Read Galaxy's Edge Magazine: Issue 2, May 2013 for Free Online

And, stipulating that such an audience exists, what are its dimensions? Can it sustain careers beyond the enthusiasm and commitment of the few editors still defending and propitiating science fiction? (Everyone in the business knows that even for the small and specialty presses, science fiction is a charitable enterprise. The routine fantasy novel by a little-known or unknown writer will outsell an equivalent science fiction novel by at least fifty percent. “Why should I publish science fiction?” the revered Judy-Lynn del Rey asked me almost thirty years ago. “It’s like short story collections. I only publish it to lose money.” (Which in fact, she did. Publish me. Lose money. Judy-Lynn could not completely sequester her tender and vulnerable heart.)
    We are in trouble, folks. We have been in trouble for a long time. The science fiction that the aged among us loved, which shaped and darkened and exploited and framed us, that science fiction has become a decadent and marginal form of human activity. In The Engines of the Night I self-quoted a phrase which I had spoken on a panel in the late seventies when asked from the floor to define “decadence.” “When form overtakes and suppresses function,” I answered reflexively. (Sometimes an angel can whisper into your ear.) That is modern edge, cutting-edge science fiction. Form has not only suppressed but has, in terms of most of the audience, stomped on function and has left it like a smashed-flat cartoon character, like a decapitated Roadrunner.
    There are of course those who would disagree. I won’t live long enough to apologize to them if they are right, so I will only write now: I am on your side. Cassandra knew she had a crappy job.
    Next time maybe: Willie Stark’s advice to Jack Burden in Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men . There is always something on everybody. Even George Lucas.
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    - February 2013: New Jersey
    Copyright © 2013 by Barry Malzberg
     
     
     

 
 
 
 

Tina Gower won first place in a 2012 Writers of the Future quarterly contest. This is her second professional fiction sale. LATE-BREAKING NEWS : On April 14, 17 days before this issue went live, Tina won the $5,000 Gold Prize at the 2013 Writers of the Future ceremony
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    TODAY I AM NOBODY
    by Tina Gower
     
    I am Amber when I see him again. I wake with auburn hair and green eyes, freckles across my skin, and decide to be Amber. The name fits the face in the mirror, and all day I do Amber things. Amber would love picking daisies in the meadow behind the reservation. Amber would wear her hair in two French braids. Amber would have a boyfriend with blond hair and one unruly lock that covers his left eye. When I see him, that perfect boy for Amber, I want him.
    He works in the village, on the dusty grimy road that leads from the reservation to the back of the tannery. I am able to watch him scraping a hide for sale because he does not know Amber. He knew Rose. When I was Rose, I had olive skin with black hair. The roses were budding and I put one in my hair.
    “How long will you be in town?” he had asked.
    “Only until the roses bloom,” I said. Truthfully, I didn’t know then how quickly I would shed and change and become a new girl. The shaman didn’t tell me how the medicine would work.
    The corners of the boy’s mouth twitched and his smile fell flat. “That’s too bad. I like dark-skinned brunettes. Everyone in town is blond.”
    Amber doesn’t have dark skin, so today I only watch while the young man (who is perfect for Amber) hangs the skins to dry. I hear wagon wheels squeak into the village with supplies from the East. The traders bring tea and preserves, waxes for candles when the long nights come. One trader hands a package of sweets to a girl my age. Her name is Nola. She will always be Nola, poor thing. The other girls do not recognize me anymore, although they knew me once.
    ***
    I walk home and cut through the glen. My hand skims along the wild