Rather than waste your money on the new big-budget Transformers sequel, which Roger Ebert calls "a horrible experience of unbearable length," why not instead enjoy this loving look back at the series' roots and thoughts of what could have been from Jim Cleaveland -- which originally appeared in the first issue of Kaleidotrope in October 2006, now out of print?

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More Than Meets the Eye: The Transformers Revisited
by Jim Cleaveland

2007 will see the release of Michael Bay’s live-action movie based on the 1980s toy/television/comics franchise The Transformers. Judging by the trailer—a NASA probe lands on Mars, a big blocky shadow falls over it, and an unseen figure smooshes the probe—there is a certain likelihood that said movie will disappoint, and a possibility that it will suck like a hull breach. Yet I really do have high hopes for this film. Not high expectations, mind you, but high hopes.

Like many of my generation, I was a fan of The Transformers as a kid. A decade before I’d ever heard the term “fan fiction,” I enjoyed writing my own stories about these characters, and I therefore familiarized myself with the details of their world with all the obsessiveness that a child brings to such pursuits.

Years later, as an adult, I went back and analyzed just what the show’s strong appeal had been for me, and I realized that, if you turn a blind eye for a moment to the franchise’s toyetic origins, The Transformers actually does have some wonderful concepts and science-fiction story potential. I don’t know how much of this the writers were consciously aware of at the time, but it’s certainly there, and I’d like to see it explored in a thoughtful manner.

Robots in Disguise—Subtext in the Transformers

The Transformers are an artificial race from an artificial world, who do not know their origins. They do not age, and by any earthly standard are virtually immortal, yet they’ve spent most of their history in civil war, Autobot against Decepticon. Indeed, their agelessness and durability are the only reason the war has been able to continue—since no matter what they throw at each other, they can’t finish each other off, and no new generation will ever come along to change things. The lack of generational turnover has left them culturally stagnant, a race of immortal old farts continuing the same behaviors literally for eons as their world falls into ruin around them.

Now, however, they have come into contact with a race that is laughably weak and short-lived compared to themselves, but which, because of those very qualities, has progressed by leaps and bounds while they have remained at a standstill. As they learn from our example, for the first time in ages their society begins to change.

As for their “transforming” ability (an ironic talent, considering their cultural stasis), I’ve always thought it would be very useful for a robot to have two or more different configurations, each capable of a different function—provided an engineer were skillful enough to build such a thing. The evolution of this kind of robot, with the ability to transform itself, is not entirely implausible. And, on Earth, why not use that ability for camouflage?

The name “Autobot” is itself very likely short for “Autonomous Robot”. In the TV show, at least in the early seasons, it was implied that this was the original name for the entire race, and that the Decepticons began later as a seditionary movement among them. (It seems like a safe guess that “Decepticon” is a name they were branded with because of their actions, not a name they chose for themselves.)

The first issue of the comic book proposed that whatever the planet Cybertron’s original purpose may have been, it was not built to support a race of inhabitants. Rather, the robots “evolved” out of the planet’s clockwork to help its functioning, and over time these mobile components gradually achieved sentience. The comics later abandoned this nifty idea in favor of a more dramatic but, in my opinion, less interesting explanation of the race’s beginnings, but I’ve always liked the original one.

I’ve also found it significant that, personality-wise, most of the Transformers were portrayed as completely human—not stereotypically emotionless machines—even to the point of having their own spiritual beliefs. This begs all sorts of wonderful metaphysical questions about the nature of artificial intelligence, consciousness, and religion.

Then there’s the fun of watching contemporary humanity’s reaction to our first alien contact. We gradually realize that only one of the alien factions is actively hostile to us, and so we ally ourselves with the other side, which is prepared to come to our defense. But even these allies are deeply reluctant to share their technology with us, so we are left helpless primitives as a war is fought over top of us. Earth is a metaphor for every strategically important Third-World boondock that’s ever been fought over by two musclebound empires.

And of course there’s the dangling plot thread of the artificial planet Cybertron’s origins. Who built it? What was its original purpose? There’s all kinds of story potential there.

Till All Are One—Multiple Continuities

Most of what I’ve just said refers to the original Transformers television series, that being the version of Transformers with which I think Americans are most familiar, and certainly with which I am most familiar. In fact, there have been a lot of different Transformers shows and comics over the past twenty years, each iteration differing to varying degrees from the others, and this makes discussion difficult. Many fans take a common-sense approach of just picking and choosing the continuity elements they like from the various different incarnations, and I certainly cannot blame them for that.

The multiplicity of versions truly is enough to make a fan’s head spin. For instance, even though the television series and Marvel comic book begin almost identically, the storylines rapidly diverge. In the series, Earth’s governments and the Autobots quickly become allies. In the comic, the mass of humanity remains convinced that the Autobots are just as great a threat as the Decepticons.

The television series changed its format drastically in the third season, moving twenty years into the future and killing most of the original cast (a controversial decision which is almost certainly what got them canceled the following year), so it’s hard not to speak of it separately from the first two seasons.

Following the show’s cancellation in the United States, Japan picked up the storyline and kept it going for years, producing stories unfamiliar to American audiences. While Marvel’s American comic was still running (and still set in the present day, not the 21st century of the TV series), Marvel UK was producing a separate British version—and many of its concepts were later incorporated into the U.S. storyline when British writer Simon Furman moved over to the American title.

In the 1990s, Canada’s Mainframe studio produced two new series, Beast Wars and Beast Machines, which follow loosely from the old American television continuity; these series explored the possibility of robots being fused with organic material, becoming more like conventional living beings, as well as delving more into the metaphysics and mysticism of an artificial race (with interesting, albeit mixed results). Several years later, the comic book publishers DreamWave and Devil’s Due got the legal rights to produce their own Transformers comics, which incorporate some elements of the earlier continuities but are basically their own, new storylines. And, still more recently, some Japanese-made Transformers series such as Transformers: Armada and Transformers: Cybertron have been translated into English and broadcast in the U.S.

When the movie comes out, it will doubtless usher in a new continuity of its own.

Transformation—On Maturity, and Saying No To Grit

When all is said and done, The Transformers is a cartoon show marketed to children, based on a line of toy robots that turn into trucks. While I believe that it successfully transcends those humble origins, those origins are still present. As has happened with superhero comics, The Transformers is trying to grow up with its audience, and the new movie is the latest evidence of that.

Yet the problem with children’s properties endeavoring to reach an older audience seems to be that that they must pass through a very ugly puberty first. To prove the property is not just kids’ stuff, the creators make their stories as dark and “gritty” as possible. Certainly that was the case with the superhero comics of the late ‘80s through the ‘90s, a period some fans have dubbed “The Iron Age” for its brutal violence and nihilism, which seemed at odds with the bright three-color world Superman and Wonder Woman used to inhabit.

Similarly, too many attempts to inject greater realism into the Transformers’ story (including the original 1986 The Transformers: The Movie, for which I have never particularly cared) have involved giving the Transformers a much higher casualty rate in their battles. While I agree that greater violence would be an absolute necessity for a realistic version of that other 1980s mainstay, G.I. Joe¹, I think that increasing the vulnerability of the Transformers is counterproductive.

The Transformers are giant, ancient alien robots, and they’re supposed to be superhumanly tough. They fight their war on a mythological timescale in which individual warriors battle for eons before finally falling. An episode titled “The God Gambit” involved the Transformers visiting a primitive world and being mistaken for deities, and the natives’ error is hardly surprising. The Transformers know all too keenly that they are mortal, but they die a lot harder than we do.

In addition, and laying aside the damage a greater body count does to the subtext of the show, it certainly does leech the fun out of the thing. I truly hope that the upcoming movie does not go this route.

Less Than Meets the Eye—Shortcomings

In fairness, The Transformers has its share of shortcomings as science fiction and as art. As I say above, it did begin as children’s fare (and highly commercialized children’s fare, at that) and that shows through in many ways.

