What’s in Issue 342
| Novella | Brian and Karen go out on a dinner date. Does Brian think he has it bad? Karen’s life story is pretty horrendous. To make matters worse, her cat is suspicious of Brian: John W. Steele, Beyond the Island, chapter 18; chapter 19. |
|---|---|
| Short Stories |
New contributor John Anker puts the reader in the position of a penultimate savior of a post-apocalypse barbarian tribe. It’s a dubious honor, and one you may refuse if you push the right buttons on the rockets of a downed aircraft: The Seventh One. Is this a double or triple murder? Cleverly dented beer cans may point to the solution: B J Bourg, Death Notice, part 1; conclusion. Does Dr. Spider deserve his fate? And what is it, exactly? Yelena Dubrovin, The Dying Glory. New contributor Ronald E. Heinrich depicts the plight of an abandoned child from the child’s and an adult’s point of view at the same time: Garbage Child. New contributor Tom Sheehan borrows an ancient legend to show how an uncontrolled paranormal talent can go very wrong indeed: The Salting, part 1; conclusion. |
| Flash Fiction |
New contributor Ron Van Sweringen introduces “Crazy Mildred,” who seems to be far less crazy than she’s given credit for being: To the Penny. |
| Poetry | John Stocks, Lincoln Cathedral, 1312-2009 |
| Short Poetry |
Bill Bowler, Reading Blake Mary B. McArdle, Portal |
Departments
| Welcome | Bewildering Stories welcomes John Anker, Ronald E. Heinrich, Tom Sheehan, and Ron Van Sweringen. |
|---|---|
| Challenge | Challenge 342 says Take It With a Pillar of Salt. |
| The Reading Room |
Casey Quinn, Snapshots of Life (excerpts) Jerry Wright reviews Nancy McKenzie, Guinevere’s Gamble |
| The Art Gallery |
A randomly rotating selection of Bewildering Stories’ art NASA: Picture of the Day Earth Observatory Picture of the Day |
Bewildering Stories News
The Second Quarterly Review: This is the last regular issue of the second quarter. Next week will bring you the year’s Second Quarterly Review, the editors’ choices from issues 331-342. Bewildering Stories will resume regular publication with issue 343 on July 6, 2009.
Traffic: Sometimes we’re asked how popular Bewildering Stories is on the Net. It’s hard to tell exactly, but we average about 2 or 3 new contributors an issue, and they found out about us somehow.
Our publisher Jerry Wright points to some interesting statistics at Alexa.com. Don’t be misled by the average time on site: it doesn’t account for tabbed browsing; nor does it account for pages opening in a new window, and we have plenty of those. A more important number is that of sites linking in: 161 is impressive. And it helps; we’ll update and expand our Links page as soon as possible.
Judging by the “traffic rank” (the lower the number, the higher the ranking), we currently rank behind Asimov’s but far ahead of Analog and, apparently, the other websites listed on the same page. We’re not in the top 100,000 yet, but we’re closing in. Keep up the good work, readers!
Randomly selected Bewildering motto:
Randomly selected classic rejection notice:
Bewildering Stories’ official mottoes:
“Poems are not made with ideas; they are made with words.” — Stéphane Mallarmé
Ars longa, vita brevis. Rough translation: “Proofreading never ends.”
To Bewildering Stories’ schedule: In Times to Come
Readers’ reactions are always welcome.
Please write!
Copyright © June 22, 2009 by Bewildering Stories
