Edited by Alex Khlopenko, Three Crows Magazine is a quarterly online speculative fiction magazine, still relatively new to the SF&F community but growing quickly, aiming for cultural diversity and tackling big, challenging subjects. Issue 4 features compelling stories by Avra Margariti, Stephen Couch and Eliza Chan, fabulous interviews with Evan Winter and G.V. Anderson, several thorough book reviews, and a thought-provoking essay on desert-influenced writing comparing Frank Herbert’s Dune with recent novels by Tasha Suri and Bradley P. Beaulieu. For genre fans looking to broaden their horizons, there’s entertainment, information and inspiration aplenty to be found amongst these 66 pages.
For many readers, the main draw of a magazine like this is the chance to enjoy new short fiction, and the three wildly different stories featured here don’t disappoint, linked only by a shared sense of surreality but each one powerful in its own right. Avra Margariti’s Little Bear is a short but beautifully evocative semi-mythological story of loss, sadness and love, Stephen Couch’s In Cube Eight a trippy sci-fi tale of AIs and unlicensed drug use, and Eliza Chan’s Knowing Your Type an unsettling but grimly satisfying story of sexism, revenge (of a sort) and strangely creepy teddy bears. Look elsewhere for conventional, straightforward storytelling, but if you’re after a little darkness, and some interesting female characters, then there should be plenty to enjoy here.
The other standout element of this issue is the pair of author interviews, both of which feature interesting and well-considered questions answered with honesty, charm and wit. Both Evan Winter and G.V. Anderson talk passionately about their inspirations, their outlook on fantasy as a genre, and their own personal writing methods, particularly regarding writing characters. While the specifics of their answers differ, they’re similarly thoughtful and share an infectious sense of enthusiasm. Winter also offers a compelling case for his new novel The Rage of Dragons (“bronze-age John Wick” – what’s not to like about that?), while Anderson hints at what her first novel will feature (“a historical portal fantasy set during the Blitz”, only in Southampton instead of the usual London).
Dan Stubbings’ essay exploring Dune’s impact on ‘desert fantasy’ books is interesting and genuinely thought-provoking, albeit a little unfocused and unsure of the final point it’s making. It does make a good case for reading (or rereading) Dune, and checking out the referenced novels by both Suri and Beaulieu, however. The remaining pages are filled by four very detailed reviews, covering a range of subjects from the well known (Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Ruin) to the relatively obscure (A Collection of Obsessions by MIchael R. Fletcher). While they’re perhaps a little over-detailed (Saladin Ahmed’s Engraved on the Eye gets a six-page story-by-story breakdown, for example), they’re certainly thorough and well-informed, and contribute to a magazine as a whole that’s enjoyable from start to finish. Considering the variety and overall quality of what’s on offer, the sub-£3 price tag makes this a bit of a no-brainer for anyone interested in fantasy and science fiction.
