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Aeon Twelve on sale now at ElectricStory.com!
30 November 2007 - The twelfth issue of Aeon Speculative Fiction is available now at ElectricStory.com, and soon at Fictionwise.com. You won't want to miss it. You DON'T want to miss it. So buy it.
posted by æon editors 15:59 0 COMMENTS
Reading Window for Streetmail Closed
29 November 2007 - Effective immediately, Aeon Speculative Fiction is temporarily closed to postal submissions. All submissions postmarked on or before 03 December 2007 will be read as usual, but submissions postmarked after 03 Dec will be returned unread.
The editors will announce the re-opening of the reading window sometime in the first half of 2008, via this blog and the Writers' Guidelines page at http://www.aeonmagazine.com/writersguidelines.html.
posted by æon editors 21:27 0 COMMENTS
Aeon Speculative Fiction Goes Pro
28 November, 2007 - Seattle, WA - Aeon Speculative Fiction, the quarterly electronic magazine now in its fourth year of publication, announced today that it will double its pay rate with issue Thirteen, raising it from three to six cents per word.
"We're thrilled to be able to give our authors a better deal," said Bridget McKenna, Aeon co-editor. "And so far, they don't seem to mind, either." Authors with stories already contracted for issues Thirteen and beyond will receive revised contracts reflecting the pay increase.
Aeon Twelve is due out on November 30, and features stories by Dev Agarwal, Sarah L. Edwards, John Kratman, David D. Levine, Lisa Mantchev, Lawrence M. Schoen, and Katherine Sparrow, poetry by Bruce Boston, and columns by Dr. Rob Furey and Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
Aeon Speculative Fiction, along with The Internet Review of Science Fiction, is published by Quintamid, LLC, with offices in Seattle's Pioneer Square district. Aeon is edited by Bridget McKenna and Marti McKenna.
http://www.aeonmagazine.com/
http://www.irosf.com/
Contact: editors@aeonmagazine.com
posted by æon editors 21:21 0 COMMENTS
Æon Nine On Sale at Electric Story
The ninth issue of your favorite critically-acclaimed small press electronic magazine (We are your favorite, aren't we? You're our favorite readers...) is now on sale at Electric Story, at a great 20% discount. We think it's an absolutely wonderful issue, with lots of terrific fiction and nonfiction and poetry and opinion. Also spiffy full-color illustrations, some blood, some sweat, and some tears. Buy one. Make us happy.
And while you're basking in the warm glow of making us happy, make us even happier. Join the Æon tribe for more news and discussion about Æon Speculative Fiction.
posted by æon editors 13:29 4 COMMENTS
Aeon Nine Chugs AlongWe admit we've been a bit behind with Aeon Nine, but by pouring on the coal we've managed to get our preview up and be most of the way to getting the issue out, as promised, in November. Most of the credit goes to our authors, who have stepped up and returned edits and proofs at speed. We had to duck to avoid being brained by a couple of them. Here's your Aeon Editors, happy as the proverbial mollusks at the rate we're getting through the many tasks between us and a published issue. So do that thing with your handy desk-rodent and view our latest preview page for yourself. In addition to these seven terrific stories we have poems by Jaime Lee Moyer and Rhysling Award-Winner Greg Beatty, both of whom have graced our pages in the past, and the usual unusual columns by Hugo and John W. Campbell Award-winner Kristine Kathryn Rusch and our own "Mr. Wizard," Dr. Rob Furey.
posted by æon editors 15:42 0 COMMENTS
And lest we forget...
We didn't forget, actually, but I guess since we didn't expect recognition for the one issue of Aeon we published in 2004, we didn't make the effort to find out. Now that we have made the effort, we have discovered that the stories in that one issue earned five HMs from Year's Best Science Fiction, and those are as follows, alphabetically by author:
Jay Lake, "A Mythic Fear of the Sea"
Holly Wade Matter, "The Russian Winter"
John Meaney, "Blood and Verse"
Lori Ann White, "Silver Land"
Walter Jon Williams, "Logs"
Congratulations to all involved. Yer wonderful altogether.
