It's Pimpin' Time

[coalescent]

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About Strange Horizons:

Strange Horizons publishes short fiction, poetry, reviews and articles of interest to the speculative fiction community each week on Monday. Once each month we also publish an art gallery spotlighting a different speculative artist.

This week, for example, there's a charming story by Theodora Goss, 'Pip and the Fairies', Mike Allen's poem 'Strip Search', a critique of Star Wars by Athena Andreadis, reviews of Peeps by Scott Westerfeld and other things, and a column by Christina Socorro Yovovich. Strange Horizons publishes things worth reading every week, and has done for the past five years.

It doesn't take subscriptions; everything is online for you to read for free. Instead,

Financial support for the magazine comes through direct donations (through PayPal or by check), arts grants, corporate sponsorship, and affiliate programs through Amazon.com and Powell's Books.

So every so often, Strange Horizons has a fund drive where they ask their readers to chip in a little. And they happen to be having one all this month.

We're hoping to raise $3000 this month, which is about one-sixth of our annual budget, and we'd love for you, Dear Reader, to help us reach that goal.

Everyone who donates during the fund-drive month (October 1-31) will be entered in a drawing for one of our fabulous fund drive prizes. As always, we're happy to take donations of any amount, but if you donate $25 or more, you can become a Strange Horizons reader-member, which entitles you to a glossy illustrated collectible membership card and a discount on the Strange Horizons annual anthologies. (Different gift packages are available at different donation levels—see our membership page for full details about our membership levels.)

(By-the-by, some of those prizes are pretty darn shiny; Kate Wilhelm's Storyteller, for instance, or a complete, signed set of the Jenny Casey trilogy (Hammered, Scardown and Worldwired) by Elizabeth Bear, this year's winner of the Campbell Award for Best New Writer.)

Everyone involved with the magazine is an unpaid volunteer. As mentioned, Strange Horizons has been running like this for five years, and by any measure it's a success. This summer it was nominated for a Hugo, and earlier this year one of its stories was nominated for a Nebula. I'd like to see it continue onwards and upwards, obviously; if you would as well, you can go and give a little bit of money by clicking on the Paypal link above (if you're in the US, there's also a Network for Good donation link, but I don't seem to be able to duplicate that; you can go via the fund drive page instead). And if you do--thanks!

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As a reward for reading through all of that, here is a link from which you can get a free uncorrected proof copy of Kevin Brockmeier's The Brief History of the Dead--at least if you're in the UK. It's not clear to me whether this is an expansion of the story of the same name from last year, or a collection of short stories, but either way, it's something to look forward to. (via TAO)

Comments

[chance88088.livejournal.com]

that pimp hat icon slays me.

Liz=genius

the Brockmeier - It's a novel, though The Truth about Celia was had some very stand alone bits (one chapter was included in YBFH a few years ago.)

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

I'm so waiting for a Foundation pimp icon...

story link

[chance88088.livejournal.com]

Oh and here's a link to the Brockmeier story for thems that might be interested.

Re: story link

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Aha, thanks. I had a brief google but was completely unable to track it down myself.

[applez.livejournal.com]

I wonder what Athena Andreadis thinks of 'Serenity'...

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Well, you could always ask ... :)

[applez.livejournal.com]

Ah! Scary interface. Nevermind.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Er, what's scary about it? You just have to hit 'reply'...

[applez.livejournal.com]

That really isn't as obvious as you make it sound. :-)

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

All right then, go here and type into the box. :-p

What Athena Andreadis thinks of Serenity

[(Anonymous)]

In answer to the question of Applez, I loved Serenity -- it is all that RotS was not (funny, articulate, inventive, humane).

[dyddgu.livejournal.com]

Is there anywhere I can find out what this "SpecFic" stuff actually is? You and tinyjo and everyone talk about it a lot, but I have no idea what it is. The title implies to me that it could be Virtual Histories, as that is speculative, but I suspect that's a different genre...

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Version 1: the Strange Horizons 'about us' page says that 'the term "speculative fiction" refers to what is more commonly known as "sci-fi," but which properly embraces science fiction, fantasy, magic realism, slipstream, and a host of sub-genres.'

Version 2: The S in OUSFG stands for 'speculative', either because it seemed like a good idea at the time or because the university proctors thought that 'science fiction' wasn't a respectable enough subject for a university society.

Version 3: Margaret Atwood says that speculative fiction is the good stuff, and science fiction is the bad stuff.

Version 4: Wikipedia says that 'this term is coming into more frequent usage among younger fans who wish to break down the literary barriers between the horror, fantasy, and science fiction genres.'

Version 5: some folks around these parts have been known to insist that it is a redundant categorisation, because all fiction is speculative.

Any of that help? :)

[dyddgu.livejournal.com]

Gosh, I was expecting to be directed to a website! Thanks, yes, it does help. It still sounds to me as though virtual/alternate histories could belong there too, which is interesting. I wish I'd managed to get into it all, really.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, they probably would. :)

[dyddgu.livejournal.com]

I started thinking about it on Saturday morning, actually, when they were talking about Jules Verne on Excess Baggage on R4; the Verne expert said that the stuff he wrote was based around exploring the different theories current at the time (say, about the Centre of the Earth, or the Moon), and I remember thinking that that sounded a bit like this SpecFic stuff you talk about...

[chance88088.livejournal.com]

I think we should all be forced to go back to calling it scientifiction. It's much more futury.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Not plausible fabulism? Or cosmogonic fiction?

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

Or mundane science fiction?

[chance88088.livejournal.com]

Scientifiction should be fun! and exciting! and full of wonder! and possibly those eyebrow kicks you talk about.

We're not getting that from anything "mundane"

[chance88088.livejournal.com]

pah - removing the science from it is clearly a mistake. No one is getting rocket cars in plausible fabulism.