online
In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity, and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed as "on lin ...
science fiction magazine
A science fiction magazine is a publication that offers primarily science fiction, either in a hard-copy periodical format or on the Internet. Science fiction magazines traditionally featured speculative fiction in short story, novelette, nov ...
(), run by a joint
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies.
* British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...
– US team of editors. The magazine was launched in January 2005 and releases issues four times a year, with stories, articles, and reviews in both
HTML
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...
and
PDF
Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...
formats. At times (notably 2006–7, 2010–11) issues appeared more sporadically than this.
Contents
''The Future Fire'' publishes both fiction and nonfiction. For fiction it publishes
speculative fiction
Speculative fiction is an umbrella term, umbrella genre of fiction that encompasses all the subgenres that depart from Realism (arts), realism, or strictly imitating everyday reality, instead presenting fantastical, supernatural, futuristic, or ...
,
cyberpunk
Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting said to focus on a combination of "low-life and high tech". It features futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cyberwa ...
and
dark fantasy
Dark fantasy, also called fantasy horror, is a subgenre of fantasy literary, artistic, and cinematic works that incorporates disturbing and frightening themes. The term is ambiguously used to describe stories that combine horror fiction, horror ...
, with a focus on social and political themes and
mundane
In subcultural and fictional uses, a mundane is a person who does not belong to a particular group, according to the members of that group; the implication is that such persons, lacking imagination, are concerned solely with the mundane: the ...
rather than
hard SF
Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic. The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell's '' Islands of Space'' in the Nove ...
. In the area of nonfiction it publishes reviews and interviews with people such as
Cory Doctorow
Cory Efram Doctorow (; born 17 July 1971) is a Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who served as co-editor of the blog ''Boing Boing''. He is an activist in favour of liberalising copyright laws and a proponent of th ...
, author of ''
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
''Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom'' is a 2003 science fiction book, the first novel by Canadian author and digital-rights activist Cory Doctorow. It depicts people competing over how new technology is being used at Walt Disney World, in a pos ...
'', and
Kevin Warwick
Kevin Warwick (born 9 February 1954) is an English engineer and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) at Coventry University. He is known for his studies on direct interfaces between computer systems and the human nervous system, and has also done ...
the
cyborg
A cyborg (, a portmanteau of ''cybernetics, cybernetic'' and ''organism'') is a being with both Organic matter, organic and biomechatronic body parts. The term was coined in 1960 by Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline.new media,
posthumanism
Posthumanism or post-humanism (meaning "after humanism" or "beyond humanism") is an idea in continental philosophy and critical theory responding to the presence of anthropocentrism in 21st-century thought. Posthumanization comprises "those pro ...
, and
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...
. In 2010 ''The Future Fire'' published themed issues on
feminist science fiction
Feminist science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction (abbreviated "SF") focused on such feminist themes as: gender inequality, sexuality, race, economics, reproduction, and environment. Feminist SF is political because of its tendency to ...
Neil Ayres
Neil George Ayres is an English short fiction writer, born in east London in 1979. He grew up in Tower Hamlets, Essex and Spain.
His fiction includes the literary novel, ''Nicolo's Gifts'', and short speculative fiction published in many internati ...
*
Bruce Boston
Bruce Boston (July 16, 1943 – November 11, 2024) was an American speculative fiction writer and poet.
Early years
Boston was born in Chicago and grew up in Southern California.Diane SeversonInterview with Bruce Boston''Amazing Stories'' March ...
*
Rebecca Buchanan
''Eternal Haunted Summer'' is an ezine dedicated to Pagan poetry and short fiction. It also features reviews of Pagan works and interviews with Pagan authors, as well as reviews and interviews with authors of works that might interest a Pagan audi ...
*
Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Silvia Moreno-Garcia (born 25 April 1981) is a Mexican Canadians, Mexican-Canadian novelist, short story writer, editor, and publisher.
Early life and education
Moreno-Garcia was born 25 April 1981, and raised in Mexico. Both her parents worked ...