We don't yet have a copy of YBFH for that year, so are unaware of any HMs we might have missed there. If anyone knows of any, feel free to inform us.
posted by æon editors 14:49 0 COMMENTS
Honorable Mentions by Notable Authors
Æon authors rock. We've known it from the beginning. If we needed any extra validation for this viewpoint, however, we'd have found it in the pages of Year's Best Science Fiction and Year's Best Fantasy & Horror, both available now. Below is a list of the Honorable Mentions awarded to stories (and 1 poem) published in Aeon last year. Congratulations and our heartfelt thanks to all of you who made the list. You heap glory on our editorial heads.
We'll be discussing this and many more items of interest on the Aeon Speculative Fiction Tribe, so if you're not already a member, come join us.
Year's Best Fantasy & Horror 2006
Edited by Ellen Datlow, Gavin J. Grant, and Kelly Link
Five Honorable Mentions
Bruce Boston, "Puppet People," Aeon Four
Jay Lake, "Green," Aeon Five
Ken Rand, "The Henry and the Martha" Aeon Three
Nisi Shawl, "Wallamelon" Aeon Three
Justin Stanchfield, "Gypsy Wings" Aeon Five
M. Thomas, "The Tinker?s Child" Aeon Four
Year's Best Science Fiction 23
Edited by Gardner Dozois
Seven Honorable Mentions
Laura Ann Gilman, "End of Day," Aeon Four
Howard V. Hendrix, "The Self-Healing Sky," Aeon Two; "Waiting for Citizen Goedel," Aeon Five
Jay Lake, "Green," Aeon Five
Carrie Richerson, "A Game of Cards," Aeon Four
Justin Stanchfield, "Gypsy Wings," Aeon Five
Renee Stern, "Fire and Ice," Aeon Five
We notice some genre crossover in these selections: Depending on what you mean when you say "fantasy" or "science fiction," at first glance we can see three fantasies in the YBSF list, and two we'd consider to be SF in the YBFH list. Are we complaining? Heck, no! We like our genre boundaries to be more like guidelines, and if Year's Best Leather Nuns Romance wants to recognize a few of our excellent authors, we'll be thrilled. Who edits that one, anyhow...?
posted by æon editors 12:19 3 COMMENTS
Still Reading (and reading, and reading...)Right: Aeon Editor Marti McKenna created this cover from her photograph of aliens on planet Earth
In case you haven't been to the site lately, Aeon Eight is on sale at a whopping 20% off at Electric Story. Check out this lineup in order of appearance in the issue: Daniel Marcus, Ron Savage, Liz Holliday, Martin McGrath, Stephanie Burgis, Will McIntosh, Lawrence M. Schoen, and our regular columnists, Dr. Rob Furey and Kristine Kathryn Rusch, along with poetry by Amanda Downum and Marcie Lynn Tentchoff.
The reading period for Aeon Seven and Eight went so long that we've segued directly into reading (electronic submissions only for the moment) for Nine (November 2006) and Ten (February 2007). So far we've acquired stories by (alphabetically, this time) Terry Hayman, Robert J. Howe, Rob Hunter (this means we can't possibly accept any more stories by authors with last names beginning with H. Sorry.), Marissa K. Lingen, and Ken Scholes, with many more under intense scrutiny.
If you've heard the rumor that Ken sold his story at Worldcon a matter of hours after submitting it, you heard right. Aeon editor Marti McKenna told Ken she wanted to see a story she'd heard him read at a Talebones Live reading a few months earlier (the second we've acquired by attending convention readings; the first was Craig English's "Tribes," which appeared in Aeon Five). Ken emailed the story first thing next morning, and editor Bridget McKenna got the happy duty of telling him about the sale around 3 that afternoon. This may not be an industry record, but as an Aeon record, we expect it to stand for a long time.
