Weird Tales # 360
print $7.95, various ebook formats $2.99
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edited by Marvin Kaye
There was a great deal of
bitchin' and moanin' wailing and gnashing of teeth last year when
it was announced that Marvin Kaye was buying Weird Tales and replacing editor Ann Vandermeer with himself. The way some people carried on, you would have thought Sauron had managed to get his claws on the One Ring.
When Kaye announced, and
later retracted, his plans to publish an excerpt of the science fiction novel
Save the Pearls, a book many considered to be racist, I expected to see reports of mobs marching on Kaye's location with torches and pitchforks. Haivng read a number of Kaye's anthologies for the SFBC, and portions of others, I have great respect for him as an editor, but I have to say this was not one of his better choices. Nor was his essay defending that choice well conceived. I didn't bother to give this particular novel much attention; the descriptions of it, even if they were only half accurate, made it clear to me the novel was not a good thing to serialize in the magazine.
Outrage was so great that Mary Robinette Kowal
subsidized Shimmer magazine so that publication would be able to pay pro rates. Editor-in-Chief Beth Wodzinski stated on the
magazine's blog that she wanted to continue in the vein Ann Vandermeer.
Why am I going into this bit of recent history? Because the situation as I see it is this: Expectations on Kaye to succeed are extremely high, so high that it can be argued he'll never be able to meet those expectations. Furthermore, there are those who are waiting with sharpened knives for him to stumble, or if you prefer, stumble again after the
Save the Pearls debacle.
Well, now the first issue edited by Kaye is out, and it has the theme of The Elder Gods. Kaye is taking the magazine back to its roots. This was part of what caused the controversy when he replaced Vandermeer as edtior. Many saw this as a step backwards. It's become fashionable in some circles to bash Lovecraft for a variety of reasons, and a number of those reasons showed up in the vitriol that followed the announcement.
So, let's look at the stories, and then I'll attempt to answer the question of whether or not Kaye succeeding in getting his incarnation of The Unique Magazine off the ground.
