Now available at http://www.fantasticbooks.wilderpublications.com/

From Publishers Weekly

Product Description

How badly could you screw up when granted access to infinite worlds conforming to your heart's most intimate desires? No matter how much of a disaster you or I might make of such a miraculous gift, rest assured that Paul Girard, hapless middle-aged bookstore clerk, can hilariously surpass your worst fumblings and missteps. Visited one morning by a dimension-hopping artificial intelligence named Hans, Paul is given the ability to jump instantly to any world he can envision. But without truly knowing himself, Paul soon discovers that framing a wish that gets the expected results is not as easy as it first appears. From the depths of the Big Bang to a world where hippies rule; from a land of Amazons to one where life is a video-game; from a society where cooperation means everything to one where individual chaos rules. Across these bizarre dimensions and many others, Paul races in the search for happiness, love, wealth, status and the answer to the Ontological Pickle. Acquiring comrades and enemies along the way, our feckless alternaut reaches a cul-de-sac from which the only exit is death. And then his adventures really begin.

Now available at  www.fantasticbooks.wilderpublications.com/   is Trent Zelazny's The Day the Leash Gave Way and Other Stories, ISBN 1604598840. Collected here are twenty-four dark, quirky, eccentric stories. Trent Zelazny will surprise you, entertain you, and take you places you've never been before. A new strong, confident voice has arrived. Zelazny could have chosen to make a career of covering the same ground that his father had already plowed. Instead he has chosen to strike out on his own and prove right out of the gate that he is his own man. Trent Zelazny is off and running. I have someone new to admire." -Joe R. Lansdale, Edgar Award winner and seven-time Bram Stoker Award winner "Trent Zelazny is a master of tension, frisson, madness, and mayhem. I love the way he writes and read everything I can get my hands on. You should do the same." -Gerald Hausman, author of Time Swimmer and Castaways "A gift for storytelling is in Trent Zelazny's genes. It's a pleasure to crack open his book and let him carry you away." -Charles Ardai, Edgar and Shamus Award winner "You can tell Trent Zelazny is having fun when he's writing, because his work is so much fun to read . . . You should try it sometime." -Brian Knight, author of Broken Angel and Sex, Death & Honey "Trent Zelazny pulls off ideas most other writers wouldn't dream of, never mind attempt. That he succeeds is testament to the length of his imagination and the breadth of his talent. He will not live long in the literary shadow of his father, but will soon take his rightful place beside him as one of the most important writers of the fantastic this country has produced." -Garrett Peck

I don't usually post ads here, but I thought this might be of interest. I've been meaning to design a new ad for Roger Zelazny's Manna from Heaven collection. Today I had to design an ad for Trent Zelazny's collection to put into the February issue of Realms of Fantasy. I usually put two of our books into each ad, so I was trying to decide which writer to pair Trent with when it hit me. Who better than Roger!

For people who are interested in process I thought I'd post the slightly changed cover. I got some feed back from Doug and Angela and then slept on it. In the morning I made a couple of changes and here are the results.

Here's a first look at the next cover. I haven't shown it to anyone yet, so there's a very real chance that a lot of changes could happen before it's finalized.

The new cover marks the first cover in the history of the Realms of Fantasy that Realms has a cover story. That means that until now no cover has ever accurately represented the contents of the issue.  Kind of hard to believe. The covers that Sovereign ran are the reason that so many people think that Realms is a high/heroic fantasy magazine when in fact it has essentially been a contemporary fantasy magazine. I wonder how long it will take for that impression to change. I probably shouldn’t say that I'm not deeply impressed with a field that has been so wrong about one of its top magazines for such a long time.

Here’s the cover of the December issue which will be going to press this week. This one was very hard to design. The muted colors of the painting made it nearly impossible to pick colors for it. We had to break out our Pantone guide and color wheel. I’m also a bit concerned about the way the texture of the canvas comes through on this one. I’d love to get other people’s opinions on this cover as I'm not sure that this is the final word on it. Remember, though, this sells on the newsstand not the internet and no one who will buy it will see it at anything other than full size.  Also, if you’ve posted that I used Times New Roman or Areal Black on the last issue I can probably do with out your opinion especially since neither fonts were actually used on the October issue’s cover.

If you're like me and had not seen these movies you may wish to stop reading right now as there are spoilers here.

First off let me say, WTF. Did I miss something in Watchmen. The bad guy (Veidt) kills 15 million people and pays no price for it and one of the good guys (Rorschach) dies because he won't keep the truth about what happened quiet? Not only does this make no sense it's downright stupid. I get that the Veidt has managed to avert World War III, though I also get that he essentially pushed the US and the USSR to the brink of said war so that he could prevent it. I get that he thinks that the loss of 15 million people is justified by changing the way mankind looks at war thus saving it from  itself. I don't get why Dr. Manhatten blows up Roescharch rather than Veidt. That was just stupid. He killed 15 million people, blow his ass up and then try to talk some sense into Roescharch. I'm thinking he might not care about reveiling the truth of what happened so long as Veidt is punished. Instead the guy gets a firm tounge lashing.