So keep sending 'em, and we'll keep reaing 'em (all right, even if your last name begins with H). When we've filled Aeon Ten we're taking an editors' holiday and reading something else for a while, like the labels on bottles of really good malt whisky.
posted by æon editors 11:10 0 COMMENTS
And so to bed...
Another issue of Æon SF put to bed, and this one was like a three-year-old after a cotton candy and three rides on the roller-coaster; for a while there we didn?t think it was going anywhere. It just stood there screaming, and we wished we were three so we could scream, too. I?ve spent the last few weeks trying to keep my brains from leaking out my ears, and I can?t imagine what the Seattle crew must?ve been going through. It?s a relief, I can tell you. Now go out and buy a copy. It?s a brilliant issue ? our seventh ? and has a wonderful Alan M. Clark cover and lots of superb stories and articles and columns and poems.
I?m pretty sure we decided on quarterly publication because it was so long between issues, but it doesn?t seem that long anymore, and now it?s time to finalize the contents of the next one. But first, a day off. Maybe two.
posted by æon editors 11:58 2 COMMENTS
We're still on the planet...
...and we have a new streetmail address, for which see our Writers' Guidelines. That page also outlines our new-ish policy of replying in email to streetmail submissions, eliminating those pesky SASEs and IRCs. We hope this helps make streetmail submissions easier.
In other news, one of your Æon editors has fled the country, headed to Jolly Old England for the time between now and Worldcon. For most of the gory details, see her blog. This won't affect either streetmail or email submissions, but we're still digging out from under the tremendous backlog created by our two complete house moves in slightly more than two months, and we beg just a bit more of your patience and understanding as we do our best to deal with mail from the bottom of that stack upwards. We are still filling Æon Eight, and being so far behind we may not be able to take a rest from reading, but go right on to Nine and Ten. We feel tired already...
As always, if you need to withdraw a story, let us know, and be sure to say the W word in the subject line so we can jump you out of the queue and reply as soon as possible.
posted by æon editors 04:55 4 COMMENTS
Stupid Post Office Tricks
If you've had any problems getting paper submissions to us, please bear with us just a bit longer. Our recent move has confused the great brains at the USPS, and it's not over yet. We're in the process of getting a post office box nearer our new location. So hold onto those streetmail subs.
If we have a streetmail submission of yours and you provided an email address, that's how you'll be hearing back. In fact, that's going to be our new submission policy: skip the SASE or reply coupons and provide an email address. We hope to provide much quicker response times for street subs this way.
posted by æon editors 07:27 2 COMMENTS
Rant AlertWe're about to take a reviewer to task, and we'd like to preface this bold and foolish act by saying first that we cherish reviews, even those that don't paint us in the glowing colors we see in our own editorial looking-glass. We especially cherish reviews from respected sites such as SFCrowsnest.com. We know that not every reviewer is going to like every story, even though we really wish they would. But the reviewer of whom we will speak today is the first we've encountered (okay, we're new at the magazine game..) who just plain doesn't get us, doesn't get what we're doing, and doesn't get the stories. And we're going to take our frustration out on you by reviewing his review. That's okay, isn't it?
So here goes. When Rod MacDonald of SFCrowsnest said, in his review of Aeon Two, "What is speculative fiction? I'm still trying to figure it out." We thought for a long moment that it was a serious question. Later he mentioned that "Speculative or Science Fiction and Fantasy magazines come and go with regular frequency..." (and predicted that we'd be one of the ones going, and soon), so apparently it was just us he couldn't figure out. Of all the stories in Aeon Two, he only liked Bruce Holland Rogers' "Vocabulary Items." Well, so did we, so we have that in common, at least.
