What do a near-sighted, runt-of-the-litter goblin named Jig and a clear-eyed, big-witted storyteller named Jim have in common? A big heart? Determination? A pet fire-spider named Smudge?
Jim C. Hines is the author of Goblin Quest, Goblin Hero, Goblin War, The Stepsister Scheme, and the forthcoming The Mermaid’s Madness (DAW, October [...]

First and foremost, magazine fiction editors are readers who love stories so much that they’ve made a career out of reading them. They have a not-so-simple job: select, prepare, and present the best stories they can to a specific audience.
Below, ten of the top speculative fiction magazine editors talk about [...]

Robert V. S. Redick’s The Red Wolf Conspiracy (Del Rey, April 2009) is populated with tarboys, unwilling maidens, mad ship captains, and power hungry sorcerers. Monarchies clash and the lust for power obscures the weighty price of magic. The ocean rages and storm clouds loom. There is conspiracy, treason, and [...]

James Morrow is an accomplished novelist and short story writer, whose work combines a savage and sage wit with complex ideas and human concerns. From his highly regarded Godhead Trilogy to his recently acclaimed The Philosopher’s Apprentice, no subject matter is either too heady or humble for Morrow’s fecund [...]

Like Nashara in Tobias Buckell’s Ragamuffin, readers will be propelled across zero-gravity space by the power of the mini-guns found in Buckell’s first short story collection, Tides from the New Worlds. This collection of 19 old and new stories does much more than offer a retrospective of a young writer’s career.
Certianly, these stories [...]

Jeff VanderMeer is all over the place. In the best possible way. When he’s not kicking people in the head with the novels in his Ambergris Cycle; City of Saints and Madmen, Shriek: An Afterword, and Finch, he’s editing anthologies; The Leviathan series (w/various co-editors), The Thackery T. Lambshead [...]

Editing anthologies is an unsung art.  An anthologist balances story selection, story editing, story arrangement, and central concept (not to mention a variety of clerical and financial concerns). 
There are many individual pieces involved in the process, requiring practicality as well as intuition.  The anthologist, as Jeff VanderMeer says [...]

Ed Greenwood wanders the floor at GenCon 2008 with his arms full of Dungeons and Dragons miniatures.  At one of the country’s largest gaming conventions, just about everybody recognizes him as the guy who created the fantasy world The Forgotten Realms.
The Canadian library clerk seems unimpressed with how many people stop [...]

Despite having already published several novels, Australian writer Margo Lanagan first came into focus in most readers’ minds with the publication of World Fantasy Award-winning collection Black Juice (2004) and its signature story, “Singing My Sister Down.” Since then, she has published another collection, Red Spikes, [...]

Richard K. Morgan is the bestselling author of Altered Carbon (2002, 2006), Broken Angels (2003, 2007), Market Forces (2005), Woken Furies (2005, 2007), Black Man (UK) / Thirteen (US, 2007), and The Steel Remains (UK 2008). In 2008, Black Man received the Arthur C. Clarke Award for science fiction.
Black Man/Thirteen explores the concept [...]