The television series was clearly done on a budget and with time constraints. The animation is lackluster, especially in the third season when the character designs became far too complicated to be easily animated. The background music is generally excellent but, as is typical of television animation of the time, the same tracks are repeated again and again throughout a season’s run—the most amusing result of this being that whenever a character is listening to rock music, it’s always the same song. Still, as a Doctor Who and Ultraman fan, I can’t seriously hold low production values against a show. Besides, as often as the animation was poor, the character designs and backgrounds were gorgeous.

Dialogue is frequently corny, with many silly puns and odd name-calling in lieu of cursing (e.g. “You metal meatball!” “Take that, Decepti-jerk!”). The voice acting is absolutely top-notch for the first two seasons—with greats like Casey Kasem, Peter Cullen, and Frank Welker—but, as with so many aspects of the third season, the voice acting goes downhill at that point—partly because Kasem left the show in protest over a nasty Arab stereotype in one episode. True, Dick Gautier’s Rodimus Prime is wonderful, but every time characters like Galvatron or Wheelie open their mouths, I want to crawl in hole and pull the hole in after me².

The science portrayed is rarely any more accurate that what could be found in a superhero comic of the same era. Terms like “galaxy” and “light year” are thrown around with no real idea of the distances involved. It certainly flunks my standard “hard science fiction” litmus tests: the aliens are humanoid, and the spaceships travel faster than light. Of course, those two faults are present in almost all American popular science fiction, and while that’s not a good thing, it’s certainly not a problem unique to this show.

There are two big plot holes that have always bugged me, however. First, the ostensible reason that Earth is so strategically important to the Transformers is our planet’s natural energy resources (fossil fuels and such), Cybertron’s own fuel reserves having long been expended by the war. The Transformers are an advanced race eons ahead of our own, so why the heck haven’t they mastered fusion? Or solar power? Why would they still need to derive energy from oil and coal? If we had our act together, even we wouldn’t be relying on those.

It also isn’t clear what constitutes “death” for a Transformer. In most cases, Transformer death is shown to be as permanent as human death, the implication being that losing power to certain critical systems will damage them too badly to ever be simply reassembled and switched back on. Yet, in a few cases, Transformers are shown to be essentially “knocked cold” for eons at a stretch, and then reactivated with little trouble. Most notably, in the very first episode, a group of Transformers crashes to Earth and lies deactivated for four million years, until their ship’s computer is jolted awake and reassembles them. This long period of dormancy is an important plot point for the entire series. What is the difference between death and mere dormancy (what the DreamWave comics have dubbed “stasis lock”)? I’d have liked to see an episode of the television show explaining that.

Dare to Keep All Your Dreams Alive

DVD collections are available for the original series, as well as for the 1986 movie, Beast Wars, and Beast Machines. The entire runs of both the American and British comics are available as trade paperbacks.

The Transformers: The Ultimate Guide by Simon Furman is a gorgeously illustrated encyclopedia that focuses mainly on the DreamWave Comics continuity, since Furman was writing for them at the time, but it has ample sections on the various television series and Marvel continuities as well.

In 2004 ibooks published a short-story anthology titled Transformers Legends, edited by David Cian. It’s currently out of print, but it’s exactly the sort of genuinely mature (not violence masquerading as maturity) approach to the characters and their world that I’ve wanted to see for ages. I wish it had become the first of a series of such anthologies. Unfortunately, ibooks also published a trilogy of Transformers novels at this time, which I and most fans found deeply disappointing, and that probably hurt this little anthology by association, which is a pity.

Lastly, there is a huge quantity of fan fiction available online. As you would expect of internet fan fiction, it is of wildly varying quality, but it’s certainly worth checking out.

So, the new movie is due out in May of 2007, and I hope for the best. While many people have reservations about Michael Bay as director, DreamWorks has an excellent track record. I am pleased to see it reported on the Internet Movie Database and elsewhere that Peter Cullen and Frank Welker, the voices of Optimus Prime and Megatron on the original television series, are rumored to be voicing those parts in the film.

There’s certainly enough there for a clever writer and director to work with, if they just recognize the potential. Here’s hoping for the best, and that there’s more to the plot than a NASA probe getting smooshed.

Dare to keep all your dreams alive, and roll out!

Collect Them All! Even with a huge cast of characters, nearly every Transformer has a well-defined personality, so that every fan has his one or two favorites, even if they’re obscure. Here are some of my own personal favorites Starscream (Decepticon)—Decepticon leader Megatron’s subordinate, Starscream has become one of the all-time great backstabbing weasels of popular culture. He views himself as a mighty general, but in fact he’s just a sneak and manipulator, constantly conniving to wrest power away from Megatron, and that’s probably all he ever will be. Skyfire (Autobot)—A friend of Starscream’s from before the War, he is discovered by Decepticons in modern times, inert but repairable. Megatron has him reactivated, and naturally assumes that Starscream’s old friend will join the Decepticons. Yet Skyfire is appalled to find his old academic colleague has become a fascist soldier. He sacrifices his life to prevent the Decepticons from claiming victory in a battle—and by this “betrayal” of his friend, Skyfire shatters the last remaining bit of compassion in Starscream’s black soul. Soundwave (Decepticon)—One of the few Transformers who actually behaves like a stereotypical robot, his face is an expressionless mask, he speaks in an echoey monotone, and he moves with an economy of body language reminiscent of the Terminator. Yet his stoic demeanor is skin-deep. He clearly has a parental compassion for the “cassette” robots stored within his body, particularly Ravage. Conversely, outside of the television show, he is frequently depicted as an eavesdropping blackmailer to his fellow Decepticons. Beachcomber (Autobot)—The Autobots’ geologist (who quite naturally has more business on Earth than on the steel-covered ecumenopolis of Cybertron) is a near-pacifist with the personality of a quiet beatnik. He fights when absolutely necessary, but he’s essentially a civilian, by his very presence demonstrating that, whereas the Decepticons are an army, the Autobots are a complete civilization. up with its audience, and the new movie is the latest evidence of that. Hound (Autobot)—Hound makes no secret of the fact that he prefers the unspoiled organic wildernesses of Earth to the war-torn world he comes from, though he speaks wistfully of the “quiet and peaceful” days before the war. He has one of the niftiest abilities of all the Transformers—projecting holographic illusions of anything he can imagine. Tracks (Autobot)—David Wise has said that, if he knew Tracks was going to be voiced “to sound like Thurston Howell III,” he would have written the character differently, but I’m glad he didn’t. The juxtaposition of that snooty, urbane Harvard voice with Tracks’s love of downtown New York is completely charming, and his episodes co-starring with street-smart ghetto kid Raoul make for a nicely improbable “buddy story.” Rodimus Prime (Autobot)—Optimus Prime’s replacement as Autobot leader, after his death in the 1986 movie. I didn’t like the amount of violence in the movie, nor the very different third season that followed from it, but I have come to like Rodimus, mostly because of Dick Gautier’s voice acting in the television show (Judd Nelson voiced Rodimus in the movie). The burden of leadership was forced on Rodimus when, by Autobot standards, he was still terribly young, and Gautier nails that combination of youth and world-weariness perfectly. Chip Chase (Human)—Despite his youth, Chase is one of the most brilliant scientific minds on Earth, and is therefore a perfectly logical ambassador to the Autobots. His being wheelchair-bound adds some pathos to the self-effacing little guy, and I was disappointed when the character was effectively written out of the show.

¹ I’m fond of Joe as escapism, but a children’s show about flesh-and-blood soldiers who are all mysteriously immune to gunfire is deeply problematic.

² Leonard Nimoy did a very impressive Galvatron for the 1986 feature film, but he didn’t stay on board for the subsequent television series.