Mr. MacDonald has now reviewed two issues of Aeon and likes Three a bit better than he did Two, but it still has one huge problem he can't seem to get over. God. Or gods. Name your flavor; he doesn't like 'em. "Issue 2 is all about god, gods and/or religion," he said in his Aeon Two review. "Science Fiction readers would probably not get overly excited about the content." We're glad lots of people did get excited about it, like Nick Gevers and Rich Horton of Locus, among others; we wouldn't want this to have been the first review we read. Yes, Mr. MacDonald, there were a lot of stories about various aspects of divinity. It was a theme issue. Theme issues seem to result, for us, from a preponderance of story types we receive rather than from a desire on our part to publish a certain type of story. We were amazed at the number of "god stories" we received for Aeon One and Two, and at the number of them that thoroughly kicked our asses. It has often happened also at writing workshops we've hosted or attended that stories tended to group around themes. We did not think it sinister then, nor do we now.
We knew better than to reply directly to any of Mr. MacDonald's opionions of our content, to which he is absolutely entitled, but there were some factual errors in his review that we did address in a letter to the site. They ran the letter, but in a completely unrelated area that didn't link to the review. Oh, well.
In his review for Aeon Three, Mr. MacDonald returned to his problems with the god/gods stories in Aeon Two: "...and while this may be OK for some," he said, "it's a big turn off for those not of this persuasion." Now we were curious. Exactly what persuasion was he referring to? The notion that rampant A-Life might attain godlike status? The idea that there was once a man who is now called "The Buddha?" Or that some people revere Quan Yin? It may be he was offended by a dark, divine Elvis. Or perhaps it was the suggestion that God might have been making his living in Alaska as a bush pilot in the 1920s. Even if our readers desired conversion to any of these "persuasions," I'm not sure we'd be able in every case to locate the appropriate clergy.
"A wasted issue." Mr MacDonald says of Aeon Two, still looking backwards from his Aeon Three review. He does eventually move on to reviewing the current issue, and actually likes a few things, so I guess we're gaining ground there. He was particularly fond of "Angels of War" (Dev Agarwal) and "The Henry and the Martha" (Ken Rand). He still didn't like anything that smacked of the G-word, and gave scant mention to any of those stories (yes, there were still divine divinity stories coming through the door of Crow Cottage during our second reading window) except for "Just Chutney" (E. Sedia), a lovely meditation on what it might be like to seek forgiveness for a very long time, which he thought was a cooking story, and declared besides that he's "...not particularly keen on chutney...".
I don't think this is the last time we're going to be irritated by Mr. MacDonald's attitude toward our magazine, but we're not in this to please everyone, and certainly not to please someone who calls us to task for publishing stories with gods in them as though that were not a fairly common theme in speculative stories. We'll go on publishing the stories that kick our asses the hardest, and hopefully readers and reviewers will go on praising most of those stories. From time to time there will be theme issues, but not, dear readers, because we hope to convert you to anything more sinister than buyers of our wares.
Okay, so maybe we don't like that Rod MacDonald doesn't get us, but we accept it. He's probably not the only one, after all. Whether or not he ever gets us, we hope he keeps reading Aeon and reviewing it. The fact that he makes that effort we definitely do like.
-END RANT-
-BMcK
posted by æon editors 14:21 2 COMMENTS
Flogging Our Tales Dep'tWe're pretty excited about the reception Æon's stories have been getting at places like Locus and the Internet Review of Science Fiction. In an effort to spread the word about what we think is some truly excellent fiction, we've put up a page (http://www.aeonmagazine.com/sfwacopies.html) from which SFWA members can request reading copies of any story we've published. If you'd like to help us flog our tales, feel free to disseminate the link freely.
posted by æon editors 12:00 0 COMMENTS
Going Tribal
Your friendly neighborhood Æon Speculative Fiction editors have created a discussion group on tribe.net devoted to? you guessed it! Æon Speculative Fiction. So come on over to http://aeonmagazine.tribe.net and have a look.
posted by æon editors 11:54 0 COMMENTS
Re-JECK-shun
Dang, that's an ugly word. No-one wants to get one, and speaking for your Æon editors at least, no-one wants to dish one out. If every story we saw was perfect for our magazine, our reading windows would be about four hours long and we wouldn't have to tell anyone we're not buying their story, and there'd be no unhappy writers frowning over our short-form rejections. Alas, welcome to the world we actually live in: our days are crowded with myriad tasks that don't even concern Æon, then further jammed up with our editorial duties, especially during reading times. We really do not have time to comment on at least 90% of the stories we reject.
