Summary: Fictitious Force, 2007

Probably it is unfair that I remember Fictitious Force most readily for its striking format; it is a saddle-stitched magazine, similar to many small 'zines, but it is folded along the long axis of a standard sheet of paper: in other words, it's tall and thin. That is striking, of course, but the fiction this year, in the single issue, was pretty strong as well. There were 13 stories, 6 of them short shorts, the rest short stories (though one story was very close to novelette length by my estimate and I could be wrong): about 38,000 words.

My clear favorite story was Marissa K. Lingen's "A Six Letter Word for Mom", about genetic modifications and the devastating effect they had on the narrator's mother -- but with hope added. Amid a selection of stories I really liked throughout (only one was marked "So-So" in my notes) the others that stood out were by "Tangerine Bay" by David McGillveray and "To Worship Death" by B. A. Barnett.

7 of 13 stories were by women (54%), and 5 of 13 (38%) were SF. (I think 11 of 23 2006 stories were by women, meaning a percentage of exactly 50% for the two years combined.)