Sam Tomaino of SFRevu reviews the April 2009 issue of Kaleidotrope:

One thing about Kaleidotrope is that no two stories are alike. There is no typical Kaleidotrope story. The variety here is not really found elsewhere. I recommend that you subscribe.

Should you wish to take him up on his recommendation...

I just announced, via my Twitter feed that, effective May 1, Kaleidotrope will be closed to submissions until further notice. And so it will be.

I've had an embarrassment of riches come my way, great stories and poems from talented writers, and the zine is a little full-up at the moment. Rather than continue to accept new material that I can't, in good faith, promise to publish in the very near future, I've decided to take a temporary break from submissions altogether. Anything already received will still be considered and receive a response, but anything after tomorrow will, by necessity, be rejected.

In the interim, I'll continue to publish issues of the zine. the brand new Issue #6 is currently available.

John Klima, editor of the (deservedly) award-winning zine Electric Velocipede could use some help:

I feel very awkward to ask for help when there are so many people who also need help. It's not easy for me to put this out there for the world.

So here's what I'm thinking. I have some back stock on issues of the Hugo and World Fantasy award nominated magazine Electric Velocipede, as well as copies of the three chapbooks I published. You can see more details about the issues and the chapbooks on the main catalog page of the website.

In addition to the regular items, I'm running a special for the chapbooks here. Check them out, and if anything sounds interesting to you, making a purchase will help keep the hounds at bay.

Times are tough all over, but if you're able, Klima and EV could use your support.

Congratulations to Kaleidotrope contributor Stephen Graham Jones (Issue 3, "Pistil, Stamen, Bloom"), whose novella "The Long Trial of Nolan Dugatti" (Chiasmus Press) has been nominated for a 2008 Shirley Jackson Award!

Production on Kaleidotrope is a one-man operation. It's facilitated by helpful local copy shops, but sometimes those aren't quite as helpful as one might hope. I think all the printing issues have now been resolved, but unfortunately because of those delays, and with the holiday weekend now upon us, it looks like the issues themselves will not be mailed out until next week.

Still, the issue looks great. It's 76 pages of great writing and art, from returning favorites like Rachel Swirsky (who John Scalzi recently called "one of the best young writers in science fiction") and Mark Rich to a slew of new voices to watch!

Copies are available now!

A couple of people have been asking about the cover for the sixth issue of Kaleidotrope. Here it is, with Creighton Matthew's terrific photo.

Wondering what's in the April 2009 issue of Kaleidotrope? Well wonder no more!

Fiction

"The Tenant" by Mark Rich
"Louis Jazz, Son of God" by Ward Crockett
"Malkazaar’s Food & Beverage Department" by Eric Stever
"Replicate Fade" by Heather Clitheroe
"To the Body" by Joshua Landers
"House Call" by Beth Hudson
"Single Handed" by Simon Petrie
"Evil Sleeps in Pink Pajamas" by Casey Fiesler
"The Eye of the Beheader" by Shannon Anthony
"Little Precious" by Carolyn Watson
"The Art of Biting" by Rachel Swirsky
"The Almost-Adventures of Immaculada Footstool" by Katy Wimhurst
"Passion Play" by Carol K. Howell
"Dust to Dust" by Kurt Kirchmeier

Poetry

"We Killed the Morale Officer on Sweetest Day" by Matt Betts
"Julian's Brides" by Kristine Ong Muslim
"A Voice Not Her Own" by Jason Heller
"Uninvited Guest" by G.O. Clark
"Wizard Fight on Sixth Street" by Nicky Drayden
"Twenty Third Century Research Grant" by klipshutz
"Field of Passion" by Sergio Ortiz
"Pommes frites" by Mike Estabrook
"Justifiable Ecocide" by R.A. Allen
"Rain Angel" by Thomas Zimmerman
"Morning in the Scrapyard" by Beth Langford

Artwork

Creighton Matthews
Joe Eden
Rose Bordett
Amy Law
Mark Nunez
Sophie Johnson

You can advance purchase issue #6 here. Copies will be shipping out soon!

Congratulations to 2009 Rhysling nominees, and Kaleidotrope contributors Bruce Boston, G.O. Clark, Kristine Ong Muslim, Terrie Leigh Relf, Mark Rich, Marge Simon, Lyn C.A. Gardner, Beth Langford, and Marcie Tentchoff!

In 2008, Kaleidotrope published two issues. Stories from both of these issues are eligible for 2009 Hugo Awards:

Issue 4, April 2008

• Andrew Howard -- "Molting"
• Ashley Arnold -- "Word Count: Negative 1"
• Bill Ward -- "The Three Wishes of Miles Vander"
• Adam Lowe -- "Paradise"
• Mike Driver -- "White Sheets"
• Flavian Mark Lipinetti -- "Furrier"
• Paul Abbamondi -- "She's a Hearth"
• Alex Dally MacFarlane -- "The Life and Times of a Hungry World, Told Briefly"
• Michael Obilade -- "The Transparency"

Issue 5, October 2008

• Bill Ward -- "The Wroteth's Grinding Bowl"
• Marshall Payne -- "The Blue Testament"
• Therese Arkenberg -- "Fortune Cookie"
• Barkley Burke -- "An Adventure in Foxhunting"
• Mark Rich -- "No Friday"
• Eric Del Carlo -- "Long After the Scrub"
• Brendan Connell -- "Virgin Hearts"
• Daniel Braum -- "Tommy's Shadow"

You can find Rich Horton's year-end summary of Kaleidotrope here, and his more in-depth reviews of the individual issues at SF Site. (More reviews can be found here as well.)

Several artists from the zine are eligible in the Best Fan Artist category, namely our two talented cover designers, Remi Treuer and Jim Cleaveland, and all of the following for their interior artwork:

• Rod Walker
• Lisa Willis
• Amy Law
• John Carleton
• Danielle Worrall
• Sina Sohrab
• Bastian Langguth
• Matt Billings

Finally, Kaleidotrope is also eligible -- for the first time -- in the Best Fanzine category, with yours truly (really?) eligible as Best Editor, Short Form.

If you enjoy Kaleidotrope, and are eligible to vote, I hope that you'll consider including us in your choices. You still have until February 28, 2009, to register your votes online.

I'm especially proud of all the great work Kaleidotope published in 2008 and look forward to many more years. I appreciate your support.

The New Year brings its first review: this from Rich Horton, who generally enjoyed the 5th issue and thinks Kaleidotrope "remains a varied and interesting publication."

A reminder that now until December 31 is your last chance to subscribe to Kaleidotrope at the current rate of $16 ($25 int'l). That's four issues of stories, poems and other various bits delivered straight to your mailbox twice a year. A terrific holiday gift for anyone eager to support an independent zine and its terrific writers!

Rates will be going up in 2009 ($18 US, $28 int'l), so subscribe now and save!

Richard Horton summarizes Kaleidotrope 2008:

Stories I particularly liked were, from #4, Ashley Arnold's clever and surrealistic short-shorts "Word Count: Negative 1", and Adam Lowe's moving treatment of the rights of synthetic humans, "Paradise". From #5, I enjoyed "The Wroeth's Grinding Bowl", by Bill Ward, a fable about the exploitation of the title creature and the title object, which can create anything you imagine -- including, alas, various ills; and Therese Arkenberg's sweet short piece about a potential love affair with an alien, "Fortune Cookie". Other nice stories came from
Michael Obilade, Flavian Mark Luminetti, Mark Rich, Brendan Connell, Eric Del Carlo, and Daniel Braum.

The percentage of women in each issue goes up considerably when you factor in the poetry -- which sadly most reviewers fail to do -- but I would love to see more stories by women overall.

A couple of new collections from Kaleidotrope contributors to announce.