Not long ago a writer we'd rejected expressed displeasure (not directly to us, I hasten to add) about receiving a rejection that said little more than that we were passing on the story but wished him or her luck placing it elsewhere. When I heard about this I went back to re-read the story, which hadn't yet been recycled. Heck, maybe I'd missed something; maybe I'd made a mistake in sending the Form 1040-EZ rejection on this one. (actually, we hand-type each one; it seems the least we can do, but we do generally keep them short) Maybe a more considered and time-consuming rejection was called for.
Nope. Turns out I had only read a page and a half before being certain this story wasn't for us, and I wasn't tempted to read further this time. Often we know before turning the first page that we're not going to buy a story, but although we want to have a damn good reason for turning to page 2, we will keep reading until we have reason to know for sure this one isn't for us. Often that does require reading the entire piece (and occasionally we read it all if it engages us sufficiently, even if we know it's going back). Far more often it only needs a few paragraphs to know we're not looking at an Æon story this time.
Both Æon editors did their time as unsold writers, collecting rejections that told us little or nothing, and working our way up to rejections-with-comment, and finally to sales, so we are not without sympathy. What we are without is enough time to fit more tasks into the context of our editorial duties (in addition, That Other Editor is monstrously busy right now at her editor day job, so chances are most you will be dealing with me during this reading window).
Still, that writer's unhappiness stays with me, and every time I send a story back with little said besides some variation on 'this one isn't for us,' I remember all those discouraging rejections from my own early career. And I understand further the reasons they were so short and so lacking in useful information. There just wasn't time.
So know this, hopeful Æon contributors: if I point out something about your story when I send it back -- anything about it -- it probably means I read the whole thing. Only a very few stories are going to receive any kind of comment, and I may not -- probably will not -- comment at length. If I was able to stop before completing your story you'll probably get the 1040-EZ version, and you'll know you'll have to try a lot harder to wow me next time.
-BMcK
posted by æon editors 15:15 4 COMMENTS
Art Imitates Art
You've probably noticed our absolutely gorgeous Æon Three cover, now showing on a webpage very near you. This colorful and whimsical piece does not originate in the realms of science fiction or fantasy, but from that of medical illustration, one of the lesser-known accomplishments of world-class illustrator Alan M. Clark. The painting from which this cover is a detail is realistically but unromantically titled Cell Wall with Hormones. We adore it.
Here's another piece of Æon art trivia: every Aeon story appears accompanied by a full-color illustration (one of the benefits of electronic publishing in that color doesn't cost us extra to produce). We've had any number of people ask us why we don't credit the majority of these, and now it's time to come clean: we only credit those illustrations the Æon editors don't produce with their own tiny hands. It's like this: our budget won't allow for commissioning 30 pieces of art a year, so sometime during the production phase of each issue we put on our art hats and create our own illustrations using photographs. Heck, sometimes we even take the photographs, but often as not we get them from online sites that offer royalty-free photos, often combining two or even three photographs into one illustration, and making liberal use of various graphic tricks to transform them into drawings and paintings that serve to lead readers into the stories they illustrate.
In most cases these illustrations don't attempt to depict a scene from the story, but rather to suggest the idea of the story, evoke a mood, and make the potential reader curious. We learned this philosophy from the aforementioned Mr. Clark, whose recently-published book The Paint in My Blood, from IFD Publishing, contains all sorts of wisdom about the craft of illustration, in addition to lots and lots of gorgeous reproductions of Alan's work.
