interzone is the man

As in this is a good thing. Not as in "getting screwed by the man." This is the man we shout and cheer for.

- Why?

Because next year's May-June issue will be the Mundane issue.

- But isn't mundane boring?

Would I be blogging about it if it was?

- Well... surely that answer depends upon what I think of your blog.

Be quiet.

Anyhoo... Yeah, the mundane issue. What this boils down to is a list of stories that meet this list of rules:

• no FTL travel or communications
• no aliens
• no time travel
• no parallel universes
• no immortality or telepathy

This is awesome-ness. These are potential genre crutches, which can undermine the creativity and imagination of speculative fiction. Geoff Ryman, by kicking these crutches away, is forcing invention back into spec fic. The more we see of this sort of behavior the better. Even cooler that this is taking place in a magazine as prominent as Interzone.

- So a little bit exciting?

I said be quiet.