First, Jennifer Crow (Two poems, April '07) has a poetry collection called Signs and Wonders, now available at Genre Mall

Signs & Wonders by Jennifer Crow {Sam's Dot Publishing} Come hear tales of angels and monsters, witches and sorcerers, and kings who fell. Listen close to the memories of abandoned gods and the tragedies of old ghosts. Discover poems of magic and myth, of lovers and death, and future legends yet to be told. Come quest over the seas, across the lands and in the skies, for hidden stories both dazzling and bleak. No tale truly ends, and no deed is without consequence. What is forgotten is never lost, and the greatest tales are bound in the questions never asked. Come find the answers; they are here, if you know where to look, scattered all around, in Signs and Wonders.

And Mark Rich -- whose stories and poems have appeared in the last three issues, as well as in the upcoming 6th issue in April -- has two new collections. The first is Edge of Our Lives, available now from Redjack Books

This collection of new and previously published short stories spans the width of Mark's considerable range of voices and themes. From the deeply poetic to the wryly humorous to the just plain bizarre, the stories take the reader to the edges (and depths) of the human (and inhuman) experience. ($10.00 US. 272pp, 4.75 x 6.5" ISBN 978-1-892619-11-2). Release date: November 1, 2008.

And the second is Across the Sky, available for pre-order now from Fairwood Press. The book comes out in January.

In nineteen ventures into the future, Mark Rich moves from a moving moment during human-alien contact, in "Across the Sky" ... to madcap conflict between Human and Vegetable, in the antic "Foggery" ... to a vision of life in Venusian orbit, in "The Apples of Venus" — the story SF giant Robert Silverberg called "science fiction in the classic mode, a contemporary version of the sort of work that makes old-timers speak with warm nostalgia of John W. Campbell's famous magazine Astounding Science Fiction of fifty years ago."

They're both terrific writers, so be sure to check these new collections out!

Sam Tomaino reviews the 5th issue of Kaleidotrope in this month's SFRevu:

The new issue of Kaleidotrope, #5, is here with its usual mix of distinctly different stories, all of them worth reading....Kaleidotrope remains a wonderful magazine of varied and interesting stories.

He goes on to discuss each of the stories (though not the poems) in full.

Now if I could just get The Fix to review an issue, too...

Cross-posted to Occasional Fish

Hey neat! In their summation of 2007 fantasy, in the terrific-looking Year's Best Fantasy & Horror (newly available from St. Martin's Press), Kelly Link and Gavin Grant mention Kaleidotrope by name:

Kaleidotrope, edited by Fred Coppersmith, is a new zine of similar ilk [to Electric Velocipede]. Two issues came out in 2007 and we hope to see it going along the same steadily rising path of EV, Flytrap, etc.

I can hardly blame Ellen Datlow for not mentioning the zine, as Kaleidotrope hasn't featured much, if any, real horror. (Although that's something I'd genuinely like to change going forward.)

In all, it's not quite as nice as seeing a story from Kaleidotrope in the book's table of contents, or even in the honorable mentions -- where a few past contributors do get singled out for quality work elsewhere -- but it's still pretty keen. The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror is essential reading every year, and it's a thrill to see Kaleidotrope acknowledged, however briefly, in its pages.

[cross-posted to Occasional Fish]

Issue #5 is available now!

I've updated the Kaleidotrope website, with revised submission guidelines, subscription details, reviews, and the upcoming October issue's table of contents -- all on a brand new domain! All the old links should redirect automatically. Any thoughts?

I'd also like to note, while I'm at it, that subscription costs will be changing slightly in 2009. To reflect the rising cost of postage and printing -- as well as the increased number of pages in each issue -- a single copy will cost $5 instead of the current $4. (Copies mailed anywhere outside of North America will cost $8 instead of the current $6.50.) However, a 2-year subscription of four issues (currently priced at $16 and $25) will only cost $18 (or $28 international) -- a 10% discount off the combined price!

This will not affect current subscribers or anyone who subscribes to the zine between now and December 31, 2008. And it won't affect the current prices of earlier issues -- of which I still have several back issues, if you're interested in picking up a copy of your own.

I'll post reminders about the price changes again as we get closer to the end of the year. The thing to remember is this: you'll save money if you subscribe to the zine, and you'll save even more if you subscribe before the new prices take effect.

[cross-posted to Occasional Fish]

How can I increase my subscription base for Kaleidotrope? Where can I send copies of the zine for review (with at least some small chance of success)? Don’t assume I’m already doing something or that your idea won’t work. Any thoughts?

[cross-posted to Occasional Fish]

Over at SF Site, there's a mixed but generally favorable review from Rich Horton of the last issue of Kaleidotrope -- which he calls "a varied and interesting publication" with "plenty of worthy work, stories and poems that deserve an audience."

[cross-posted to Occasional Fish]

Back when I first heard about Pixish -- "a place where people who want images and people who make images can easily find each other and collaborate on creative projects together" -- I set up an account and posted an assignment. I've been very lucky to feature some great artists over the past four issues of Kaleidotrope -- from the covers by Remi Treuer and Jim Cleaveland, to interior artwork by a long list of talented people -- but I'm always on the lookout for work that I think will complement the stories and poems in each issue.

Still, I posted my assignment pretty much as a lark. So much of a lark that I promptly forgot all about it. I certainly wasn't expecting anyone to take it seriously.

And yet I find, upon visiting the website again, that there are now close to 50 submissions. If you'd like, I think you can go in and vote on them -- although I'm not sure how much, if at all, that will play into my decision-making. Some of the submissions are very good, although obviously even some of those will not work well with the realities of Kaleidotrope's printing (black and white, photocopied). I'm going to need to take a closer look at all of them.

Officially, the assignment closes on August 1, but I think I may try posting another one as soon as that's done.

This time, I just need to remember it.

[cross-posted to Occasional Fish]

I'm afraid I won't be at Readercon after all this year, due to back problems. I'm not out for the count or anything, but the prospect of the long drive and weekend of sitting at panels just doesn't seem like what the doctor ordered right now.

Maybe next year!

Hmm. Another Kaleidotrope?

The Sound of Young America and Jordan, Jesse, GO! are two of my very favorite podcasts, and if you've never listened -- and, more importantly, if you have, but you've never supported the shows -- now is the time to do so. There are lots of thank-you gifts going out to supporters, including several issues of Kaleidotrope, and you get the satisfaction of helping to keep some really talented and funny people podcasting and on the radio.

Stop by, give a listen, and consider supporting them however you can.

Sam Tomaino of SFRevu takes a quick look at the stories in Kaleidotrope #4, writing that, "If you like quirky little tales from out of the mainstream, then Kaleidotrope is for you. Check it out!"

Anyone interested in reviewing books for Kaleidotrope? Obviously we'd have to discuss the specifics, and I'd likely have some specific books in mind, but any interest?

This is very cool. Small Beer Press has announced that what was easily one of my favorite short story collections of recent years, Maureen F. McHugh's Mothers & Other Monsters, is now available for free online under a Creative Commons license. So if you've never read any of McHugh's stories -- Ursula K. Le Guin rightly calls her "one of our best and bravest imaginative writers" -- now is your chance. As SBP notes, "The paper edition is much nicer, although not free."

They have also made available Stranger Things Happen, Kelly Link's wonderful first collection and John Kessel's The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories, which I regret I've not yet read.

I'm starting to get some feedback on the most recent issue of Kaleidotrope, and I think contributor Bill Ward's comments might be my favorite so far:

I’ve just read through my contributor’s copy of the fourth issue of Kaleidotrope and the magazine continues to impress. There’s a healthy dose of surreal scifi and cross-genre slipstream shorts between the covers, and a variety of poetry and prose poems. But it’s the quirky humor of Fred Coppersmith that really comes through in his magazine and makes it different than a lot of other small press cross-genre ‘zines, which take themselves far too seriously. Kaleidotrope, with its eclectic stories and articles (the standout here is a history of the ‘fembot’ in popular culture) and weird little vignettes like faux horoscopes and ironic photography, is a magazine that isn’t scared to have some fun.

