SF MAGAZINE REVIEW | PARSEC #1 (PS PUBLISHING)

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SF MAGAZINE REVIEW

PARSEC #1 (PS PUBLISHING)

Focussing on Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror, Parsec Magazine is a digital magazine showcasing short stories by established and new authors.

The magazine itself was established in 2021, with he first issue hitting the digital shelves in autumn of that year.

Right, before we get on with a look at the magazine itself, let’s get the important stuff out of the way – The Price! Parsec is priced at £5.99 for each individual issue, and there is a subscription of four issues at £20.

(If you like the sound of Parsec by the end of this feature, there’s a 25% discount code and a link to Parsecs website at the end of the page)

Enclosed within the digital pages is a plethora of content, comprising of nine short stories, reviews of the latest fiction and an interview with the now sadly missed, Christopher Priest (The Prestige, The Extremes, Inverted World), who passed away in February of this year.

After getting past the rather impressive front cover by Vincent Sammy, who besides releasing his own comic, Echo Gear, has also done cover work for books by Richard Chizmar, Stephen King and Richard Chizmar and Robert R. McCammon amongst others.

 

 

How do you lift your head above the parapet in the crowded anthology magazine market. Well, you get a load of top class authors that are already established in their own right, that's how!

Between the cover of this first Parsec Magazine is a number of authors, both new and those that have been established and are names that you may have heard of.

When you get past the introduction by Ian Whates (Director of the Science Fiction Writers of America & British Science Fiction Associationk, who also happens to the author of City of a Hundred Rows Series and the Noise series, amongst tons of others. In addition to that he set up New Con press in 2006, which publishes Sci Fi, Fantasy and Horror). you get the first story by David Gullen (author of Shopocolypse, Open Waters, The Girl from a Thousand Fathoms) called Down and Out Under the Tannhauser Gate, a story set following a war with aliens where the main characters are waiting to travel through a stargate, when things take an unexpected turn.

The second story in the book is a story by Dan Abnett (Rogue Trooper, Guardians of the Galaxy, Warhammer 40, 000, Dr Who). A story using short wiki entries about Gunbelt Highway and how the name has been used throughout the centuries in different ways. 

Ken McLeod's (The Corporation Wars, Engines of Light) story Nineteen Eighty - Nine is set in George Orwell's 1984 and set five years after the original book and features Winston Smith from one of Orwell's most famous works. 

Next up is a short interlude called The Lichyard by Harrison Varley. We then move on to a time travelling story by Ukranian Born Yuliia Vereta, a poet and writer, currently living in China and who has had her short fiction published in amongst others, Star Line,Dreams and Nightmares, Asimov's Science Fiction. Her story is called The Time Traveller's Shoes that tells the story of Herbert who has been attempting to manipulate time, and has been successful on one occasion with some mice. One day he disappears. He turns up in a photograph fifty years earlier.

Nebula winner Esther M. Freisner (Yesterday We Saw Mermaids, Hooray For Hellywood, Deception's Princess) pops up next with Tesla on the Grass Alas.

We Have Forever by Redfern Jon Barrett (Proud Pink Sky, The Giddy Death of the Gays & the strange Demise of the Straights) deals with age affecting relationships and how we drift apart.

Get ready for fairytales with a twist next, when Aurealis Award Winner  Anna Tambour (Smoke Paper Mirrors, Crandolin, Spotted Lily) subverts three popular fairytales that we all know from our childhood.

And closing the fiction section of the magazine, we have Paul Di Filippo (The Steampunk Trilogy, The Summer Thieves)

Following this there is the non fiction section. Firstly there's a interview with individuals that are involved with the SFF world as a whole, and in this first issue, it's an interview with Tom Hunter, who steered the predigious Arthur C. Clarke award through its most turbulent times (the death of the man himself and the lass of funding). 

On the tails of this, there is an essay by Anne C. Perry & Jared Shurin (who used to run Pornokitsch, which I used to love) about endings. 

There’s a pretty comprehensive review section covering an abundance of books. It’s funny as I recall quite a lot of these books when they came out, so looking back at these books was like going back in a time machine. 

To close the magazine, there is a candid interview with Christopher Priest (The Prestige, The Inverted World, The Glamour).

Now as this is a digital magazine one of the things that entered my mind was how the magazine rendered on various different devices. This is where I found that I did have one little niggle with the magazine. I tested the mag on three different devices; Kindle, IPad and computer. I found that the best presentation of the magazine was on the tablet and the PC. It rendered quite well on the Kindle, but as you can guess it does have its limitations. 

In terms of the actual content, my experience with it was similar to most anthologies, some stories I really liked, some that I thought was okay, and some that I wasn’t that fond of. However, this is quite normal with this type of material. 

All in all, this was a very strong start. I enjoyed the magazine as a whole. I loved the reviews (always my favourite bit of any magazine). I liked the variety of material in the magazine, both the stories and the non fiction stuff, and if you like a magazine that has a variety of speculative fiction then I reckon Parsec is well worth yer time. Aaaaand looking at later issues there’s a wealth of authors in the magazine from legends of the genre like Michael Moorcock to name but one

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN PARSEC MAGAZINE CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO GO STRAIGHT TO THE SHOP!

And to top that there’s a 25% discount code!

Just enter the code 25PARSEC at the checkout!