The ‘life is a journey’ metaphor is hackneyed, and yet - here I am, using it.
This is an exciting new thing for me. Starting something completely new, getting other people on board, figuring out all of the minutiae…. there is an unavoidable overtone of ‘preparing to step out the door’.
This journal will provide a place for exploring the ideas and themes that stand behind, inform, and develop out of, speculative fiction - the science fiction, fantasy, space opera, slipstream, magical realism, mythological retellings, and other genres that have a wonderfully rich history, are key to understanding and exploring our society today and into the future, and which I have loved since I first learned to read.
One essay a month will be free to read - tell your friends, share it with everyone you know. The second essay each month will be available to subscribers only. A $30 subscription gets you access to all subscriber essays for a year, as well as six-monthly ebooks that brings together all of the essays and an exclusive essay or two. Subscribing also means that you’re helping to pay authors for their work, so you get to feel all virtuous about supporting creativity. If you want to feel extra virtuous, consider the Bedrock option: a one-off payment that gets you lifetime access to subscriber content, your name on the website, and the knowledge that you’ve helped this venture get that bit closer to self-sustaining.
Our very first essay, to be published on 6 January 2024, is by Cheryl Morgan. She takes the tricky question of what we mean when we talk about ‘historical fiction’, ‘alternate history’ and ‘historical fantasy’, and comes to what may be a controversial conclusion…