Bill's fun short story, "The Three Wishes of Miles Vander," appears in the issue, on sale now.

The fourth issue of Kaleidotrope is finally at the printer, and with luck copies will start flowing out within the week. So that seems like as good a time as any to finally reveal the full table of contents.

Fiction
"Molting" by Andrew Howard
"Word Count: Negative 1" by Ashley Arnold
"The Three Wishes of Miles Vander" by Bill Ward
"Premature" by Mark Rich
"Paradise" by Adam Lowe
"White Sheets" by Mike Driver
"Rome (a Metrophilia)" by Brendan Connell
"Half-Sneeze Johnny" by Kurt Kirchmeier
"My Cthulhu Story" (a comic) by G.W. Thomas
"Furrier" by Flavian Mark Lupinetti
"She’s a Hearth" by Paul Abbamondi
"The Life and Times of a Hungry World, Told Briefly" by Alex Dally MacFarlane
"The Transparency" by Michael Obilade

Poetry
"Househunting on Mars" by Bonita Kale
"Praise for What I Don’t Know" by Thomas Zimmerman
"Cracked Shells" by Beth Langford
"Spring in the Lab" by Alyce Wilson
"Farm School" by Marcie Lynn Tentchoff
"A Manual For Good Housekeeping in the Age of Global Warming" by Miranda Gaw
"Ivanikha" by Dana Koster
Two Poems by Franz K. Baskett
"Worldviews on a Desert Trail" by Jason Huskey
"Towards the Afterlife" by Aurelio Rico Lopez III

Plus!

"Who Goes There," Betty Ragan's interview with Marc Schuster and Tom Powers
"The Rise of the Fembots: A Brief Introduction to Female Android Sexuality in Film" by Eric Borer

Artwork from Remi Treuer, Rod Walker, and Lisa Willis -- and assorted other fun! I hope you'll consider picking up a copy. For just $4 ($6.50 international), it's a steal -- and all that money goes directly back to my contributors, keeping them happy and fed!

And, amazingly enough, two years of this hasn't quite deterred me yet! I'm accepting submissions for issue #5.

Congratulations to Kaleidotrope contributor Marge Simon (#1, assorted artwork) on her Stoker Award win!

Congratulations to Kaleidotrope contributor Tracie McBride ("Contact," April 2007) for her win as Best New Talent in this year's Sir Julius Vogel Awards. The awards are given out each year at the New Zealand National Science Fiction Convention. Congratulations again to Tracie!

The Science Fiction Poetry Association recently announced the nominees for the 2008 Rhysling Award. While sadly no poems directly from Kaleidotrope were nominated, I'm very happy to see a number of past contributors to the zine listed -- specifically Bruce Boston, Lyn C.A. Gardner, Marge Simon, Rachel Swirsky, Kristine Ong Muslim, Marcie Lynn Tentchoff. I'm looking forward to attending this year's Readercon, where the winners will be announced.

More congratulations are in order. Stephen Graham Jones, whose story "Pistil, Stamen, Bloom" appears in the third issue of Kaleidotrope, has sold a new short story collection, The Ones That Almost Got Away to Prime Books!

David McGillveray, whose story "The Sirens of Tinwa" appeared in the first issue of Kaleidotrope, writes to say:

[M]y first collection, "Celeraine", has just been published by Sam's Dot Publishing in trade paperback. It consists of three brand new long short stories and features dead civilisations, planetary minds, jailbreaks, out-of-control vegetation, generation ships and mind altering alien hallucinogens!

Check it out!

Meanwhile, Daniel Ausema has added his two "Living Stump" stories ("First Peeling" and "Stump Courtship," from the second and third issues, respectively) to Anthology Builder, where you can create your own personalized story collections and help support some great writers!

Any Kaleidotrope readers or contributors attending this year's Readercon?

There's a mixed but overall positive featured review of Kaleidotrope's third issue at SF Site. Rich Horton notes that there is "plenty of nice stuff -- I think the groundwork has been laid for more significant future work."

Can someone explain this? The nomination deadline for the annual Pushcart Prize is December 1. However, if Amazon.com is to be believed, the book with this year's selections will be available on December 10. That seems like an awfully unlikely turn-around time to me, suggesting that the final table of contents was set long before the nomination deadline. In fact, Amazon is already listing the book as in stock. I don't see how a nomination that reached Pushcart on December 1 has any shot at making the final cut, quite frankly.

Which is something I wish I'd known when I made my own six nominations last month.

Any Kaleidotrope contributors/readers attending the World Fantasy Convention next year?

Attending any other conventions in 2008 or '09?

So the current issue of Lady Churchill's is hot of the press, and it looks really neat. My copy arrived just today -- well, actually, it may have arrived earlier this week, but I almost never get down to the old PO box except on the weekends -- and I'm eager to dive into it. What's more, I'm pleased to see that Aunt Gwenda answered my question (which was actually just a riff on "Jon"'s question before it) in her advice column. If you want to see what I asked, and what other pearls of wisdom she has to share, you'll have to pick up a copy yourself.

James Van Pelt has some really interesting thoughts on what it means to be a professional writer:

The one part of a writer's career that she can't control is the very part that opens the door into the "professional" ranks, which is selling the work. The writer writes the best she can, finds the most appropriate markets, then sends the work out. What happens after that is beyond her control. But she can control everything else. Being professional is about a lot more than making money.

"I'm not the kind of man who tends to socialize
I seem to lean on old familiar ways..." - Paul Simon

I've been toying with the idea of attending next year's World Fantasy Convention in Calgary (just as I toyed with the idea of attending last year's in Austin and this year's in Saratoga). A lot of what I've read online makes it sound like great fun. Of course, it also makes it sound a lot more like a reunion, something better suited to past attendees and World Fantasy Award nominees. It's not as if there's a sign on the door that reads, "Newbies not welcome," but still, I've been thinking it might be better to start with something different, and smaller -- like maybe Readercon in July, for instance.

(I'm also slowly trying to put together a trip to Los Angeles with friends for next fall, so that could eat into my already limited vacation time and disposable income.)

And then I read something like this, and I think: he's never attended before, and he had fun... So I don't know.

How many months does it take to get a passport?

Well now...



Clearly, the smartest people out there read Kaleidotrope!

Quiz via Electric Velocipede

Between now and November 30, Apex Digest is holding a subscription drive, with the goal of increasing subscribers and, therefore, increasing the amount they can pay contributors. More power to them. Apex publishes some really interesting dark science fiction and horror a few times a year, and it's great to see them trying to spread more of the love around to the authors.

Kaleidotrope offers only a token payment at the moment, so I can definitely understand the desire to break into being a professional, or even semi-professional, market. If I could afford to pay my contributors more, believe me, I would. (It's questionable whether I can actually afford that token payment in the long run.)

So check it out. Anyone who buys or renews a subcription between now and the end of the month will be entered into a drawing to win Apex for life and a new mug.

I used to be part of a collaborative writing blog. I'm thinking about possibly reviving it. This would be completely independent of Kaleidotrope, but I'd be curious if anyone reading this would be interested.

I was in Maryland this past weekend, visiting my sister, while meanwhile, back in New York, the World Fantasy Awards were being held. I'm happy to learn that M. Rickert's Map of Dreams and Jeffrey Ford's "Botch Town" both won, for best collection and novella respectively. I finished reading both this weekend, as it happens. Ford's novella is reminiscent in some ways of the best of Bradbury -- I'm thinking Dandelion Wine or Something Wicked This Way Comes here -- while Rickert's stories definitely have the feel of dreams to them. Reading the novella from which her collection takes its name, I was a little reminded of Kevin Brockmeier's excellent novel, The Truth About Celia, and I think it would make an excellent companion piece to that.

Congratulations to all the winners and nominees!

