(Art by Pavel Elagin)
Isn’t that a beautiful illustration? Go on, give it a click and it will open in a larger window so that you can get a really good look at it. Pavel Elagin’s creation, used as the cover for the latest issue of Lightspeed Magazine, is a quintessential summer image. It brings back memories of the first appearance of the fireflies every year as the weather warms.
Today over on SF Signal I review this, the June 2013 issue of Lightspeed. At the risk of sounding like I am pimping my own work, I highly recommend that you check out the review as this issue had a wide variety of worthwhile science fiction and fantasy. A visit today may be of particular interest to those participating in the Once Upon a Time Challenge as the current free fantasy offering is “Princess Lucinda and the Hound of the Moon” by Theodora Goss. It is a lovely, sweet fairytale that I am sure you will enjoy. The current science free science fiction offering is “The Ballad of Marisol Brook” by Sarah Grey and it is an empowering story with a female lead that juxtaposes the Big Studio days of old Hollywood against a world in which immortality is no longer a dream, at least if you are very rich.
And the exciting news???
Well, there is a short story I have been wanting to share with all of you since I first read it last year. The story is currently nominated for both the Hugo and Locus awards. It is “Mono no aware” by Ken Liu. It is reprinted in this current issue of Lightspeed and will be available free online for the first time on the Lightspeed website beginning June 11th!!! To celebrate this, I will return to my Short Story Discussion posts on Sunday, June 16th with a discussion of “Mono no aware”!!! So, put it on your calendars to snag this free story on June 11th and get ready to discuss your thoughts. And if you happen to be visiting here from the Classic Science Fiction Book Club, this is a sneak preview of the story we will be reading beginning Friday, June 14th!
That is all my short story news. I hope you check out the Lightspeed review and I wish everyone a wonderful, story-filled weekend.
If only Lightspeed made their fiction for Kindle for the Mac. Rats. I sure hope Lightspeed puts out a second volume of stories. Maybe this would be in it.
By “Mac” I am assuming you are reading it on a desktop/laptop? If so you should just check out the stories directly on the Lightspeed website. By the end of the month all the original and reprints are there for the taking, 2 released each week, generally. And all the past issues are available too.
Say, where’s your SFAL swag report?
Also forgot to say the review on SF Signal is another fine one.
Its a’comin. And thank you.
By the way, I love that image. Very painterly yet I’d wager it’s digital. Hard to tell the difference sometimes these days.
It is great, isn’t it?
it’s really ashame that you don’t get excited over anything Carl! *smirk*..excellent review!..and I too captured lightening bugs in a jar to gaze at until I opened the top to set them free.
I know, I’m terribly morose most of the time.
Another piece of great artwork on your blog! You sure have excellent artistic tastes! With the rise of ebooks, the cover artwork of print books will be a thing of the Past. Sad.
Gorgeous, isn’t it? Lightspeed has been making this easy month after month, picking beautiful work for their cover images. Makes me sad these aren’t in print form.
I just read “Mono no Aware” this morning, as I was digging through my Hugo packet. As usual from Liu, it was a WOW short story.
Have you ever heard the Japanese game Karuta? It’s a card game where the cards on the table have the 2nd verse of a poem, and as the referee reads the 1st verse, the players scramble to grab the correct card. The best players are the ones who have memorized the poems, like songs, and know what 2nd verse to look for as soon as they hear the first words of the 1st verse. It’s like meta poetry, with patterns everywhere. Mono no Aware reminded me a little of Karuta. and not just because there was poetry or flashbacks in the story. Ehh, maybe it was just one
of those “right story, right moment” type of things.
I do love Lightspeed. My favorite short story MP3s are from them.
So glad you too thought it was a “Wow”. 🙂 You’ll have to pop in on Sunday and give it a chat up. I truly was almost giddy…oh who am I kidding, I was giddy…when I saw that Lightspeed had this one in the current issue.
I have not heard of Karuta but it sounds like an interesting game…and one I would fail at miserably. I can see how you would get that vibe from the story.
Thanks for posting this. I read “Princess Lucinda and the Hound of the Moon” and very much enjoyed this short story. I started looking around Lightspeed and am liking what I have seen so far. I am curious about the subscribe feature and may do so if I find that I continue, throughout June, to like what I am reading there. Interesting for me to note to myself, short stories (at least there) seem to be agreeing with me more now than they did in the past.
Yes, they have a really nice magazine that they put together. I pay the $2.99/month subscription rate through Amazon so that I can read everything in the magazine format on my Kindle, when I want to read it vs. waiting for them to release stories gradually throughout the month. And there is always additional content in the subscription. But it is nice that they put up all the new and reprint short stories free for anyone as the month goes on.
Glad you enjoy Princess Lucinda. It is a sweet story. Short stories can grow on you if you read the right ones.