When the first editor of Galaxy’s Edge magazine, Mike Resnick, passed away, I didn’t have time to mourn. I had to prepare the next issue for publication, and that turned out to be the most cathartic experience. I soon realized how much this magazine impacted new writers—and myself, as editor—when I started buying stories. The joy authors felt to get their acceptance letters, contracts, edits, and then see their words in print for the first time, was so infectious, and their happiness spilled over, deeply affecting me. It helped soften the grief, and it also showed me how much I really do love editing.
Stepping into Mike’s very big shoes felt daunting at first. He had been a mentor in my life, and then my collaborator and friend, and now I was being entrusted with one of his creations. While I had already edited novels for a few years, I was now being put in a position of editing a magazine that was known for the “Writer Children” it created.
After ten years of publication, we’ve now converted the magazine into an anthology format to increase its distribution, and Journeys Beyond the Fantastical Horizon is the first book in the series. As a tribute to a decade of publication, this anthology collects the best fiction from the issues I’ve edited. Once you read the caliber of the stories, you will understand why the words written by these authors inspire me.
Writers’ first professional publications have appeared in Galaxy’s Edge, and we’ve showcased stories by venerated legends of this field, such as George R.R. Martin, who has a reputation for paying-it-forward as much as the original editor of the magazine. The opening story, “A Measure of a Mother’s Love” by Z.T. Bright, tells the poignant tale of a mother learning how to let go of not only her human son, but her alien one, rightfully winning the inaugural Mike Resnick Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Story by a New Author. The most recent winner of the award, “For the Great and Immortal” by Daniel Burnbridge, is first published within these pages.
Another author making a huge splash in the beginning of their career is Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki. I was absolutely delighted to be the first to publish “O2 Arena,” about one man’s fight to save a life in a future Nigeria where oxygen is the currency, and sexism and poverty are a constant battle. That novelette has well earnt its stripes, becoming a BSFA, Nommo, and Hugo finalist, winning the Nebula Award for Best Novelette!
To say that I am proud of our authors is an understatement. When Barb Galler-Smith was announced as an Aurora Award finalist for “Night Folk”—the first story I bought for the magazine to be nominated for an award—I didn’t know who was more excited: the author or the editor. When I first read Christopher Henckel’s “Echoes in Gliese”, about a captain desperately trying to save the life of his organic spaceship’s newborn baby, or Alicia Cay’s “The Color of Thunder,” about a daughter having to defy her dad to save the winged creature believed to have killed her brother, I was blown away by these authors’ talent. I cannot wait to watch their careers soar.
One of my favorite pieces is “Duty and the Beast” by David Gerrold. Not only is he the writer of one of the most celebrated Star Trek scripts, and the author of a novel that was turned into the movie, Martian Child, but after an accomplished career decades long, he continues to put as much heart and effort into his stories as our newer authors. As does Katharine Kerr with her short story “The Right Reward,” showing her deft touch in sculpting words. I can’t wait to edit her science fiction novel later this year.
Whether it is a fantasy story bordering on horror, such as Andrea Stewart’s “The Ecology of Broken Promises,” depicting how people try to deal with their deceptions being represented physically on their bodies in the form of extra (lying) mouths, or a science fiction story bordering on the post-apocalyptic with ZZ Claybourne’s hauntingly beautiful and melancholic “Giant Mechs in the Distance, Forever Fighting”, about a man’s ability to hold onto the small joys in a war-torn life, this anthology will show you the scope of what the speculative fiction field has to offer readers.
Closing out this book is the incredible novelette by Hai Ya, “The Space-Time Painter,” which was first published in the Chinese edition of Galaxy’s Edge and won the Hugo Award before it was translated into English for this anthology. If you watched his acceptance speech at the Hugo Ceremony, the trials Hai Ya overcome to make his first fiction sale is nothing short of inspirational.
I could go on and on about the writers in this anthology—extolling the talents of The Winner Twins, or pointing out how rare it is for an author to be able to write laugh-out-loud humor and also manage to tug at our hearts in the same story, like Effie Seiberg does with her utterly charming “Worrywart”—but then this introduction would become an essay, and I think you would much prefer to read the wonderful fiction.
So, enjoy!
Read. Dream. Celebrate life.
I now have to notify five new “Writer Children” that they are the next finalists for The Mike Resnick Memorial Award, and yet I am the one who feels like the winner for being able to work with such talented people.
