THE EDITOR’S WORD by Lezli Robyn

It’s the penultimate issue of Galaxy’s Edge before the magazine is converted to a bi-annual anthology series, and the momentum is building for us all at Arc Manor Publishing! We’ve started planning the new anthologies and placing the last stories in the magazine feels like a wonderful game of Tetris: so much work, with too little time to make it all fit! After returning from a weekend reconnecting with artists and writers at Boskone—the annual science fiction convention in Boston—I feel invigorated about what lies ahead for Galaxy’s Edge: we’ve got some great titles for you this issue!

In “Down and Out in the Church of the Tortured Goose” by Thomas K. Carpenter, we’re introduced to Daisy, a young lady in a futuristic world who—despite only knowing a life of abuse, deprivation and illegal data mining through a permanent neural net implanted in her brain—still manages find it in her to commit a great act of kindness and compassion. The ending really tugged at my heartstrings. I defy you not to fall in love with Myx.

Daniel J. Davis entertains us with the wonderful “Antares Needs Actors” about an aspiring performer who is hired for a gig that takes him unexpectedly across the galaxy, right in time for him to level up and become the real hero he had wished he could play in movies! This story has a delightful Bradbury or Burroughs pulp vibe, which makes for a great nostalgic winter read.

We’ve got a couple of shorter new stories for you, with Krystal Claxton’s “Flight of the Silverbird” exploring how one person’s love can both survive and transcend all boundaries of space and time. And Laurence Raphael Brother’s “Ship of the Gods” also shows us the enduring nature of love (once disguised as hate), in a modern urban fantasy where not everyone is quite who they appear to be….

It is our original novelette, however—“Death Game” by David Gerrold—that really challenges the reader to consider what you would do for your partner to show them your love. Would you risk dying, just so they could get their thrill-seeking fix? David pens a poignant tale that begs the question: how far is too far? When can loving someone have a point of no return …

We round out the fiction in this issue with some reprint pieces by regular contributors Mike Resnick, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Gardner Dozois, Jack Dann, and Michael Swanwick, as well as relative newcomers-to-our-magazine, Alan Smale and Howard Waldrop. Howard’s novelette in particular, “Night of the Cooters,” was recently turned into a short film by George RR Martin, which has started to win film festival awards across the United States. The alien invasion story set in a quaint western town filled with eccentrics is bound to entertain in any medium, and I’m delighted to reprint the written form in our magazine.

Jean Marie Ward interviews Ursula Vernon (an absolutely fascinating read!), and Richard Chwedyk also recommends more speculative titles for our readers. Lastly, but not at all in the least, we have our regular Writing and Turning Points columns by L. Penelope and Alan Smale. Readers may have noticed the absence of Gregory Benford’s regular column, The Scientist’s Notebook, the past couple of issues. All of us at Arc Manor Publishing would like to send Greg our love and best healing vibes to help him on his path to recovery from a major stroke at the end of 2022. Not only am I a fellow stroke survivor, and twin, but I am an avid lover of the sciences and our magazine feels incomplete without his insightful columns.

And on that note, I wish all our readers well. The next issue of the magazine will be the last one before we switch over to the exciting new anthology format, so as a special gift to our loyal readers, Issue 62 will be a longer one, with more stories than normal to express our appreciation for your support!