Fantasy Magazine, Issue 66 (April 2021): Fantasy Magazine, #66

By Arley Sorg and Christie Yant

FANTASY MAGAZINE is a digital magazine focusing exclusively on the fantasy genre. In its pages, you will find all types of fantasy-dark fantasy, contemporary urban tales, surrealism, magical realism, science fantasy, high fantasy, folktales_and anything and everything in between. FANTASY is entertainment for the intelligent genre reader-we publish stories of the fantastic that make us think, and tell us what it is to be human. Welcome to issue sixty-six of FANTASY MAGAZINE! In this issue . . .  Alice Goldfuss weaves a biting tale of resistance in "Woman With No Face" and Y.M. Pang offers a fresh twist on a superhero navigating relationships in "How I Became MegaPunch, or Why I Stayed with Dylan"; for flash fiction, A.Z. Louise brings coffee and witches together in "Single Origin" and Shane Halbach's "So. Fucking.Metal." puts the Death in Death Metal; for this month's poetry we bring you Terese Mason Pierre's "Appeal to the Dopplegänger" and Tristan Beiter's "The Knitting Bowl"; plus, this issue features an essay by The Unbroken author C.L. Clark: "The Fiction of Peace, The Fantasy of War."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adamant Press
• Release date: Apr 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393599180

Book preview

Fantasy MagazineFantasy Magazine

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Issue 66, April 2021

FROM THE EDITORS

Editorial, April 2021

Christie Yant and Arley Sorg

FICTION

Single Origin

A.Z. Louise

The Woman With No Face

Alice Goldfuss

So. Fucking. Metal.

Shane Halbach

How I Became MegaPunch, Or, Why I Stayed with Dylan

Y.M. Pang

POETRY

Appeal to the Doppelgänger

Terese Mason Pierre

The Knitting Bowl

Tristan Beiter

BOOK EXCERPTS

A Dark Queen Rises

Ashok K. Banker

The Conductors

Nicole Glover

NONFICTION

The Fiction of Peace, the Fantasy of War

C.L. Clark

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHTS

Alice Goldfuss

Y.M. Pang

MISCELLANY

Coming Attractions, May 2021

Support Us on Patreon, or How to Become a Dragonrider or Space Wizard

Subscriptions and Ebooks

Stay Connected

About the Fantasy Team

© 2021 Fantasy Magazine

Cover by MoVille/Adobe Stock Image

https://www.fantasy-magazine.com

Published by Adamant Press.

From the Editors

Editorial, April 2021

Christie Yant and Arley Sorg | 725 words

AS: The pandemic changed so many things, including the logistics of social and professional interactions. This showed up in some movies and TV shows, while others pretended it didn’t happen. And we saw the same thing in fiction: some stories are set with people wearing masks and dealing with a COVID-19 world, others aren’t. As vaccines are rolled out and more and more people are getting their shots, I can’t help but wonder what kinds of changes will be carried through into our post-COVID-19 reality.

CY: One of the things that’s come out of the pandemic is that conventions have moved online. This has made them more accessible to many people who would otherwise never have been able to attend. In April you and I are participating in the Flights of Foundry convention, which not only is scheduling around the clock to accommodate different time zones around the world, but also made it payment-optional!

AS: I’ve really been enjoying doing panels! But I have mixed feelings about online conventions. I do like that making it online is more cost effective and means people who might not otherwise attend can actually attend. But I miss hanging out at the bar with folks, and I miss randomly bumping into people and having an unexpected good time with them. I’m hoping that some conventions develop hybrid models (in person/online for example) and wonder if others, such as FIYAHCON or Augurcon, will continue to do online-only events.

CY: Zoom is definitely not a replacement for those hallway greetings that turn into hours-long conversations! But at least it allows us to connect with our fellow readers and writers and stay in touch with our community.

