Bewildering Stories News

Beer Frame

A “beer frame” is one in which every bowler but one on a team marks in the frame. It looks like I’m buying this time. When “In Times to Come” is written we have only a general idea how the next issue will shape up. And we may be surprised. That’s been the case in spades with this one. We’ve had to do a lot of shuffling based on our deliberately unwritten editorial guidelines:

Everyone ought to be able to read all of any issue comfortably on line within one week. We’re mindful that although we recommend that readers print out pages, there are probably few who do so.
Anything over 3,000 words is subject to being split into installments, which may be simultaneous or serialized.
An author’s name may appear once in the Departments and once elsewhere in any one issue, with consideration given to length and content.

Now, in this issue we have nine authors in all our categories. (Technically speaking, “Discussion” is a “department” while an “Article” is a contribution, but they’re really two aspects of the same thing.) That makes for a lot of variety, and we weigh it against length.

The poems are very short, but prose abounds: two novels, a serial, two short stories, and two Discussion essays. Not to mention the usual Departments.

We’d planned on including Steven Utley’s essay “Help Me Waste My Full Potential,” but it’s been moved to issue 99 to make room for his editorial “Fungi in the Fine Print.”

We owe a special apology to Ian Donnell Arbuckle. We’d planned on concluding Made It Way Up in this issue. However, the last four installments add up to a blockbuster. In a shorter issue, they might work together. However, I think we ought to respect the pace of the story and read his dramatic prose poems with the care they deserve. Parts 22 and 23 are full of tension, and the latter ends on a note of suspense. Parts 24 and 25 will make a fitting conclusion in issue 99.

Gaia was the knottiest problem. Chapter 3, part 1 is quite short, but part 2 is long enough to split into two installments. We think we’d be doing no favors to Tala Bar to print a part and a half; therefore we’re printing chapter 3, part 1 in this issue. All of part 2 and, possibly, part 3 will appear in issue 99.