Another One Bites the Dust?

There have been no new issues of Farthing magazine since January, and this week the link to their site is dead. They're still listed on Ralan's and Duotropes as 'closed to submissions until further notice', but it's not looking good.

Pantechnicon

The new issue of UK based webzine Pantechnicon is due next week. According to the editors the 'website is moving to a more dynamic-content platform rather than the quarterly update format.'

This is good news for the UK SF small press (if indeed that term applies to webzines) as it's more like six months since the last issue so I was begining to think it had entered one of those potentially terminal pauses, along with Farthing that has been mysteriously quiet since January.

Attempted Drabble

One of the unusual features of Farthing magazine, that I omitted to mention in my review of issue 5, is that they include a selection of drabbles between the stories. That's a story of exactly 100 words, for the uninitiated.

I've written a couple of stories of roughly that length, The Last Adam and Ten Years at the Bar, so I thought it would be interesting to aim for 100 words exactly.

I'd been thinking of another idea for avery short story for a while, so I set about writing Gap Years, about a teenager who ends up being away from Earth for rather longer than expected. It ended up at 528 words.

That doesn't count as a drabble!

Farthing #5 review

Farthing is a shiny, digest size magazine that is published quarterly, and has already made an impact after the cover to issue 2 was nominated for a BSFA award.

Read my review of issue 5 here.