Readers
Rich Horton's Market Summaries:
Summary: Argosy, 2005
Argosy made an ambitious debut in 2004, but problems quickly arose. The first editor left, and the publisher, James Owen, took over. The controversial two volume publishing scheme, with one digest-sized magazine and a similar-sized "chapbook" containing a long novella presented together in a slipcase, continued, but a more newsstand edition was apparently also produced. Only one issue appeared in 2005, despite promises of more regular publication. It's all rather frustrating -- it remains a simply beautifully produced magazine, with generally high quality fiction as well, but it does not appear, so far, to be viable long term.
The one 2005 issue featured 8 stories, 3 novelettes and 5 shorts (one short-short). The "extra", in the separate "chapbook", was the first part of a novel serialization, John Grant's "The Dragons of Manhattan".
I was really quite pleased with all the short fiction. (I didn't read the serial, preferring to wait until all parts are on hand.) My favorite short story was Zoran Zivkovic's "The Telephone", in which a blocked writer gets a call from the Devil, who has a wrenching offer to make, but stories by Charles Coleman Finlay and Steve Rasnic Tem, in particular, are strong stuff. The best novelette was perhaps "An Incident at Agate Beach", by Marly Youmans, in which a honeymooning bride meets an odd child on the beach. There's also a good pulpy fun story by Richard Lupoff, "Chase and the Missing Man".
