Recommendations from the latest batch of magazines.

From Asimov's Science Fiction, June 2007: "Tideline" by Elizabeth Bear and "Scrawl Daddy" by Jack Skillingstead.

From The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September 2007: "If We Can Save Just One Child" by Robert Reed, "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" by Ted Chiang and Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack in the Kingdom of the Purple Flowers" by John Lanagan.

From Interzone, Jul-Aug 2007: Exvisible by Carlos Hernandez.

From Fantasy Magazine, Spring 2007: "Seven Crooked Tinies" by Marly Youmans, "The Impossibilities of Crows" by Catherine M. Morrison, "His Wife" by Bruce McAllister, and The Girl With Blueberry Eyes" by Lisa Mantchev.

From Apex, Volume 1:Issue 9: "The End of Crazy" by Katherine Sparrow.

From Shimmer, Winter 2007: "Tom Cofferwillow Comes Undone" by Stephen L. Moss.

From Say...what's the combination?: Known Forms or How the Aliens Stole My Clone Babies for Jesus" by Melissa Moorer, "Into the Woods" by Marguerite Croft.

Shimmer, Summer 2006. This was my first reading of Shimmer, a small zine of beauty. Shiny front and back cover with beautiful, and I want to say photoworkshopped, art. So beautiful that I felt badly toting it around and about and marring it a bit from my crude habits and behavior. Nine pieces of fictions, very short pieces, smaller than flash in a couple of instances. Speculative or fantastical, of course. I'm thinking the publication tends a bit more towards literal writing than most zines, although there is a garden gnome story (not what you'd think) and an alien story (not what you'd think, but, yes, an Earth with aliens and local politics.) I should also note that there is an interview within the issue: Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta.

Among my favorite pieces, there is a very short poetic flash piece by Beverly Jackson called "A Fish Tale" where the narrator's morning walk with her dog leds to a lifetime of love and a moment of heartache. A small sample from it:

A pony-sized Airedale pup galumphs across the shoreline stones to greet my mutt. A sturdy man with curly hair and teeth like dice unfurls his line and waves. I lift my hand and marry him.

Tom Pendergrass' "Urban Renewal" is a tale told in memorandums about the woman who lives in a shoe with many children, thirteen to be exact.

And, and, and it is extremely difficult to present a new story based upon an older one that has been written upon any number time before, in this case, the story of Bluebeard. Angela Slater's "Bluebeard" presents a new and fresh approach. Written from the perspective of a smart, young girl who accompanies her mother to Bluebeard's home, it becomes a story of not only of family, but the strengthen and weaknesses in the family structure.

I liked this issue, and I look forward to reading the new one.