*
Maria Grech Ganado
Maria Grech Ganado (born 1943, in Lija), considered to be from Floriana, is a Maltese author and academic.
Education
Grech Ganado obtained her secondary education at St Joseph High School (Valletta) the Marija Regina Secondary School, in Hamrun. ...
* Terry Grimwood
*
Rhys Hughes
Rhys Henry Hughes (born 1966, Cardiff, Wales) is a Welsh fantasy writer and essayist.
Career
Born in Cardiff, Hughes has written in a variety of forms, from short stories to novels.
His long novel ''Engelbrecht Again!'' is a sequel to Maur ...
*
Vylar Kaftan
Vylar Kaftan is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. A Clarion West Writers Workshop graduate, she lives on the U.S. West Coast.
Kaftan's short story "Civilisation" is included in Farah Mendlesohn's anthology ''Glorifying Terrorism' ...
*
Petra Kuppers
Petra Kuppers (born 1 April 1968) is a community performance artist and a disability culture activist. She is a professor of English, Women's and Gender Studies, Theater and Dance, and Art and Design, teaching mainly in Performance Studies and ...
*
Alison Littlewood
Alison Littlewood is a British author of horror novels and short stories. She also writes under the name Alison J. Littlewood and the pen name A. J. Elwood.
Littlewood grew up in Penistone, South Yorkshire. She attended Northumbria University w ...
*
Sandra McDonald
Sandra McDonald is an American science fiction and fantasy author.
She is a graduate of Ithaca College, and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from the University of Southern Maine. She also spent eight years as an officer in ...
*
Sarah Pinsker
Sarah Pinsker is an American science fiction and fantasy author. She is a nine-time finalist for the Nebula Award, and her debut novel '' A Song for a New Day'' won the 2019 Nebula for Best NovelSteven Pirie
Steven Pirie is an English writer of horror, fantasy and humour based in Liverpool.
Bibliography Novels
* ''Digging up Donald'' ( Immanion Press, 2004)
* ''Burying Brian'' (Immanion Press, 2010)See author's blog aand featured profile a/ref>
Sh ...
Brett Alexander Savory
Brett Savory is a freelance writer, editor, and web designer. He lives in Canada with his wife, writer and editor, Sandra Kasturi.
Bibliography
Novels
* ''A Perfect Machine'' (Angry Robot Books, February 2017)
* ''In and Down'' (Brindle & Gla ...
*
Benjanun Sriduangkaew
Benjanun Sriduangkaew is a Thai science fiction and fantasy writer, who is also known for her controversial online criticism. She was a finalist for the 2014 Astounding Award for Best New Writer, John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer and t ...
*
Richard Thieme Richard Thieme (born 1944), is a former priest who became a commentator on technology and culture, founding the consulting firm ThiemeWorks. He is the author of the syndicated column "Islands in the Clickstream", which was turned into a book of the ...
*
Lavie Tidhar
Lavie Tidhar (; born 16 November 1976) is an Israeli-born writer, working across multiple genres. He has lived in the United Kingdom and South Africa for long periods of time, as well as Laos and Vanuatu. As of 2013, Tidhar has lived in London ...
*
Jo Walton
Jo Walton (born 1964) is a Welsh-Canadian fantasy and science fiction writer and poet. She is best known for the fantasy novel '' Among Others'', which won the Hugo and Nebula Awards in 2012, and '' Tooth and Claw'', a Victorian-era novel w ...
*
Aliya Whiteley
Aliya Whiteley (born 1974) is a British novelist, short story writer and poet.
Biography
Aliya Whiteley was born in Barnstaple, North Devon, in 1974 and grew up in the seaside town of Ilfracombe which formed the inspiration for many of her sto ...
*
Lynda Williams
Lynda Williams (born February 17, 1958) is a Canadian science fiction author and blogger.
Williams' fiction is centered on a series of ten novels set in the fictional Okal Rel Universe and published by Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publis ...