If you have a comment on any of our artwork, or any of our stories, or for that matter anything we're doing or trying to do with our magazine, we hope you'll drop us a line to waves/_at_/aeonmagazine.com (do the usual substitutions to make this into an email address, and help save us from relentless carpetbombing spamsters). As soon as we have a few comments letters to print we'll be able to add a letters feature to Æon, something we'd very much like to do.
posted by æon editors 20:56 0 COMMENTS
Æon Two: Lather, Rinse, Repeat
Æon Two is available for sale at Electricstory.com and the other retailers mentioned on our "Buy Æon" page. Æon One was a hard act to follow, but we think we've done a good job of repeating the quality of the reading experience, with stories by Howard V. Hendrix, Pat MacEwen, Dana William Paxson, Bruce Holland Rogers, Lorelei Shannon, Gary W. Shockley (whose painting Dali, at Age 26, Believing Himself to be Heavyweight Champion of the World illustrates his story of the same title), and P.R.A. Stillman. We also have poetry by Marge Simon and nonfiction by Jay Lake. On the cover of this issue is a painting by Jeff Sturgeon and Adrian Bourne: "The Watcher at the End of Time." To get a taste of each story, check out the Æon Two preview on our "Current Issue" page.
posted by æon editors 17:38 1 COMMENTS
Æon Three and Four are in the Can
On the Closing of Windows
Our reading window for Æon Three and Four is now closed, with relief and regrets. Regrets because an editor always hopes the next submission she sees will well and truly kick her ass; and relief? Well, anyone who's ever had this job will understand that part. It will be good to concentrate on tasks aside from reading for a while. We will most likely open another window in May for Æon Five, or possibly Five and Six. We haven't yet decided if we prefer reading for two issues at a time.
During the reading window for Æon One and Two we returned approximately 85% of the stories we received. Any editors out there will recognize this figure as low, and that's because we filled these issues by invitation and recommendation. In November we opened to general submissions, and our return rate shot up to a more realistic 98%. Certainly many of the stories we returned -- while they didn't strike us as something we wanted to buy -- were eminently suitable for publication, and we look forward to seeing them appear elsewhere. Another largeish number were good, but did not tempt us to buy them.
On the Kicking of Ass
Let's get back to the notion of kicking ass, since it's part and parcel of our editorial policy -- that and taking names. The ways in which our asses were kicked during this reading period were so many and so varied that we believe you won't be able to read these two issues (appearing in May and August respectively) or the previous two and say "Aha! Now I know what an Aeon story is!" If you do, please let us know, 'cause we don't have the haziest idea. We know we love good writing, engaging characters, and a well-told story, but that's true of every editor who ever climbed up out of a stack of manuscripts, gasping for air. All we can say is that there's something indefinable in the way a certain author will put all those things together in a certain story that makes us lay down a ms or sit back from our monitor with eyes wide, laughing, sighing, or just forgetting to breathe for a moment.
When that happens, you're past Editor #1. Getting past Editor #2 is a little harder. Probably half of stories held for further consideration after the first reading end up being returned following final selection. There are only so many slots, and too many good stories for them.
Two stories in this reading window kicked our asses with humor, but we returned a lot of humorous stories that didn't quite hit the mark. Quite a number of other stories we accepted were on the dark side, but that can be partly laid to the special focus of Aeon Four, about which more later. Children feature strongly in four of the chosen stories -- five, if you're willing to broaden your definition of "child." Our buying ran about even on sf and fantasy, with a slight edge to fantasy stories accepted, at least partly due to an overwhelming majority of good fantasy submitted over good science fiction. Matters of religion, mythology, and folklore were to be found in six, the workings of science and scientists in three, aliens in two. Only one takes place on another planet.
On the Taking of Names
The only thing as exciting as getting a story by a "cover name" is getting a really good story by someone you've never heard of. While we want to be able to offer our readers stories by authors with whom they're familiar, we also have an obligation to publish the best stories we receive, and to promote newer authors whenever we can. So we're happy to report that while we were lucky enough to snag half a dozen stories by names that have graced the covers of our magazine and others, we have an equal number of new Aeon authors whose names will be unknown to all or most of you, and a couple who fall somewhere in the middle of the "name" spectrum. We know you're not all going to agree on what constitutes a great story, but we do guarantee you're going to find great stories inside these two issues, and not a few of the cover names of tomorrow.
