From Prime Books:

Prime Books is pleased to announce the sale and transfer of ownership of their acclaimed online magazines Lightspeed and Fantasy to John Joseph Adams. Adams, the current editor of both magazines, will officially assume the role of publisher starting with the January 2012 issues.

“With the continuing expansion and success of Prime Books, my attention and time is increasingly consumed by book publishing,” publisher Sean Wallace said. “With John already doing a terrific job as editor, it simply made sense for him to take over as publisher as well. We’re really thrilled that this has worked out for both John and Prime.”

New publisher John Joseph Adams says he is delighted at the prospect of taking over the magazines and looks forward to the challenges ahead. “It’s an exciting time to be involved in publishing,” he said. “Models are changing and so is the readership, and online magazines have a better shot at sustainability than ever have before. I believe the possibilities for growth are tremendous, and I look forward to staying in the vanguard of this new frontier.”

Fantasy Magazine was established in 2005, and has been edited by Sean Wallace, Paul Tremblay, and Cat Rambo, with Adams taking over as sole editor earlier this year. Lightspeed—published by Wallace and edited by Adams—debuted in June 2010 and was a 2011 Hugo Award nominee. Numerous stories originally published in Lightspeed and Fantasy have been reprinted in best-of-the-year anthologies, and Lightspeed and Fantasy stories have been nominated for the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Award, and others. Lightspeed’s first year of fiction has just been published by Prime Books in the print anthology Lightspeed: Year One.

I’m very happy about this. Not that Prime was handling the online magazine’s poorly (quite the opposite, actually), but Adams is one of my favourite editors and professionals in the genre, he has wonderful ideas on how to market and present short fiction and his turn around on stories is absolutely tremendous. It will be interesting to see how Adams turns the magazines into self-sustaining entities (without Prime’s money as a backing, as little or as much as that might have been). Either way, they’re two of the best short fiction markets out there and they’re even more firmly in the talented hands of Adams who has been their editor for some time now.

In addition to this news, Andrew Liptak, a good friend of this blog, has been named Editorial Assistant at Lightspeed. Congrats, Andrew!

You can read Fantasy and Lightspeed entirely for free.

Many readers first found Newton’s work with Nights of Villjamur (REVIEW), a novel that is often mis-attributed as the author’s debut. In reality, Newton’s first published novel, albeit by a small press, was The Reef, a novel tangentially related to his current Legends of The Red Sun series, but ostensibly a stand alone.

Newton, on the novel:

It was published a few years back with UK indie publisher, Pendragon Press, but only in limited numbers. So the folks at Tor UK decided it would be a great idea to make it available to buy as a digital edition – and for less than two quid. Quite a few people have asked about this title over the last couple of years, so it only seemed logical to bring it back in this format. Of course, it’s much more expensive to do these things with another print run, but one of the cool things about ebooks is being able to publish digital versions of books that wouldn’t otherwise have been released.

I feel I’ve grown a heck of a lot as a writer since this book. I wrote it when I was 23 or 24 years old, and that was an age when I was experimenting with themes and finding my feet. My outlook on the world is different, as is my awareness of various issues, but I’m still proud of this little tome.

And Adam at The Wertzone says:

The Reef is an intriguing novel. Although the events that unfold have potentially huge ramifications for the continent of Has-jahn and the rest of the world, it’s largely a small-scale story focusing on the island of Arya and those who visit it. Whilst the novel is apparently about a mystery – who is behind a spate of murders on the island – it’s actually much more of a character study, particularly looking at the dynamics of relationships and desire. The book succeeds admirably at both tasks, with the mystery unfolding satisfyingly and the book’s comments on relationships interesting and thought-provoking. Manolin is a sympathetic but flawed protagonist, and his companions are also well-drawn, as are Jella’s crew of terrorists (although I’d like to have learned more about the enigmatic and lethal Allocen). Whilst Newton’s prose has improved since The Reef, it’s still nicely different to a lot of fantasy books out there, with its poised manners and stylistic speech inflections reminiscent of Victorian fiction. The worldbuilding is also top-notch. As far as I can tell, The Reef is set on the same world as Nights of Villjamur (they share the non-human race of the rumel), but in a more distant location, maybe the other side of the world, since none of the locations in either book is mentioned in the other. The ‘Dying Earth’ feel Newton is looking for with this world of ancient, forgotten technology is again successfully achieved here.

It’s certainly of interest to fans of Newton, and likely anyone looking for some early, experimental work from one of the genre’s most interesting young writers. It’s also nice to see Tor UK put their weight behind the book (they didn’t published it initially), though one wonders if Newton might not have just published it himself. Good news, either way.

The Reef is available as an eBook.

From Brooks’ website:

Dear Readers,

Most of you know that Shawn, our faithful Web Druid, has been battling a re-occurrence of cancer that surfaced some months back. Thankfully, he is well on the way to a full recovery thanks to chemotherapy treatments and doctor care. Less happily, the result of all this is a huge medical bill he has no hope of being able to pay back in the time frame the hospital has set.

Because we all love Shawn and value his friendship – no one more than me – we all want to do what we can to see him through this. So I am announcing effective today that I am giving Shawn the use of my short story IMAGINARY FRIENDS for an exclusive download for a period of 90 days. During this time, readers who have never read the story or would like to read it again and obtain an ebook copy in the process can do so. IMAGINARY FRIENDS was a story I wrote 20 years ago for Lester del Rey for inclusion in a coffee table book of stories by Del Rey authors called ONCE UPON A TIME. That book has been out of print for years, and the story has not been used since. The story is about a boy named Jack who discovers that he is dying of cancer. I won’t reveal any more except to tell you that this was the story which served as the jumping off point half-a-dozen years later for RUNNING WITH THE DEMON.

So I am putting it up for sale for 90 days at $2.99 to help Shawn pay off his medical bills. All of the proceeds of sales of the story will go to him for that purpose. Here is a chance for all of us to show Shawn we support him. Goodness knows, he has supported me over the years. I know many of you have become friends with him, and maybe you’ve thought now and then about how you might let him know what that friendship has meant.

Here is a really good opportunity. Order the download, read and enjoy your copy of the story, and know you are helping someone who really needs it. Then drop a note to the website, if you are so moved. I can promise you that by helping Shawn you will be doing me a real favor.

Always your friend, Terry

For years, I’ve been on the hunt for a copy of Once Upon a Time, the short story anthology that originally contained ‘Imaginary Friends.’ Unfortunately, it’s been out of print for years and is hard to find. To now be able to read the story and support a good friend of mine, Shawn Speakman, is a wonderful opportunity.

The short story is available on Kindle and Nook for $2.99 (USD).