Issue 4 of International Speculative Fiction is out featuring yours truly’s review column. In which I cover some of the recent works of independent self publisher Rabia Gale and the award winning Eliza Victoria. But of course I shouldn’t be the only reason you pick up a copy of this FREE publication in one of its multiple formats (mobi, epub or pdf).
In this issue Roberto Mendes and Ricardo Loureiro have managed to bring together another great collection of story art and non-fiction writing from around the world. The fiction section features works by previous World Fantasy Award winners including Ken Liu.
The non-fiction section features an interesting interview with Zoran Živković on the fantastical tradition in European writing:
The term “fantastika”—used in slightly different ways in many European languages—doesn’t seem to have a satisfactory English equivalent. It could have been “fantasy” if that term hadn’t been reduced to a marketing label that means “Tolkienesque” fiction.
Fantastika is by no means limited to that narrow section of the spectrum. It is, in fact, the spectrum itself—all nonmimetic prose. Nearly 70 percent of everything written during the past five thousand years is nonmimetic and belongs to one of many forms of fantastika: folklore, oneiric, fairytale, epic, and so forth.
There’s also a wonderful profile of Romanian artist George Munteanu, that’s worth a look (note the cover image is his as well).
While you are there you should also take the opportunity to download their free 2012 anthology.
Did you enjoy this post? Would you like to read more? You can subscribe to the blog through a reader,by Email or Follow me on twitter.