Sam Tomaino of SF Revu offers a quick overview of Kaleidotrope #3, as well as some nice words:

The October 2007 issue of Kaleidotrope has stories by old pros Bruce Holland Rogers and Step[h]en Graham Jones as well as talented newcomers like Daniel Ausema and Sarah Frost Mellor.

The October 2007 issue of Kaleidotrope is another nice one with a fine mix of stories and poems. I liked all the stories in the issue....

Kaleidotrope is a small press magazine that deserves your support.

Be sure to check out the rest of SF Revu while you're there!

In the spirit of the holiday, the Science Fiction Poetry Association is hosting its second annual Halloween Poetry Reading online. It features audio readings from several poets, including C.A. Gardner, whose poem "Sleep" appeared in Kaleidotrope #2. They're worth a listen!

Today marks the release of the US edition of Joe Hill's debut short story collection, 20th Century Ghosts. If you haven't read the collection yet -- it had a small-press release a couple of years ago from PS Publishing -- do yourself a favor and pick up a copy. Ghosts is easily one of the best books I've read this year, and while I'm still not completely sold on Hill's follow-up novel (Heart Shaped Box, which I'm reading now), there really isn't a false note in his short stories. Highly recommended.

At the urging of reader Victor Colonna, I've started a Kaleidotrope Facebook group. How similar this will be to the zine's MySpace page, which I very infrequently update, I don't know. But everyone is welcome to join and offer feedback on the new issue, now out and available.

Kaleidotrope #3 is hot off the presses and now available for purchase. Copies will be going out to contributors, subscribers, and some reviewers over the next couple of days.

I have noticed two small misprints I thought I had corrected in the final draft. One is a very minor added piece of punctuation that you may never even notice, but the other is a missing credit for one of the illustrations. Artist Remi Treuer provided many of the wonderful drawings that appear throughout the issue -- as well as that nifty cover art you're seeing above -- and that includes the drawing on page 46. Just so you know.

I think the issue looks terrific overall, though, and I'm very pleased to be able to share it with everyone. The issue features some terrific work from genre veterans, like Bruce Holland Rogers, Stephen Graham Jones and Mark Rich -- as well as many up-and-coming writers-to-watch, like Rachel Swirsky, Kristine Ong Muslim and Daniel Ausema. Over fifty pages of scary, silly, strange and just plain fun stuff.

I hope you'll check it out!

So here, more or less, is the contents of the October 2007 issue of Kaleidotrope:

Fiction

"Click" by LaShawn M. Wanak
"Best Friends Forever" by L.M. Harmon
"Guy, Sky High" by Edd Vick
"Stump Courtship" by Daniel Ausema
"Pistil, Stamen, Bloom" by Stephen Graham Jones
"The Locked Door" by Tara Kolden
"Eyes" (a comic) by Marc Schuster
The Tailings of Men by Eric Stever
Two Stories by Bruce Holland Rogers
"The Loneliest Person in the World" by Beth Langford
"Terraformers" by Natalie J.E. Potts
"Gingered" by Sarah Frost-Mellor

Poetry

Two Poems by Kristine Ong Muslim
"The Moth Explains" by Rachel Swirsky
Two Poems by Mark Rich
Two Poems by Sheri Fresonke Harper
"Dreams of Sinaloa" by Alveraz Ricardez
"Chalk and Violet (Advice to a Werwolf)" by Alyce Wilson
"As If We Could Change Anything" by G.O. Clark
"Death is Dance" by Cathy Buburuz
"And the Black Snake Smiled for Mary" by Jason Huskey
"Metal With Me" by L. Christopher DelGuercio
"The grandmother I thought I knew" by Terrie Leigh Relf
"Zombie Haiku" by Dana Koster
"A Question to Those Who Have Been Successfully Transported" by Louisa Howerow

Nonfiction

"Why I Love Doctor Who by Betty Ragan

Plus original artwork from Marcia A. Borell, Remi Treuer, Peter Schwartz, G.W. Thomas, and Sharon Kindig -- as well as other sundry bits. Pre-order a copy today!

To mark the tenth anniversary of his website, Kaleidotrope contributor Nigel "Beedo" Willis (#1, "Probed"), has announced a contest:

Star Wars Humour Site? What A Concept!

Amazing! Astounding! Adjective! Beedo Sookcool's Cool Sci-Fi Page is celebrating its tenth birthday this September! To mark this special anniversary, Beedo himself is giving away free stuff! For full details on rules and prizes, click on over to Beedo Sookcool's Cool Sci-Fi Page!

Be sure to check it out!

Okay, it's official: Kaleidotrope is now open to submissions year-round.

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! No, It Came From Airport Security:

BRISTOL, VA - Announcing the publication of It Came From Airport Security - an anthology of short fiction concerning what happens when confiscated liquids are dumped into trash bins. One year ago the news was flooded with images of airport security. Twenty-four people were arrested in east London, each one suspected of conspiracy to blow up airliners by mixing chemicals on board the planes. The immediate response was to confiscate all bottles of liquids and gels from passengers and to dump the contents of those bottles into large trash bins.

Featuring eight new stories, plus an introduction from yours truly! As mentioned on Boing Boing! And, as co-editor Glen Williams points out, "it’s the perfect book to be seen reading on the airplane!"

I'm thinking about maybe doing away with my reading periods (March to June; September to December), and officially accepting submissions year-round. This is what I do unofficially right now, and I think a lot of people either ignore or never notice the reading periods altogether. I'm not sure what value it's adding for me, since I'm not so hopelessly overwhelmed with submissions, and it's possible they're just acting as a deterrent for those who do notice them.

Any thoughts? Is anyone out there reading this?

Ralan's SpecFic & Humor Webstravaganza needs your support:

If you use Ralan.com, you have probably benefited by it. Maybe you made a sale, or won a contest you would not have known about without visiting, or found a useful writing-related link or two. Or maybe you haven't yet had your break, but Ralan.com is helping you towards it in a way that no other web site does -- with the most up-to-date information on speculative and humorous fiction available anywhere -- information you can get nowhere else. Or perhaps your publication is enjoying a sharp rise in the number and quality of submissions and new visitors are swelling your stats.

Whatever. I urge all of you -- loyal supporters and those who want to be -- to make a donation this month, if you haven't already done so this year.

I suspect I owe a great many of my submissions to Kaleidotrope's listing on Ralan's site (as well as to the one on Duotrope), and he's always been really prompt at making updates. So if you found Kaleidotrope, or any other publication, through Ralan's site, I urge you to help him out a little during his August fundraising.

There's a brief listing for Kaleidotrope in the most recent issue of Zine World:

A literary journal featuring fiction, nonfiction and poetry, not to be confused with Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope. The writing here is mostly speculative, so if you dig Martians, robots and people with melting heads, this might be worth your time.

I don't think I've published many melting-head stories, but y'know, maybe that's a challenge for the next issue...

John Klima recently posted the first in what promises to be an interesting series on starting your own zine:

One of your concerns might be that you might think that there are too many magazines out there, that there's no room for another publication. This is where you're wrong. Every single person who sees this post can (and should) make a zine. And they can be fiction zines. There's a lot of good fiction out there.

It's well worth your time, if you have any interest at all in publishing a zine. Or even just some insight into how a quality one like Electric Velocipede gets produced.

And here's Part 2.

Someone recently asked me if Kaleidotrope had won any awards, or if any of the stories that I've printed have gone on to be anthologized elsewhere. To the best of my knowledge, this hasn't happened just yet. The first issue received a couple of genuinely nice reviews, and I've received some great feedback from contributors and subscribers alike on both issues, but awards and greater glories thus far elude me.