It has included illustrations and artwork by:
*
Martin Hanford
Martin Hanford (born 21 February 1974) is a British fantasy artist based in Herefordshire, England. In addition to painting album covers and T-shirt designs for a variety of heavy metal bands, including Bal-Sagoth, Twilight Force, Angantyr, Or ...
*
Tais Teng
Tais Teng (born 1952 in The Hague) is one pen name of Thijs van Ebbenhorst Tengbergen, a Dutch writer of fantasy fiction, hardboiled detective, children's books, and science fiction. Teng also works as an illustrator, sculptor, and writing coac ...
''The Future Fire'' has run occasional writers' conventions and competitions, including a flash fiction contest sponsored by the ''
MirrorMask
''MirrorMask'' is a 2005 British-American dark fantasy film designed and directed by Dave McKean, and written by Neil Gaiman from a story they developed together. Produced by The Jim Henson Company, the film stars Stephanie Leonidas, Jason Bar ...
'' movie, and a satirical writing contest based on spam subject lines judged by
Peter Tennant
Peter Tennant is a prolific writer of horror, fantasy and speculative fiction, and award-winning columnist and reviewer for Black Static magazine. He has also written or run review columns for genre magazines including ''Whispers of Wickedness ...
.
Staff
* Djibril al-Ayad, General editor
* Regina de Burca, Associate editor
* Valeria Vitale, Associate editor
Anthologies
The Future Fire has published seven anthologies (under the imprint Futurefire.net Publications): ''Outlaw Bodies'', co-edited by
Lori Selke
Lori may refer to:
*Lori (given name)
*Lori Province, Armenia
*Lori Fortress, a fortress in Armenia
*Lori Berd, a village in Armenia
*Kingdom of Tashir-Dzoraget, a historical Armenian kingdom from c. 980 to 1240, sometimes known as the Kingdom of L ...
(), in 2012, a collection of stories on the theme of forbidden or constrained bodies, disability, feminism and trans issues; and ''We See a Different Frontier'', co-edited with Fabio Fernandes () in 2013, with preface by
Aliette de Bodard
Aliette de Bodard (born November 10, 1982) is a French-American speculative fiction writer. She has received accolades including the British Fantasy Award, BSFA Award, Ignyte Award, Locus Award, and Nebula Award.
Writing
De Bodard published he ...
and critical afterword by
Ekaterina Sedia
Ekaterina Sedia (born July 9, 1970) is a Russian fantasy writer. She immigrated to the United States and attended college in New Jersey to obtain her Ph.D. Her most famous work is '' The Alchemy of Stone'', a steampunk novel that examines sexism ...
, which raised over $4,500 in crowdfunding via Peerbackers; a third anthology, ''Accessing the Future'', co-edited by Kathryn Allan, raised over $8,000 via
IndieGogo
Indiegogo is an American crowdfunding website founded in 2008 by Danae Ringelmann, Slava Rubin, and Eric Schell. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, California. The site is one of the first sites to offer crowd funding. Indiegogo allows peo ...
, and received a starred review from ''
Publishers Weekly
''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...
''; ''TFF-X'' (co-edited by Djibril al-Ayad, Cécile Matthey and Valeria Vitale) and ''Fae Visions of the Mediterranean'' (co-edited by Valeria Vitale) appeared in late 2015 and early 2016 respectively. A mixed anthology of fiction and essays related to classical monsters, ''Making Monsters'' co-edited by Emma Bridges, was jointly released with the
Institute of Classical Studies
The Institute of Classical Studies is a research institution associated with the University of London and a member of the School of Advanced Study. The institute is a national and international research institute in the languages, literature, hi ...
in 2018. In 2022 they published an anthology of speculative noir, guest edited by Valeria Vitale, under the title ''Noir Fire''.Review by Adri Joy at ''Nerds of a Feather'': http://www.nerds-feather.com/2022/06/questing-in-shorts-june-2022.html