Aeon Four and the Dying of the Light
Since coming up here to the northern reaches of the U.S., we pay more attention to the quality and quantity of light than when we lived in southern climes. Back then a day extended to, gosh, nearly 9 p.m. by mid-June, and shrunk by a couple of hours in the dead of winter. Sunshine was to be taken for granted 9 months of the year, and for 11 ½ in some places we've lived. Up here in Seattle, summers are crowded with long, long days of sunlight, and skies of nearly-painful blue. But years of sacrificing soy-based chicken surrogate products and dancing around bonfires chanting in bad Latin have been entirely ineffective in staving off the dying of the light. It's barely noticeable at the end of June, and even in July we can easily pretend the days aren't getting shorter. Not really. By August, however, the time for self-delusion (at least on this one matter) is up. In a couple more months the sun is going to pack its bags and leave for Australia. We'll get up in the dark, and by suppertime it'll be dark again (yes, I do hear those jeers from Canada and Alaska, where they know what a long winter night really is, but have a heart -- we're from the southwest!).
So in honor of that day in August when the first chill of autumn falls across our hearts and minds, Aeon Four, which will appear early in that month, will have a special autumnal tang to it. We have scheduled most of the slightly (and a few more than slightly) darker stories for that issue. This means that we have moved some lighter-hearted fare on to the Aeon Five schedule, but we promise you it'll be worth waiting for.
Meanwhile, don't forget to check out the preview of the Aeon Two stories. That one's on sale now, and to find out where, go to the "Buy Aeon" page. And we won"t at all mind if you do.
posted by æon editors 15:23 2 COMMENTS
Hoist the Anchor!
Looks like Æon One will have an anchor story worthy of the name: certainly if its manuscript were printed out on waterproof paper it would be capable of anchoring at least a small boat. Curious? Well, while the Æon Editors can't reveal the complete contents of Æon One until after our official submission deadline of 31 August, we can't resist leaking this one tidbit. Walter Jon Williams' latest epic sf series is called Dread Empire's Fall. The first two books - The Praxis and The Sundering are already available, and those of us who have read them are eagerly (mild word, in my case...) awaiting the third.
Æon readers, it seems, will have less time to wait than others, at least for a preview. Walter has excerpted nearly 50,000 words (no, that's not a typo) of the third Dread Empire novel into a stand-alone short novel, "Logs," which will appear in its entirety in Æon One.
If Æon were a print publication we'd have had to kick out half our other content to run it and stay within page count. This is the root of the problem most writers (Walter not included, naturally) experience selling stories of even novella length (17,500 - 39,999 words): the more of the page percentage of a magazine a story will occupy, the more the author's name and reputation must justify giving him or her those pages. Walter's name and reputation are pretty far up there, and his ability as a writer is well known, but the rest of us often find a novella harder to place than a complete novel.
If we were publishing in the print media we'd still have choked a bit at the thought of that many pages being allocated to one piece, even to get a Walter Jon Williams story. We don't have a page limitation, but we do have a budget we like to stay within, which means not many writers are ever going to be able to sell us stories of novella or short novel length; the percentage of our per-issue budget is too high to justify it. In this case we happily went over budget. "Logs" is a terrific story and I'm pretty sure you're going to love it as much as we did.
-BMc
posted by æon editors 10:07 2 COMMENTS
Leaving a Mark
We've received the first batch of stories this weekend -- thank you, writers! -- and have also made plans to add our first nonfiction content: (May we have a drumroll, please?) Kristine Kathryn Rusch, author, editor, teacher and mentor to a generation of writers, will be doing a regular column for Æon beginning with Æon One. Words simply will not express how thrilled we are about that. Back when Kris was the (award-winning) editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (from 1991-1997), her editorial feature for that magazine was consistently rated as the readers' favorite content. Kris has intelligent and informed opinions, and she knows how to express them. Her Æon column will range from science to society to literature, and perhaps even venture back around to look at literature's influence on society and science.