Then again, Kaleidotrope is only a little more than a year (and two issues) old. It existed nowhere but in my own head before April of 2006, when I sent out my first call for submissions. And the quality of those submissions -- not just from award winners like Bruce Boston and Bruce Holland Rogers (whose presence¹ alone is enough to surprise me sometimes), but from everyone -- continues to amaze me. It's why I keep doing this. Sure, I'd love to see the stories and poems I've printed go on to win awards and earn the sort of recognition I think they deserve, but the reason I print them is simple: I think they're really cool and I want to share them with others. And, if any greater glories do await Kaleidotrope as a whole, better they be for that than for anything else, right?

Still, there are things I'd like to see happen and other things I'm considering:

• I'd like to see my subscriber base grow, and see Kaleidotrope made available in more locations. Right now, the distribution is limited, with the zine available only through the main website and, in the real world, at Quimby's in Chicago². A subscription discount might help. Only a fool goes into zine publishing hoping to turn a tidy profit, but a few extra dollars wouldn't hurt. And a few more readers would be phenomenal.
• I'd like to expand the focus of Kaleidotrope somewhat, seeing a wider range of stories and genres, while at the same time emphasizing the things that I think make this zine unique.
• I'd like to take a more pro-active approach to marketing Kaleidotrope and getting the word of its existence out there. To that end, I sometimes feel like maybe I should start thinking about attending some conferences -- even if it's not in anything like an "official" capacity, with a table in the dealers room and a stack of copies ready to sell. I toyed very briefly with the idea of attending last year's World Fantasy convention in Austin. (A work-related conference I ultimately did not attend would have had me in town the week before.) This year's convention is closer to home, in New York, but I don't think that's going to happen either. Maybe next year in Calgary? Honestly, I'm a complete neophyte when it comes to conventions (and probably not the most outgoing of sorts), so I really don't know where to begin.
• I'd like to reach out to past contributors and receive more feedback on past issues -- what's worked, what hasn't.
• I'd like to sell at least one t-shirt. C'mon, they're really neat!

But the chief thing, I think, is to continue publishing quality writing and artwork, and working to continually make Kaleidotrope a better zine.

¹ In the October 2006 and October 2007 issues, respectively.

² Issue #2 is available through their website, at any rate.

Congratulations to Kaleidotrope contributor Edd Vick, whose short story, "Moon Does Run" (from the always terrific Electric Velocipede), has been selected to be reprinted in The Year's Best SF 12.

Another fun story from Edd, "Guy, Sky High," will appear in the upcoming October issue of Kaleidotrope.

Congratulations again to him and to Electric Velocipede editor John Klima!

I updated the subscription information on the Kaleidtrope website -- and let slip a few quick details about the upcoming third issue. I'm still putting together the final table of contents, but the October issue will feature stories and poems from a terrific lineup of artists, including Bruce Holland Rogers, Stephen Graham Jones, and Mark Rich.

I think I want to make this my official rejection letter. Is that wrong?

I hate turning things down, even when they're awful, because they're almost always not awful, just a bad fit, not quite what I'm looking for, or better suited to somebody else. In a perfect world, every submission to Kaleidotrope would be wonderful, and I would have the space and wherewithal to print every last one of them.

That even a small percentage of them are wonderful still amazes me sometimes.

So, um...t-shirts! For the consumer-minded among you.

They each feature Remi Treuer's nifty cover illustration from issue #2 (still available, by the by). I'm wearing one of the black t-shirts right now, and I'm really pleased with how they came out.

Heather was one of the first supporters of Kaleidotrope, so it seems only fair that I should do a little of the same for her new endeavor, Project Paper Crane. The way it works is pretty simple:

1. Send an email Project Paper Crane. Name and address, please.
2. Wait for said crane to arrive (it may take a while).
3. Email a picture of your crane when it arrives.

I'm going to take part and maybe donate a little folding money -- get it? it's origami, so folding money's a pun...? It's...oh, never mind. Just go, get a crane.

Copies of Kaleidotrope #2 are now available for purchase. Each issue is just $4 -- less than ten cents a page -- and a four-year subscription is just $16 altogether. (International rates may vary.)

And while you're sending Kaleidotrope a little love, why not also consider these fine publications?

• Army of the Fantastic -- "13 original tales of fantastical battles for anyone who needs a dose of un-reality."
• Interfictions: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing -- "Nineteen writers dig into the imaginative spaces between conventional genres-realistic and fantastical, scholarly and poetic, personal and political-and bring up gems of new fiction: interstitial fiction."
• Logorrhea: Good Words Make Good Stories -- "We asked twenty-one of today’s most talented and inventive writers to go even further and pen an original tale inspired by one of dozens of obscure and fascinating championship words."

I think I'm going to go pick up a copy of each. You can never have enough good stories to read.

So apparently, there's a new Livejournal out there called Kaleidotrope. I'm confident this is just one of life's weird coincidences. There's also a Kaleidotrope.com (although nothing's there, it would seem).

Anyway, I would be remiss if I didn't use this as a shameless opportunity to remind you that copies of the second issue of my Kaleidotrope are available for purchase, and I'm currently accepting submissions for the October 2007 issue and beyond.

With, I think, just a couple of exceptions, copies of the second issue went out to contributors and subscribers earlier this morning. Reviewer and distro copies will have to wait until tomorrow, if not early next week. (Kaleidotrope is a one-man operation, and there's only so much that this one man can carry with him to the post office.)

I think the issue looks really good overall, but I'd love to hear what readers have to say, good and bad alike.

Somehow this escaped my attention, but the first issue of Kaleidotrope got a couple of nice write-ups in the March 2007 issue of Xerography Debt. Both Eric Lyden and Gavin Grant received copies of the zine. Here's what they had to say:

Eric:
On first glance I wasn’t sure this was my cup of tea. But as I glanced I saw it had an article on the Transformers so I figured if nothing else I should give a quick skimming. And in spite of the fact that Jim Cleveland (the author) didn’t care for the Transformers movie (he says it was too violent for his tastes which was kinda the point—no one died on the TV show so in the movie they offed a whole bunch of Transformers. Add to that the minor but very memorable cursing and... how any true fan can dislike the movie is beyond me.) it was an enjoyable read for anyone who grew up with the show. So I read a little more and aside from the poetry (Poetry + Eric = dislike. That was a clumsy was of putting it, but fact is it just ain’t my thing) I found it to be a pretty enjoyable read. The fiction was all solid (and I’m trying to think of one story that was a real stand out, but in general it was all good. None of it quite reached “Holy shit, I will never forget this story!” level, but it was all good) and I enjoyed the back page blather where Stuart Crause just sorta goes on about topics ranging from magnetism to fashion to math. One of the better literary type zines I've seen lately. 44 not quite full size but bigger than half sized pages. No price listed but send a couple bucks at least to Fred Coppersmith

Gavin:
First issue of a new science fiction leaning lit zine that will be familiar to readers of ELECTRIC VELOCIPEDE or FLYTRAP. It’s not up there with those two yet, but these are early days and Fred shows a good amount of enthusiasm putting this together and getting it out there. The Horoscopes were a nice addition, i.e. “Leo: You have an active imagination and a keen imagination,so it will be all the more sad when that pack of rabid wolves finally get to you.” It’s the “finally” in there that gets me. All those years avoiding the wolves only to be brought down at last. Ach.

Electric Velocipede and Flytrap are definitely models of the sort of high quality, if not necessarily the exact same material, that I'd like to see in Kaleidotrope. And I think each issue -- I've already started putting together #3 -- is a little stronger than the one before, as I learn from my mistakes...and learn to make new ones.

