Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine (ASIM) #47, edited by the fabulous
My story "Acid" appears in it, as well as fiction by Patrick S. Tomlinson, Stephen Watts, Felicity Pulman, Charlotte Nash, John Phillips, Ferrett Steinmetz, Gary Cuba, and Tam McDonald. I’ve met Gary Cuba on Baen’s Bar but don’t have an acquaintance with any of the others. (I don’t think.)
Both print and PDF versions are available; I haven’t received my contributor copy yet so I can’t comment on them, but once I do I’ll post a brief note. (A mini-gush, if you will.)
ASIM has one of the best submissions systems I’ve seen–they have a three-step process, and inform you each time you pass from one stage to the next. From the general slush pool, your submission graduates to a second reading. From the second reading, it graduates to a hold–they keep your submission in a much smaller pool for editors to pick and choose from, for two-three months. After three months, if your submission is still in the pool, they’ll release it back to you, with comments. (You always get comments, even if you’re rejected at the first level.) With this system, you know exactly where your submission got dropped, and thus whether it’s an individual-taste thing or a more fundamental problem with your story.
As a minor point of interest, "Acid" is my third submission to ASIM. Story #1 was rejected at the very first level, with about a page and a half worth of comments. I trunked that one a while ago, and am now using the central concept in an entirely new framework. Story #2 made it to a hold, but they ultimately released it, with a few sentences of good reviews from slush readers. I just sold that one, after it sat around on my hard drive for a while. So I wouldn’t use ASIM as a substitute for workshopping a piece, but it does seem to give an accurate forecast.
ETA: Also, apparently I got twitted by ASIM on my WotF honorable mention. It’s bizarre to see my name popping up when so far (according to a Google search) I’ve been close to invisible.
Sorry, we’ve all been at Worldcon, and I don’t think the issues have been mailed as yet, but they will be this week (hopefully, because I’m not doing the mailing). It’s me doing the Twitter account at the moment 😉
Well, since I’m overseas I expect it to take longer anyway. But I was excited enough that I didn’t want to wait to post about it.
Re:Twitter–hey, that explains why I didn’t see a “ASIM #47 editor Patty Jansen a WOTF finalist for the second time running.” 🙂