The Future Fire is a small-press, online science fiction magazine (ISSN 1746-1839), run by a joint British–US team of editors. The magazine was launched in January 2005 and releases issues four times a year, with stories, articles, and reviews in both HTML and PDF formats. At times (notably 2006–7, 2010–11) issues appeared more sporadically than this.[1]

Contents

The Future Fire publishes both fiction and nonfiction. For fiction it publishes speculative fiction, cyberpunk and dark fantasy, with a focus on social and political themes and mundane rather than hard SF. In the area of nonfiction it publishes reviews and interviews with people such as Cory Doctorow, author of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, and Kevin Warwick the cyborg scientist, articles on new media, posthumanism, and artificial intelligence. In 2010 The Future Fire published themed issues on feminist science fiction and queer science fiction.

The Future Fire has published stories by:

It has included illustrations and artwork by:

The Future Fire has run occasional writers' conventions and competitions, including a flash fiction contest sponsored by the MirrorMask movie, and a satirical writing contest based on spam subject lines judged by Peter Tennant.[2]

Staff

Anthologies

The Future Fire has published seven anthologies (under the imprint Futurefire.net Publications): Outlaw Bodies, co-edited by Lori Selke (ISBN 978-0-9573975-0-7), in 2012, a collection of stories on the theme of forbidden or constrained bodies, disability, feminism and trans issues;[3] and We See a Different Frontier, co-edited with Fabio Fernandes (ISBN 978-0-9573975-2-1) in 2013, with preface by Aliette de Bodard and critical afterword by Ekaterina Sedia, which raised over $4,500 in crowdfunding via Peerbackers;[4] a third anthology, Accessing the Future, co-edited by Kathryn Allan, raised over $8,000 via IndieGogo,[5] and received a starred review from Publishers Weekly;[6] TFF-X (co-edited by Djibril al-Ayad, Cécile Matthey and Valeria Vitale) and Fae Visions of the Mediterranean (co-edited by Valeria Vitale) appeared in late 2015 and early 2016 respectively.[7] A mixed anthology of fiction and essays related to classical monsters, Making Monsters co-edited by Emma Bridges, was jointly released with the Institute of Classical Studies in 2018.[8] In 2022 they published an anthology of speculative noir, guest edited by Valeria Vitale, under the title Noir Fire.[9][10]

References

  1. ^ See Whispers of Wickedness review, 'delivering solid, if irregular, packages of fiction'; SF Encyclopaedia entry: 'resumed publication in February 2012 after an eighteen-month hiatus'.
  2. ^ see the 'Flashes of Darkness' and 'Nudge Nudge Wink Wink' competition details at [1]
  3. ^ See e.g. reviews at Strange Horizons http://www.strangehorizons.com/reviews/2012/11/outlaw_bodies_e.shtml and New York Journal of Books http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/review/outlaw-bodies
  4. ^ See http://peerbackers.com/projects/we-see-a-different-frontier/ (site down: Wayback Machine version; contents at http://press.futurefire.net/p/we-see-different-frontier.html; reviewed at Publishers Weekly: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-9573975-2-1
  5. ^ "Accessing the Future".
  6. ^ Publishers Weekly, http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-9573975-4-5
  7. ^ http://press.futurefire.net/p/tff-x.html and http://press.futurefire.net/p/fae-visions.html; Fae Visions was reviewed by Publishers Weekly: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-9573975-8-3
  8. ^ http://press.futurefire.net/p/making-monsters.html ; call for submissions at https://ics.sas.ac.uk/about-us/news/cfs-making-monsters-anthology
  9. ^ Valeria Vitale and Djibril al-Ayad (ed.), Noir Fire: A Gritty Speculative Fiction Anthology. Futurefire.net Publishing, 2022. Pp. v + 258. ISBN (paperback) 978-0-9957265-2-9; ISBN (electronic) 978-0-9957265-3-6. http://press.futurefire.net/p/noir-fire.html
  10. ^ Review by Adri Joy at Nerds of a Feather: http://www.nerds-feather.com/2022/06/questing-in-shorts-june-2022.html

External links

British science fiction magazines
Current American science fiction magazines
Categories