It occurs to me that I haven't posted the actual contents of Kaleidotrope's second issue. So here, for just $4 -- all of which, I think I can safely say, will wind up in my contributors' hands -- is what you'll get:

Fiction
"The Pilgrim" by Carol D. Green
"First Peeling" by Daniel Ausema
"The Diary of Hillary Sorensen-French" by S. C. Bryce
"The Role of Plumage in the Mating Habits of the Karraw" by J. R. Blackwell
"Midnight Gardener" by Bill West
"The Bride" by Adicus Ryan Garton
"Abergavenny" by J. Anderson Coats
"Einstein's Lost Paper" by George O'Gorman
Three stories by Beth Langford
"Wonan the Barbarian and the Sentence of Certain Death" by Kiel Stuart

Poetry
"Biology Experiment" by Sheri Fresonke Harper
"Sleep" by C. A. Gardner
Two poems by Terrie Leigh Relf
Two poems by Jennifer Crow
"How to Be a Bunny" by Rachel Swirsky
"Scifaiku I-V" by Daniel C. Smith
"Bee-Bop" by d. cat chopra
"Contact" by Tracie McBride
"Merchants" by John Grey
"A Lesson in Magic" by Kristine Ong Muslim
"Signal" by Aurelio Rico Lopez III

Artwork
Remi Treuer
Amelia Peel
Cathy Buburuz
Jim Cleaveland
Rod Walker
Erik Wilson

Plus an in-depth interview with popular fantasy author John Marco, horoscopes, and some other incidental bits and pieces, pieces and bits.

Well, I was expecting to have copies of the second issue in-hand by this afternoon, but, thanks to a screw-up at the printer, that isn't going to happen. Maybe it's time to find somewhere more reliable than FedEx Kinkos. (Certainly it may be time to investigate somewhere cheaper^*.)

My apologies in advance to contributors and subscribers alike. The issue almost certainly will be out before the month is over. In the meantime, if you'd like to purchase an advance copy, I definitely won't stop you...

* At the very least, an RFQ to places like Paradise Copies -- which I know prints both Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet and Electric Velocipede, two fine and wonderful zines -- wouldn't be wholly out of order.

Rachel Swirsky, who has poetry forthcoming in this month's issue of Kaleidotrope, wonders over on her journal just what it is we love about stories. It's an interesting discussion.

Via Gwenda Bond.

John Marco, who I interviewed for the second issue of Kaleidotrope, is holding a contest for three free copies of his upcoming fantasy anthology, Army of the Fantastic. The book features thirteen stories about fantastical armies from writers like Tanya Huff, Alan Dean Foster, and Tim Waggoner, and it looks like a lot of fun. Drop John a line for your chance to win a copy!

Curious about what's inside issue #2 of Kaleidotrope? Well, here's what the outside looks like...



It's a little like that inside, too, only more so! Artwork courtesy the talented Remi Treuer.

Individual copies are available for the low price of $4 US ($6.50 international).

A friendly reminder that Kaleidotrope is once again open to submissions. The official reading period for the October 2007 issue runs until June 30, so please consider sending something my way -- and feel free to query if you already have but I've yet to respond.

In the coming days, I plan to post something approaching a final table of contents for the second issue, due out next month. It's turned out to be a really great issue, and I'm really proud to be publishing some terrific work from authors like Kiel Stuart, Adicus Ryan Garton, Rachel Swirsky, and Kristine Ong Muslim. The April issue also features some terrific artwork, some assorted weird bits and pieces, and an in-depth interview with popular fantasy author John Marco. Copies are available for advance purchase now. (And all the money goes to keeping contributors happy and paid.)

Happy holidays from Kaleidotrope!

A reminder that the semi-official deadline for the April 2007 issue is one week from now, December 31. And individual issues and subscriptions are still available...if you're looking for a last-minute Christmas present or something.

Best wishes for 2007!

I've updated the Kaleidotrope subscriptions page, to help eliminate some of the confusion that maybe nobody but me was having with it.

Now you can purchase individual copies of the premiere first issue, as well as advance copies of the April 2007 issue and 2-year subscriptions. If, that is, you are so inclined.

One of the major impetuses (impeti?) for starting up Kaleidotrope was seeing some of the really great zines that were already out there. For me in particular, these included publications like Flytrap and Talebones and Electric Velocipede. But the biggest influence and inspriation of all, I think, was the consistently weird and wonderful Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet

It's been brought to my attention that LCRW is celebrating its ten-year anniversary. That's a little mind-boggling, but the success they've enjoyed couldn't have happened to a better publication. Check out this new issue, if you haven't already, or send them a little love.

I can only hope that Kaleidotrope survives a quarter of that long.

Even though it's pretty sparse right now (and not likely to change soon), and even though I've never been a big fan of their design, I've set up a MySpace page for Kaleidotrope. It's mostly just to let more people know the zine exists. Feel free to add me as a friend if you'd like.

A reminder, in case you needed one, that I am actively seeking submissions for the April 2007 issue. And copies of the the first issue are still available for purchase, if you'd like one. (I'm not above doing a small reprint, if demand warrants it.)

Sam Tomaino of SFRevu calls the first issue of Kaleidotrope "a very good inaugural issue." His focus is exclusively on the fiction in the issue, and he has kind words for many of the stories.

John Kuhn, whose poem "Near Sillustani" appears in the first issue of Kaleidotrope, had some really nice things to say about the final product:

Now, I'm not just saying this because my wimpy little poem is in there, and if you read two posts back, you know I'd be honest if I didn't like the 'zine. But--this magazine was VERY WELL-DONE. Wonderfully so! First of all, Fred Coppersmith has a wicked sense of humor. If you get the 'zine, be sure and read the little things you usually skim past, like the little box on the cover page with all the publication info in it. He slips little one-liners in there that are really funny. Make sure you check out the horoscope on page 42, too. I actually laughed audibly once. I'm very, very impressed...after the prior unfortunate experience with the unnamed "magazine", my faith in the small press is soundly restored. I'm proud that my work appears in this little 'zine. Card stock cover, lots of artwork, crisp black and white photos all over the place, the humor sprinkled in odd places, great use of space, great mix of fiction and poetry and an essay or two, fastidious editing and attention to detail. The fonts look fantastic. I haven't found a typo yet. And there's Bruce Boston, Kristine Ong Muslim, and Aurelio Rico Lopez--people I've read before. Kaleidotrope is a very professional-looking magazine, and it's just the first issue...I see a fine future for Fred Coppersmith...I hope he continues to publish this magazine for a long time to come!

My thanks to John for the kind words, and again to all my contributors, without whom this issue wouldn't have been possible.

Here's a copy of the first issue's cover, with artwork by Jim Cleaveland.



If all goes according to plan, the first issue goes out this weekend to everybody -- contributors, reviewers, and subscribers. Copies are still available for purchase, either by check/money order, or via PayPal. Just $4!

Update: My sincere apologies to contributor Aurelio Rico Lopez III, whose first name was inadvertently dropped from the front cover.

To hopefully whet your appetite for October, here's the tentative table of contents for the first issue of Kaleidotrope:

Fiction
David McGillveray -- The Sirens of Tinwa
Richard Harland -- The Tale of Tales
Roy Wilson -- The Water Queen
Kurt Kirchmeier -- A Peppermint Purge
David Siegel Bernstein -- Deliberation
Ramona Gardea -- Afternoon Delight
Mike Lansley -- Mild Mannered
Sharon Cichelli -- Space Dinosaurs
Nigel Willis -- Probed

Poetry
Kristine Ong Muslim -- A Migrating Fairy
John Kuhn -- Near Sillustani
Trevor Price -- Bad Weather
Bruce Boston and Marge Simon -- Where Have All the Comedians Gone?
Aurelio Rico Lopez III -- Two Poems
Rimone -- Fission Bomb
Thomas Zimmerman -- Two Poems

Nonfiction
Jim Cleaveland -- The Transformers Revisited
Short book reviews

Featuring artwork from
Bruce Boston
Jim Cleaveland
Marge Simon
Rod Walker

Not all contents guaranteed; yet more not altogether unlikely. Contents © the authors. All rights reserved.

Individual issues (or even subscriptions) can be purchased via the website through PayPal, or by check or money order made out to:

Fred Coppersmith
P.O. Box 25
Carle Place, NY 11514

Why not pick up a copy of Kaleidotrope today?!