News

Congratulations to the winners of the Hugo and John W. Campbell Awards, especially SH authors Mary Robinette Kowal, Elizabeth Bear, and John Scalzi!

We're looking for an editorial assistant for the fiction department. If you're interested, stop by our jobs page for more information.

Contents

25 August 2008

[Reviews posted three times a week]

(Reviews)

FICTION: The Secret Identity, by Richard Butner

We were studying for midterms when I found out about the ghost.

COLUMN: Xenobiology At the Extremes: And You Think Your Neighbors Are Weird?, by Marshall Perrin

Over the past decade or so, spurred in part by the biological revolution and in part by our increasing confidence that earth-mass planets are potentially common, astrobiology has started to come of age.

POETRY: Maya Blue (at Chichen Itza), by Ann K. Schwader

Above us in the silence yet to come, / deep thunder speaks -- then lightning-axes fall

REVIEW: This Week's Reviews, posted three times a week

Monday: Neuropath by Scott Bakker and Blindsight by Peter Watts, reviewed by Nader Elhefnawy
Wednesday: The Roswell Poems by Rane Arroyo, reviewed by Karen J. Weyant
Friday: The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Ellen Datlow, reviewed by Richard Larson

18 August 2008

[Column by Iain Jackson]

(Columns)

COLUMN: Welcome to the Real World, by Iain Jackson

Of course, the advantage of having both invented and mobile geography is that you can demolish it without aggravating people quite so much. I mean, readers might get just the teensiest bit upset at a superhero fight that knocks the capital off the Chrysler Building, for example -- or they might think it's the coolest thing ever!

FICTION: Sex with Ghosts, by Sarah Kanning

Sex. All those complications, all that messiness. It's like watching a group of enthusiasts really get into a hobby that you don't share.

POETRY: Mondrian's War, by Mike Allen

When did he first discover this gift for equilibrium? / An urgent revelation in a haystack-mounded field?

REVIEW: This Week's Reviews, posted three times a week

Monday: Speculative Japan, edited by Gene van Troyer and Grania Davis, reviewed by Niall Harrison
Wednesday: Everything is Sinister by David Llwellyn and The Heritage by Will Ashon, reviewed by Martin Lewis
Friday: Year's Bests edited by Jonathan Strahan, and David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, reviewed by Karen Burnham

11 August 2008

[Article by Nader Elhefnawy]

(Articles)

FICTION: The Emerald King, by J. Kenneth Sargeant

Everything is green today and I'm brave again.

ARTICLE: From Console to Celluloid: Uwe Boll and the Art of Adapting Video Games for the Big Screen, by Nader Elhefnawy

[It is] very difficult to turn even great games into substantial films without ditching or overhauling the source material—something that Boll has never been interested in doing.

COLUMN: Glitz, Flash, and Fun, by James Schellenberg

A look at some of the recent videogame titles for the PC that are focused on creating spectacle. Some even have a decent storyline to go along with the eye candy.

POETRY: The Vampire's Reflection, by Duane Ackerson

he wakes to the moon's glassy stare

REVIEW: This Week's Reviews, posted three times a week

Monday: The X-Files: I Want to Believe, reviewed by Abigail Nussbaum
Wednesday: Iron Angel by Alan Campbell, reviewed by Finn Dempster
Friday: Sputnik Caledonia by Andrew Crumey, reviewed by Michael Froggatt

4 August 2008

[Article by Mark Newheiser]

(Articles)

FICTION: Down the Well, by Alaya Dawn Johnson

I saw her clearly, then: beautiful and terrible, ancient and radical, a goddess as much as any human can be. Killing a hexapedal carnivore with a hand-made spear, hiding for two days from a giant amphibious jellyfish desperate for food, surviving alone in the Well for five years before the computers on this side even registered the malfunction--those rumors had floated around the agency for decades. I'd found it impossible to believe that such a small, unassuming woman had done all they said she did.

ARTICLE: Searching Under the Rug: Interfaces, Puzzles, and the Evolution of Adventure Games, by Mark Newheiser

What decades of evolution have done for the [adventure game] genre is refine the user interface. The genre's improvements are largely independent of the technology used and have gradually evolved in response to user feedback and designers' efforts to make the puzzles clear yet challenging.

COLUMN: Ordinary Zhang, by Matthew Cheney

A couple years ago, I picked up another copy of China Mountain Zhang at a used bookstore, but I didn't dare read it. Much of the science fiction I had loved as a teen had turned out, when read as an adult, to feel simplistic, clunky, shallow. I preferred my memories.

POETRY: Dystopian Dusk, by Bruce Boston

if they had slapped blinkers / on our eyes, narrowing our vision

REVIEW: This Week's Reviews, posted three times a week

Monday: Collected Poems by Mervyn Peake, edited by R.W. Maslen, reviewed by Adam Roberts
Wednesday: The Affinity Bridge by George Mann, reviewed by Hannah Strom-Martin
Friday: Escapement by Jay Lake, reviewed by Paul Kincaid

Strange Horizons is a weekly online magazine of science fiction, fantasy, science fact, opinion, art, and reviews. All material in Strange Horizons is copyrighted to the original authors and may not be reproduced without permission. Violators will be prosecuted.

Updated every Monday

Graphic design by Elaine Chen.

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