RIP Euan Harvey

I've been mostly buried in finals and haven't checked the internet much over the past few days, so I didn't hear about Euan Harvey's passing from cancer until a couple of hours ago.  For those of you who don't recognize the name, Euan was an up and coming author whose work I greatly enjoyed.  He wrote the type of fantasy I most like to read, sword and sorcery and adventure oriented fantasy.  He had work appearing in two issues of Realms of Fantasy this past year which I reviewed, April and June.  In both cases, I felt he had one of the better stories in the issue.  He was also a contributor to Home of Heroics. 

John O'Neill has posted a tribute at Black Gate in which states there is a Harvey story forthcoming in the next issue.  If you haven't read his work, try to track some of it down.  It's worth it. 

He will be missed.

Damn it, enough dying already.  I'm getting tired of posting obituaries.

Realms of Fantasy: A Review of the June 2011 Issue (Plus a Small Suggestion)

Realms of Fantasy, June 2011
$6.99 print, $3.99 pdf

I'm not sure why, but I can't seem to find copies of this magazine until the month after the one printed on the cover.  With all other publications of a monthly or less frequent nature, the date on the cover is always in advance of the month it hits the stands.  Which is all besides the point.

What is the point is the fiction.  But before I get to that, I do want to thank the publisher for going to a different cover stock.  Unlike the previous issue, the ink on this one didn't rub off on my hands.  (Now to start lobbying for an epub format...)

This is the one-hundredth issue, which makes it something special, especially since it's been canceled twice in the last few years.  To celebrate, this issue has one hundred pages.  (One hundred two actually, but why quibble?)

There are the usual columns:  Folkroots, Gaming Reviews, Movies, Artists Gallery (a gorgeous spread featuring Petar Meselkzija, with whom I was not familiar), Graphic Novels, and three book review columns, with one devoted to general fantasy, one to YA, and one to paranormal romance and urban fantasy.  There's also a letters column devoted to the anniversary, a list of facts about the magazine, and an editorial by Shawna McCarthy, which I'll comment on later.  A new feature, of which I heartily approve, is the poetry.  The inaugural poems were by Ursula K. LeGuin, who will be hard act to follow for whoever has the poetry in the next issue.

Well over half the magazine (54 pages if my arithmetic is correct) is fiction.  So how does it stack up?

Realms of Fantasy: A Review of the April 2011 Issue

Realms of Fantasy,  April 2011 Issue
81 p., $6.99

I don't know if this issue was late or if the distributor at the local chain box store simply drug its feet, but I just saw this issue a couple of days ago.  I know it wasn't in the store a week prior to that. 

It doesn't really matter, either.  The important thing is that the issue is there.  After last year's cancellation of the magazine, it's good to see it back on the stands. The usual slew of columns are basically intact:  book reviews, movie reviews, a special in-depth look at the Addams Family on Broadway.  Theodora Goss devotes her Folkroots column to vampires, something we've examined a time or two here in the last few weeks. The Artist Gallery, always one of the high points of the magazine, looks at Brom this month. 

Which brings me to a negative point.  The cover stock used by the new publisher is of a lower quality than what was used in the past.  I was halfway through reading the issue when I noticed that the ink was coming off on my fingers.  Now I prefer my reading material to melt in my mind, not in my hands.  I understand the need to economize and that the new publisher, Damnation Books, is in business to make a profit.  But at seven bucks a pop, it wouldn't hurt to invest in the cover a little  more.

All that aside, the fiction is the backbone of the magazine, even though it tries to cover every aspect of the fantasy field.  So the question is, how does the fiction in this issue hold up?