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WEIRD TALES
VOL. 66, NO. 4 • ISSUE 360
Weird Tales was the first storytelling magazine devoted explicitly to the realm of the dark and fantastic.
Founded in 1923, Weird Tales provided a literary home for such diverse wielders of the imagination as H. P. Lovecraft (creator of Cthulhu), Robert E. Howard (creator of Conan the Barbarian), Margaret Brundage (artistic godmother of goth fetishism), and Ray Bradbury (author of The Illustrated Man and Something Wicked This Way Comes).
Today, O wondrous reader of the 21st century, we continue to seek out that which is most weird and unsettling, for your own edification and alarm.
Publisher
Creative Director
John Harlacher
Editor
Marvin Kaye
Managing Editor
James Aquilone
Contributing Editor
Kenneth Hite
Design Director
Jeff Wong
Consulting Art Director
Dave Buchwald
Public Relations
Terry Kaye
Editorial Consultant
Eugene D. Goodwin
Contributing Artists
Mark Bilgrey
Fabian
David Hartman
Danielle Tunstall
WEIRD TALES ® is published by Nth Dimension Media, Inc. Postmaster and others: send all changes of address and other subscription matters to 105 West 86th Street, Ste. 307, New York, NY 10024-3412. Single copies, $7.95 in U.S.A. & possessions; $10 by first class mail elsewhere. Subscriptions: 4 issues $20 in U.S.A. & possessions; $40 elsewhere, in U.S. funds. Single-copy orders should be addressed to WEIRD TALES at the address above. Copyright © 2012 by Nth Dimension Media, Inc. All rights reserved; reproduction prohibited without prior permission. Typeset & printed in the United States of America. WEIRD TALES ® is a registered trademark owned by Viacom International Inc.
THE EYRIE
Important Note—As this issue was being readied for press, we were saddened to learn of the death on June 5th of Ray Bradbury, one of America’s greatest fantasists. From 1942 to 1983, he contributed 26 short stories to Weird Tales. While our intent has been to honour the memory of H. P. Lovecraft in this edition of Weird Tales, we believe that it is also appropriate to dedicate this issue to the memory of Ray Bradbury. We have secured, with the permission of his literary agent, three examples of Ray’s writing: a movingly personal poem, a fascinating, little-known essay, and an extremely à propos short story.
—John Harlacher
Publisher
—Marvin Kaye
Editor
Weird Tales is an American trust.
Ever since 1923, for nearly four hundred issues Weird Tales has offered outstanding fantasy, mystery, science fiction, and unclassifiable weird fiction and fact, guided by a series of distinguished editors including (chronologically) Edwin Baird, Farnsworth Wright, Dorothy McIlwraith, Sam Moskowitz, Lin Carter, Gordon M. D. Darb, George H. Scithers, Darrell Schweitzer, John Gregory Betancourt, Stephen H. Segal, Ann VanderMeer, and now genre anthologist-editor-novelist Marvin Kaye, who, with John Harlacher, cofounded Nth Dimension Media, Inc., to continue the Weird Tales legacy.
Over its long life, the style of Weird Tales’s contents and appearance has evolved to reflect the expectations of its readers, as well as the taste and judgment of its editors, especially in the past few years. While some of its long-time readers have perhaps lamented the magazine’s latter evolution, its most recent incarnation has both dramatically increased its readership and won both Hugo nominations and awards.
So what’s next?
We must be Janus-faced. Some of the classic look and content of the 1930s-’40s-and ’50s will be brought back as an important part of the mix, for Weird Tales’s greatest years still capture the imagination of readers of all ages, thanks to the macabre power of such great contributors as Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, H. P. Lovecraft, Richard Matheson, etc. But we are also keenly interested in continuing and expanding the splendid work of Stephen Segal and Ann VanderMeer.
When Nth Dimension Media, Inc., purchased Weird Tales from Wildside Press, LLC, it also acquired H. P. Lovecraft’s Magazine of Horror, which ran from 2004 through 2009 in six issues edited by Marvin Kaye.
Weird Tales’s new publisher points out that there are no plans to bring back Lovecraft as a separate magazine, but it will remain an ongoing portion of Weird Tales. In fact, the current issue (# 360) pays special homage to Lovecraft by featuring new stories about the Elder Gods.
The editor, who still has a fairly large inventory of fiction intended for publication in H. P. Lovecraft’s Magazine of Horror, plans to secure rights to as many of these stories and poems as possible for inclusion in future issues of Weird Tales.
The new Weird Tales will be open to nearly all sorts of genre fiction and poetry, including, but not limited to absurdist humor, conte cruelles, fantasy, horror, new riffs on fairy and folk tales, as well as nonsense, terror, surrealism, possibly even theatre. The only kind of story that probably won’t fit would be neo-realism, though even here the editor is willing to be convinced otherwise.
The editorial approach to the Nth Dimension incarnation of Weird Tales will be similar to the way Mr. Kaye balanced content in his thirty-plus anthologies edited for the Science Fiction Book Club and other publishers:
• Stories by well-known authors, some of whom have already expressed interest in appearing (or reappearing) in Weird Tales, among them (though not limited to) Peter S. Beagle, Carole Buggé, Parke Godwin, Ron Goulart, Alan Dean Foster, Tanith Lee, Brian Lumley, William F. Nolan, Roberta Rogow, Jessica Amanda Salmonson, Darrell Schweitzer, Michael Shea, Jay Sheckley, Jane Yolen, and many more.
• Contributions by “midlist authors,” which means excellent writers who deserve to become better known.
• Newer writers culled from online submissions, as well as those discovered and developed by the editor during twenty-plus years of teaching fantasy and science fiction writing at New York University. Among the authors discovered and encouraged by the editor are Carole Buggé, Shannon Cork, Rachel Mann, Jean Paiva, Roberta Rogow, C. H. Sherman, Kathleen Snow, Kathleen C. Szaj, Carolyn Wheat, etc.
• A small number of reprints of classic stories from back issues of Weird Tales, as well as world literature.
Each new issue of Weird Tales will feature a presiding theme, although other stories and poetry will be included along with tales that fit the governing idea.
Our current issue is devoted to the Elder Gods and begins with a new novella by the great British fantasist Brian Lumley, followed by Cthulhu-ish stories from veteran authors Darrell Schweitzer and Michael Shea, and newer author William Blake Smith.
Also in this issue is a non-themed story by renowned fantasist Parke Godwin, who is my personal friend and often collaborator. I am grieved to report that at this writing Parke is convalescent; I am waiting for word from his friend and agent Connor Cochran (“Freff”) as to the condition of Parke’s health.
Our next issue of Weird Tales—# 361—will feature fairy tales/folk tales, with new stories by Dick Baldwin, Marc Bilgrey, Tanith Lee, Jane Yolen and a new tale from the great fantasist Peter S. Beagle.
—THE EDITOR
P.