I’m glad you’re having fun with panels! I’ll confess I haven’t done much programming, despite a decade of convention attendance. I was on one panel years ago that I was completely unqualified for and felt like an idiot, and I didn’t want to have that experience again, so I’ve avoided it. I’ve done a couple of readings and led little workgroups at workshops, but I’ve never done a kaffeeklatsch or a panel discussion since that first one. But now I’m bracing myself to dive in and talk to people about Fantasy Magazine! (Or whatever they want to talk about.)

AS: I think part of the problem with convention culture is that conrunners don’t learn from each other as much as they could, or from their antecedents, and consequently we see a lot of repeated issues, such as exclusionary practices, or putting people on panels they aren’t comfortable with. As we get back to in-person conventions, I hope conrunners will look at the successes of fantastic events (such as FIYAHCON) and make changes. This is kind of what we attempt to do with Fantasy Magazine—part of it is about putting together great issues, but part of it is about making conscientious decisions which we hope will contribute positively to the landscape of genre.

CY: It seems like the SFF community is taking the issue of inclusion seriously. I think what you were saying about a future hybrid program could really be a tremendous leap forward in that direction. We look forward to seeing our readers and contributors at future conventions, both virtual and in person!

• • • •

In this issue . . .  Alice Goldfuss weaves a biting tale of resistance in Woman with no Face and Y.M. Pang offers a fresh twist on a superhero navigating relationships in How I Became MegaPunch, or Why I Stayed with Dylan; for flash fiction, A.Z. Louise brings coffee and witches together in Single Origin and Shane Halbach’s So. Fucking.Metal. puts the Death in Death Metal; for this month’s poetry we bring you Terese Mason Pierre’s Appeal to the Dopplegänger and Tristan Beiter’s The Knitting Bowl; plus, this issue features an essay by The Unbroken author C.L. Clark: The Fiction of Peace, The Fantasy of War.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Arley Sorg is a senior editor at Locus Magazine, where he’s been on staff since 2014. He joined the Lightspeed family in 2014 to work on the Queers Destroy Science Fiction! special issue, starting as a slush reader. He eventually worked his way up to associate editor at both Lightspeed and Nightmare. He also reviews books for Locus, Lightspeed, and Cascadia Subduction Zone and is an interviewer for Clarkesworld Magazine. Arley grew up in England, Hawaii, and Colorado, and studied Asian Religions at Pitzer College. He lives in Oakland, and, in non-pandemic times, usually writes in local coffee shops. He is a 2014 Odyssey Writing Workshop graduate.

Christie Yant writes and edits science fiction and fantasy in the American mid-west. She worked as an assistant editor for Lightspeed Magazine from its launch in 2010 through 2015, and, in 2014 she edited the Women Destroy Science Fiction! special issue of Lightspeed, which won the British Fantasy Award for Best Anthology. She is the co-editor of four anthologies, and a consulting editor for Tor.com’s line of novellas. Her own fiction has appeared in anthologies and magazines including Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2011 (Horton),  Armored, Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, io9, and Wired.com.

Fiction

Single Origin

A.Z. Louise | 1260 words

I met Fawn in line for the bog witch’s coffee. At first, there was a man standing between us, but after a few days of waiting, he wandered off. Most people did, but not Fawn and me. We started talking once we were beside each other, sharing the food we’d brought. I’d brought a flask of bourbon, which she hated (and still hates to this day), but she gamely worked her way through it with me.

Benita, she said after every sip and accompanying shudder. There’s something wrong with you.

We laughed more and more while we talked about why we had come. For Fawn, it was the hope of hearing her future. Even with the loosening warmth of bourbon to make her talkative, there was a shadow in her dark eyes, a loneliness that she could neither shake nor hide. I wished I could shelter her, drain out the bitterness that tainted her smile.

I had come out of curiosity. I’d walked by the bog witch’s house hundreds of times while out hunting, but always from the edge of the bog. Even there, you could smell the coffee brewing through the scents of damp earth, acidic water, and peat. Beckoning, the pull so strong that I wasn’t sure if by coming I had passed