Thursday, February 20, 2014

Editing News: Strange Aeons Lost Issue #13 Found, and Now Available to Backers of the 2014 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival - Portland

Cover art by Mike Dubisch

Time certainly does fly, doesn't it?  It must, as I have now served as Fiction Editor of Strange Aeons magazine for a little over two years, and have enjoyed every goddamn second of it.  Truly, it has been an incredibly fun and rewarding experience sourcing stories and working with amazing writers, and then feeling the pride of releasing those words and images and nightmares out into the ether.  The only down side has been the loathsome task of sending out rejections for great stories, as featuring only one piece of fiction per issue means the culling staff is firm and unforgiving.

While the one story per issue will continue, I'm proud to announce that we've just sewn up our very first ALL FICTION issue of Strange Aeons, which will be released as our "lost" Issue #13, featuring 13 writers in 76 pages, and is only available to those who pledge $10 and above to the 2014 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival - Portland through their Kickstarter campaign.  BUT YOU ONLY HAVE FOUR (4) DAYS LEFT, as this whole shebang closes down Monday, February 24th at 11:59 pm PST.  So get on your Huffy and haul ass before your access to this amazing special edition will be closed.

Strange Aeons Lost Issue #13 will be our largest issue yet, by far, and is made up of a mix of new, unpublished stories, re-printed tales new to the pages of the mag, and stories published under my tenure up to the present day.  Basically, if you missed any of the past issues going back to Spring 2012, worry not, silly scoundrel, you can get them all here, along with some fantastic fresh meat never before read by human eyes.

So, at long last, here is the ToC for Strange Aeons #13, listed in order of appearance:

"Welcome to the Reptile House" by Stephen Graham Jones
"The Impossibility Dissection" by Stuart Young
"Sunset on Megalopolis" by Jeffrey Thomas
"De Profundis" by Daniel Mills
"There's No Light Between Floors" by Paul Tremblay
"Insides Out" by Gary McMahon
"Folie a Deux" by Ross E. Lockhart
"The Astral Mask" by Richard Gavin
"You Are What You Eat" by Scott Nicolay
"Beautiful" by John Claude Smith
"Remains" by Orrin Grey
"Dog Will Hunt" by Ives Hovanessian
"Go, Go, Go, Said the Byakhee" by Molly Tanzer

This is a choice line-up, folks.  An A-Team, of sorts, sans mohawk and overzealous layering of gold chains (although Jeffrey has been known to go about 9-10 deep with the platinum and ice).  I'd put this group up against anyone in any antho or fiction journal coming out this year, and bet the house on the W.

So don't tarry, terry, or even teri.  Go support the good folks who are putting together the HPL FF PDX, and in the process, you'll get a collection of Weird/Cosmic/Horror/Dark Fiction that will amaze and delight your friends and colleagues, while gravely disappointing our parents.  Isn't that what life is all about?


And now the (semi)official stuff, from our website, and a snazzy vid below:

ISSUE # 13

Through incredible luck (and just a bit of eldritch wizardry) we've manged to secure a way for you to acquire what is now known as the 'lost' Issue 13!

As some of you may know, as 2013 drew to a close we began working on Issue 13. Through an unfortunate and unforeseen accident here at the SA offices, all of our files relating to the issue fell through a dimensional vortex and were feared lost.

Like any respectable Innsmouth hotel, we decided to skip Issue 13, and let it lie dreaming wherever it ended up. After collecting ourselves and counting our lucky elder signs that only the poor mailroom boy was lost along with the issue, we continued on and began working on Issue 14.

Miraculously earlier this month, a colleague of ours managed to track down the missing issue through means we are not at liberty to discuss. Suffice it to say that we owe you one...thanks, Erich!

The gracious folks at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival & CthulhuCon have offered to help us reconstitute the recovered pages, so for a very limited time, all backers of their HPLFF 2014 Kickstarter campaign can upgrade their pledge and our ALL-FICTION Issue 13 can be yours UNTIL THE END OF THIS MONTH.

This will be a special fiction issue including the talents of Ross E. Lockhart, Jeffrey Thomas, Scott Nicolay, Gary McMahon, Stephen Graham Jones, Stuart Young, and many others. It also features a wonderful cover by Mike Dubisch and interior illustrations by Allen K., Lee Davis, and Nick Gucker!

The best part is how easy it is to add Issue 13 to your collection. For as little as $1, you can become a backer of the HPLFF Kickstarter, and then simply add on the $10 upgrade amount to reserve your copy. This issue will only be available during the Kickstarter campaign, so make sure you grab your copy while you can! Please watch the video below to learn more about the HPLFF and pledge your support for the best Lovecraftian festival on earth!