Issue 23 - June 2011

According to a recent press release, issue 23 has an unusual twist to it. Cue the news-magazine style TV music now…

Dateline: Greensboro, NC, June 8, 2011 — Six years after appearing in Writers of the Future XXI together, four of 2005's winners will have stories published in the same issue of Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show (IGMS), a leading webzine of science fiction and fantasy. [http://www.InterGalacticMedicineShow.com]

Recent Nebula-winner Eric James Stone, Scott Roberts, Lon Prater, and Mike Rimar—each a 2005 winner of the ongoing Writers of the Future contest—were notified separately this year that the short stories they had submitted to IGMS would appear together in the June 8 issue of the award-winning webzine. "I noticed that we'd all mentioned stories coming out in the same issue and joked that we should call it a reunion," Scott Roberts said.

"It's not unusual for IGMS to publish winners of the Writers of the Future contest," fiction editor Edmund Schubert pointed out. "We regularly receive outstanding submissions from prior winners. What's really odd is publishing so many from the same year in one issue. I wouldn’t be surprised if this turns out to be some kind of record."

Turns out it is a record.

Cover-story author and WotF-winner Scott Roberts brings us, "A Discriminating Monster’s Guide to the Perils of Princess Snatching," a tale of… well, I think the title pretty much sums it up: a tale of the perils of princess snatching.

Next up from WotF gang is "Four Wizards and a Funeral” by Mike Rimar. In it four wizards manage to make a poor mortician’s life miserably complicated with conflicting demands regarding the treatment of their recently deceased comrade’s corpse. Of course, the corpse has plans of its own…

“This Is My Corporation, Eat,” from WotF-winner Lon Prater is a short story about the evolution of one Christian man in a world where faith has been capitalized and commercialized to the nth degree. This story also serves as this issue’s audio feature, performed by Tom Barker.

And in case you’re not tired of hearing me say “WotF-winner” yet, "Into The West” is by WotF-winner and recent Nebula winner Eric James Stone. “Into the West” is an unusual tale of a one-way ticket to the end of the world. You just want to make sure your ticket is for a trip in the other direction…

Lastly, but by no means least, "The Hanged Poet” by Jeffery Lyman is a powerful recounting of a conversation between an exiled general and a woman who was hung by the neck and left for dead many years earlier for her seditious poetry. She can’t completely die until her poetry does too, but the general is a collector of poetry and man in need of a mission.

Also, Darrell Schweitzer brings us an up-close-and-personal look into the latest goings on with Larry Niven.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to repeat an item from last issue’s letter in case you missed it, because it’s simply too good to miss: IGMS for the e-reader -- Kindle, Sony, Nook, Kobo, whatever – any e-reader that you can name.

Currently we have issue 1, and issues 11 through 22 available for free for subscribers, and if you're not a subscriber yet, those same issues are available for single-issue purchase and Kindle-download at Amazon.

Plus, as each new issue goes up, it will be added within a few days to both Amazon and on IGMS for subscribers.

If you're already a subscriber, all you have to do is click on "My Account" (in the upper left-hand corner of any page (except, of course, the home page)) and you'll be able to email yourself a mobipocket file for your e-reader. If you bought even just a single issue back when that was the IGMS subscription model, you can still get that single issue for your e-reader, too.

So a big thanks to our web designer, Scott Allen, for making those issues available for the e-reader, and a big you're welcome to IGMS readers everywhere.

Edmund R. Schubert
Editor, Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show

P.S. As usual, we've collected essays from the authors in this issue and will post them right here on our blog. Feel free to drop by and catch The Story Behind The Stories, where the authors talk about the creation of their tales.