Okay, Sin City. I loved the look of the movie, but I'm mystified as to why Bruce Willis' killed himself. I mean, were it me, I'd at least gotten killed trying to kill the senator. So the senator gets a free pass because it's easier to  shoot yourself in the head? Also the circular nature of the narrative did absolutely nothing to add to the presentation of the movie, in Pulp Fiction it was cool and you could see how the ending and the beginning were tied together. Here it tied nothing together and served no useful purpose. Oh well, there's a reason I work in print media.

Just thought I'd make a short post here and let everyone know that I am starting the layout of the October issue of Realms today. It should go to the printer next Friday. I'll have a TOC up here soon as well as the cover as soon as that is finalized.

I know I should have just let the entire thing die. But the things being said in the comments of Tempest's blog about Harlan were just so incorrect that I could not let them stand. Much of the misunderstanding came when Tempest misunderstood what Harlan was saying to her. I'm certain she cares about accuracy and will appreciate my correcting the record, but I'm not so sure her friends will feel that way. For those who do not read her blog, this is what I said.

I realize I should just stay out of this and let all of this stand. There is nothing that I can possibly gain posting this, but Harlan is a friend of mine and though I certainly did not want him to enter the fray I know that he did it, in part, because we are friends and he thought I was being treated unfairly. Frankly I’d have been happier if everyone on my end would have stayed out of it and allowed me to deal with the entire thing myself. That didn’t happen and so here I am to bring a reality check to a lot of what is being said here.

First Harlan never called Tempest a Nigger (I hate even typing that word) as many of you are stating here as bald fact. Moreover Harlan did not even call Tempest a NWA. Now I realize why many of you think this is what he said. Here on her Blog, Tempest said, “he hurls several insults at me, but some of my favorites are: I’m in the NWA, a Women of Cuhluh, and a swineherd.”

As to the NWA what Harlan actually said was “She has dummied-up a truly insulting mock-cover of REALMS that is intended to be offensive to anyone who values my sixty years' work. Now: watch your step. She is apparently a Woman of Color (which REALLY makes me want to bee-atch-slap her, being the guy who discovered and encouraged one of the finest writers and Women of Color who ever lived, my friend, the recently-deceased Octavia Estelle Butler). And she plays that card endlessly, which is supposed to exorcise anyone suggesting she is a badmouth ignoramus, or even a NWA.”

If you take the time to actually parse the sentence in question you’ll see that what is actually being said is that Tempest plays the race card whether the person she’s interacting with is just disagreeing with her or if said person is calling her a member of the NWA. The latter would, of course, deserve to have the card played; the former would not. He did not say, “Tempest is....” That just didn’t happen. Tempest misread the sentence and I can only assume all of her friends either didn’t check the original or they also misread it.

Harlan also did not call Tempest a Women of Cuhluh. What he actually said was, “Well, folks, if you'd like to give this termagant a taste of her own approbrium[sic], you got the Public Name in a Public Place, so have at it. Even those of you who are Merely Women, or even Women of Cuhluh.” The name in question is clearly intended for those minions of his that he is sending to do battle with Tempest, not for Tempest herself. As for calling Tempest a swineherd, yeah, he did call her that.

I am not trying to defend anything that Harlan said here, he can do that for himself. If you want to think of him, or call him, a racist because he called Tempest a swineherd or because he said he wanted “to bee-atch-slap her” or because he claims she plays the race card to her own advantage, you have every right to your oppinion. I won’t agree with you, but I won’t try to say you are wrong for feeling that way. What you cannot do is say Harlan is a racist because he called Tempest a nigger or said she was a NWA because that did not happen. If you are going to make these kinds of accusations against anyone you have an obligation to get it right.

www.amazon.com/PENNTERRA-Judith-Moffett/dp/1604597291/ref=sr_1_5

PENNTERRA by Judith Moffett ISBN 1604597291.
Penntera is a beautiful and fertile planet and humanity's last hope for survival. But Penntera is already inhabited. After warning other colony ships to stay away, the small advanced colony of Quakers has adapted to life on Penntera. Heeding the empathic warnings of the native hrossa, they have settled in a single valley, sharply limited their population, and continued to use no heavy machinery in their building and farming. But surviving under these circumstances has left the Quakers little time to learn about their native neighbors. Catastrophe or peace-Tanka Wakan, the omnipotent master spirit of Penntera will decide. "Stunning . . . the best first novel I have read in at least a decade . . . dangerous and breathtaking to behold . . . "—Michael Bishop