmare 12/19 Beneath Ceaseless Skies 12/5/19

I mention Sirenia Digest here from time-to-time in case readers are unaware of it. Author Caitlín R. Kiernan started offering it monthly to subscribers long before Patreon became a way to help support a writer. What does it contain? Here’s a recent sampling. Despite the fact Kier­nan had vowed never ...Read More

Black Static 9-10/19 The Dark 9/19, 10/19 Nightmare 10/19 Uncanny 9-10/19 Three-lobed Burning Eye 8/19

Black Static #71 is a stellar issue. If you’ve never sampled the UK periodical, this is the place to start. Felix, in Stephen Hargadon‘s novelette “Dixon Parade“, is a lonely, melancholy middle-aged man who never really moved on after his divorce. He purchases an early-’80s painting of a suburban street scene and ...Read More

Black Static 7-8/19 Uncanny 7-8/19 Nightmare 8/19, 9/19 The Dark 7/19, 8/19 Cemetery Dance 7/19

An outstanding issue of Black Static (#70) leads off with Ralph Robert Moore‘s novelette “I Write Your Name“. Roger was 14 when he met infant Mia. They meet again when Roger turns out to be 30-year-old Mia’s next-door neighbor – not that they recall their initial encounter. They fall in love and ...Read More

Black Static 5-6/19 Uncanny 5-6/19

The usual five original stories in Black Static #69 begin with “Where It Ends, Where It Begins” by Erinn L. Kemper. Old Mac salvages the sea on the west coast of Vancouver Island. For ten years, along with the usual fare, he’s also salvaged decaying body parts that he keeps in a freezer. Now he has collected an entire body’s worth of ...Read More

The Dark 5/19, 6/19 Nightmare 6/19, 7/19 Apex 5/19

The Dark #48 offers two new stories. In Angela Slatter‘s “The Wilderling“, isolated, bored, childless LP is fascinated with a feral child who visits her yard. One might expect LP to do something other than what she does for or with the savage kid. Mystery grows as LP’s actions defy expectation. Slatter, with perfect pacing and accomplished writing, ...Read More

Uncanny 3-4/19 Black Static 3-4/19 The Dark 3/19, 4/19 Nightmare 4/19, 5/19 Tor.com 4/17/19

Uncanny is one of my favorite periodicals because, even if the stories are not always 100% top-notch (no magazine’s content can be!), they are all 100% enjoyable to read and each issue always offers variety. That’s rare and welcome.

Whether intentional or not, the March/April issue has an appropriately springtide theme. Five – maybe all six ...Read More

Nightmare 2/19, 3/19 The Dark 1/19, 2/19 Uncanny 1-2/19 Black Static 1-2/19

Six weeks into 2019 (as I write) and I’m at the fast dwindling point where I foolishly feel I have a handle on most of the new fiction….

Nightmare #77 offers two original stories: “Quiet the Dead” by Micah Dean Hicks and “58 Rules to Ensure Your Husband Loves You Forever” by Rafeeat Aliyu ...Read More

Uncanny 11-12/18 Shimmer 11/18 Nightmare 1/19 Apex 11/18, 12/18 The Dark 12/18

Not all of the stories in Uncanny #25 are dark, but – oh well. The standout story for #25 is Naomi Kritzer‘s novelette “The Thing About Ghost Stories“. Leah’s doctoral dissertation is on the meaning of ghost stories. She gains an academic position just as her mother is descending into dementia. After the mother’s death, ...Read More

Shimmer 9/18 Black Static 9-10/18 Nightmare 11/18 The Dark 10/18, 11/18 Uncanny 9-10/18

Shimmer #45 is the publication’s penultimate issue, with the last, #46, out in November. The magazine’s goal was to be a “specula­tive magazine that focused on stories that existed in the in-between places. Not quite science-fiction, not quite fantasy, but having threads of both. Also, stories that were not afraid to focus on loss and death and ...Read More

Nightmare 8/18, 9/18 Black Static 7-8/18 Shimmer 7/18 The Dark 8/18, 9/18 Uncanny 7-8/18

Nightmare #71 (August) has two strong original stories. In “Dead Air” by Nino Cipri, Nita is recording interviews with the people she sleeps with: ethnography, socio­logically-influenced art. No, it’s not a good idea, especially when she meets Maddie, who is more than just another lover passing in the night. Mad­die has secrets. She ...Read More

Nightmare 7/18 The Dark 6/18 Dark Discoveries Spring ’18

Nightmare, issue 70, published, as usual, two originals. In “Kylie Land” by Caspian Gray, Ky­lie Eland lives by “Rules” that help him deal with life, but he doesn’t fit into high school any better than he does anywhere else. He makes friends with Michael Ramage, a shunned new student with a bad reputation, in hopes he can help ...Read More

Shimmer 5/18 Uncanny 5-6/18 Black Static 5-6/18

The regular venues this column covers had quite a bit to offer as spring turned to sum­mer. Shimmer went spooky with all four stories in their 43rd issue. Katherine Kendig‘s “What the Skeleton Detective Tells You (while you picnic)” is dark “lite”: a cute reworking of a private eye yarn with a living skeleton detec­tive. “You, In Flux” ...Read More

Uncanny 1-2/18 Anathema: Spec from the Margins 12/17 Kaleidotrope Winter ’18 The Dark 1/18 Mythic Delirium 1-3/18

Although more concerned with character than plot, Elizabeth Bear‘s “She Still Loves the Dragon” (Uncanny) still tells the love story of a knight-errant and a dragon. (“She still loves the dragon that set her on fire.”) Since love stories often turn dark and end bit­tersweet, I feel justified in praising ...Read More

Lightspeed 11/17, 12/17 Nightmare 12/17 Tor.com 10/24/17 Clarkesworld 11/17 Uncanny 11-12/17 Shimmer #40 Kaleidotrope Autumn ’17 The Dark 11/17 Black Static 11-12/17

It is already a new year as you read this, but it is not even Thanksgiving as I write. It is also the time of the year when those of my ilk are already considering what fiction was the “best” of the year: a rewarding endeavor, but also ...Read More

Apex 9/17, 8/17 Black Static 9-10/17 Uncanny 9-10/17 The Dark 8/17 Nightmare 10/17 Beneath Ceaseless Skies 8/17

As of September 2017, Apex Magazine has survived for eight years and four months and made it to its hundredth issue – a more remarkable achievement than the average reader might expect. The issue’s three more-or-less originals are all entertaining and dark enough for me to write about.

Kameron Hurley‘s “Tumbledown ...Read More

Sirenia Digest 7/17 Black Static 7/8-17 Uncanny 7-8/17 Nightmare 7/17

It may be September when you read this, but it is a hot and muggy July as I write. The kind of weather that makes you feel poorly even if healthy, and if you catch some sort of bug, it makes you feel even worse. That is what happened to me and why this column is a bit shorter and ...Read More