Forever Magazine - Thoughts on Issues 1 & 2

Forever Magazine now has issues 1 & 2 available and is the new magazine from Neil Clarke (announced here). I’ve now read both issues and this is what I think.

1. I’m very excited by it and have subscribed
2. I was irritated by the fact that I’d already read everything in Issue 1 in other anthologies

Issue 1
The first issue contains

• The Regular by Ken Liu (novella)
• The Fate of Mice by Susan Palwick (short story)
• Firebrand by Peter Watts (short story)

Having already read Upgraded which was edited by Neil Clarke I felt a bit short changed that The Regular was a reprint and The Fate of Mice which a brilliant story had previously appeared in The Mammoth Book of Best New Sci-Fi 21 and The Fate of Mice (short story collection); finally Firebrand was previously published in Twelve Tomorrows.
I’m not sure I’m being unreasonable but I did expect a new magazine to have something previously unpublished.
Issue 2
The second issue contains

• Dream Houses by Genevieve Valentine (Novella)
• The Endangered Camp by Ann Leckie (Short Story)
• Mitigation by Tobias S. Buckell & Karl Schroeder (Novelette)

Overall I enjoyed this a lot more for two reasons

1. I hadn’t read Dream Houses and it was very good
2. Ann Leckie & feathered dinosaurs!

So I’m going to go in reverse order of enjoyment
Mitigation has an interesting premise which is that carbon sequestration in the artic is going to be a bit wild west with large corporations arguing in the courts while small players run between the cracks trying to make money anyway possible and long lost seeds are worth something when everything is copyrighted. The only problem is that it felt like something Paolo Bacigalupi would have written and done in a more interesting style. 3/5

The Endangered Camp is a short but very enjoyable look at feathered dinosaurs on a mission to explore Mars. It’s hard to write more without spoiling the story so I’m going to limit it to stating how much I enjoyed the idea of oral history in decision making and that it has the same concise writing style that made A Calculated Life such a pleasure to read. I am terrible with names (having recently referred to Iain McEwans Culture Series) and having two authors I've both recently loved having the same first name confused me. Anne Charnock is the author of A Calculated Life.  4/5

Dream Houses is one of those stories where a key thematic element (choral music) is so wonderfully described that you feel an overwhelming urge to learn more about it to better appreciate the story. Amadis is a deeply interesting character full of flaws and insecurities and they way the background for these issues is created is very well done and believable. 5/5