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Rich Horton's Market Summaries:
Summary: H. P. Lovecraft's Magazine of Horror, 2004
This is a brand new magazine edited by Marvin Kaye, and published by John Betancourt's Wildside Press. DNA Publications is also involved, I believe mostly with distribution. The first two issues appeared in 2004 -- or perhaps one might say the first 1 1/2. Volume 1 Number 1 is dated Spring 2004, and it was followed by Number 1.5, dated Fall 2004, a shorter subscriber-only issue designed to fill in the gap between the first issue and resumption of more regular distribution (as DNA switches distributors). The two issues included 15 stories, one a novelette, the other fourteen short stories (4 short-shorts), for about 55,000 words of fiction.
I thought the first issue extremely promising. The novelette, Holly Phillips's "In the Palace of Repose", is outstanding, a lovely story about a magical King, the bureaucrat whose job is to interface with the King in his prison/palace, and a mysterious woman who appears in the palace as the populace seems to have forgotten the King. There were also pretty decent stories by Darrell Schweitzer, Jonathan L. Howard, and Tanith Lee. Indeed, the rest of the issue was also pretty good. The second, abbreviated issue was not really as good. Greg Beatty had two stories, both decent, in particular "Amontillado Cam".
The look and feel is so far reminiscent of Weird Tales to a considerable extent, though given an extended run I'm sure differences would become apparent. The appearance of several first rate newer writers (besides Phillips and Beatty there were stories by Charles Coleman Finlay and by Tim Pratt and Michael Jasper (in collaboration)) is definitely a good sign.