I first met Kris in 1986 at a writers' workshop in Taos, New Mexico. Strangely, she hasn't gotten any older since then, though I certainly have. She has, however, gained in experience and accomplishments in those years, published a lot of unforgettable short fiction ("The Gallery of His Dreams" -- Asimov's September '91 -- still haunts me), and dozens of novels -- fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and horror -- Kris doesn't give much weight to boundaries in her writing. Along with Dean Wesley Smith, she co-edited and co-published Pulphouse, the Hardback Magazine, and the entire high-class, high-impact output of the Pulphouse publishing empire in the 1990s. Together they are famous for a series of writing workshops in Oregon and elsewhere that really make an impression on the dazzled writers who come out of them, on fire to make word magic happen.
So the Æon editors are on the edges of their leather executive chairs wondering what the first Kris Rusch column is going to be. We hope you'll be anticipating it, too, 'cause trust us, it's going to make people think. It's going to make people talk. It's going to make a difference.
Some forgotten Chinese writer (and most writers ARE forgotten, make no mistake) once said "Words are but air; the pen leaves a mark." I guess writers and the publishers who publish their words are in the mark-leaving business, and that's okay with me.
BMc
posted by æon editors 12:12 1 COMMENTS
The floodgates have opened...
Today we received the first of what we hope will be many submissions from The List. Yesterday, while contemplating the coming flood, we hatched an editorial scheme that we think will help us choose the best stories for æon. Now we've had a chance to put this strategy to work, and from where I'm sitting, it's an interesting ride.
If you've read the writer's guidelines you'll know that in order to be published in æon a story has to "kick our (collective) ass." To elaborate, there are two editors on staff here, and we both have to agree that a story kicks ass before it'll end up between æon's electronic covers. (In this we take a cue from Talebones, whose esteemed editors Patrick and Honna Swenson have, I'm told, a similar philosophy.)
But many of the folks we hope to hear from are a) folks with impressive names and track records, b) friends and acquaintances of the æon editorial staff, or c) both. How, we asked ourselves from the front porch of Crow Cottage on a sunny Seattle afternoon, could we ensure as absolutely as possible that we got our asses kicked by a story and not by a name or a sense of loyalty?
The answer? White OutTM.
As stories come in, one or the other of your editors will read it. We don't have a slush pile at this point, all of our submissions are from The List and are therefore solicited, so in most cases they'll get a full read-through from one or the other of us. If the story kicks Editor #1's ass, it goes to Editor #2 with one very major omission: the author's name.
So today I'm Editor #2, and Editor #1 has passed on several stories anonymously. I'm reading the first of these, which is kicking my ass from the word go, and I start to get an inkling. I message Editor #1.
Editor #2: This is a John Doe story, isn't it?
Editor #1: I can't tell you... (Emoticon with eyes and lips shut tight in smug refusal. Very clever.)
Editor #2: Whatever. I know I'm right.
Editor #1: la la la... (Musical note, emoticon with censor bar over eyes.)
Bitch. Well, anyway, it looks like guessing is going to be half the fun of reading them, a benefit I hadn't predicted.
Email also brought a few other potential items of interest we hope to be able to share with you in the coming days, so stay tuned.
Until next time....
-MMc
posted by æon editors 18:30 0 COMMENTS
Everybody in the pool!
With an enterprise like starting up a new magazine, in a reputation-dependent field like sf/f/h, there's no dipping one's toe in the water. One either does or does not take the icy plunge. "There is no try," as Yoda would say (little green know-it-all...). So this is the day we send out the invitation letters to an undisclosed list consisting of an undisclosed number of writers at all places in their careers from skiffy superstar to unpublished but promising, known in these parts as The List.
By this time tomorrow we should see the first responses. One hopes that not too many of them will be some variation on: "Are you guys NUTS?!"
Now I'm going to go send those emails. Then I think I'll go throw up.
-BMc
posted by æon editors 14:18 0 COMMENTS
