A For Really And Truly Ghost Ship

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How's this for an eerie coincidence? Right after my story "Ghost Ships" appeared in the 70th Anniversary Issue of the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, a for really and truly ghost ship appeared on the the Delaware River in Philadelphia.

I am not making this up. That's it up above.

And here's the city's explanation.

Inspired by the nuanced and complex history of the Delaware River in the 1700s, Biangle Studio created the site specific, three-dimensional light and water-based public art installation Ghost Ship. The 18th-century ship appears on the Philadelphia Waterfront as Ghost Ship for the month of October to shine a light on the shared history of the Delaware River, and reflect on its role in shaping Philadelphia today.    

Which, if you read carefully, you will discover means that it's over. They've turned off the pumps throwing water into the air and  the lights projecting onto the droplets. Like all ghost sightings it's ephemeral... seen and then over.

But beautiful. It lingers.


And speaking of my story . . .

A good issue of a fiction magazine is like an enhanced anthology. There's a book's worth of short fiction, and a selection of reviews and non-fiction to boot.  One of the best anthologies of he year was F&SF's 70th Anniversary Issue, which has just gone off the stands.

Here's the table of conetnts:

THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION

September/October 2019

70th Anniversary Issue

NOVELETS

“The White Cat’s Divorce” by Kelly Link

“American Gold Mine” by Paolo Bacigalupi

“Kabul” by Michael Moorcock

“Erase, Erase, Erase” by Elizabeth Bear

SHORT STORIES

“Little Inn on the Jianghu” by Y.M. Pang

“Under the Hill” by Maureen McHugh

“Madness Afoot” by Amanda Hollander

“The Light on Eldoreth” by Nick Wolven

“Booksavr” by Ken Liu

“The Wrong Badger” by Esther Friesner

“Ghost Ships” by Michael Swanwick

“Homecoming” by Gardner Dozois

POEMS

“Last Human in the Olympics” by Mary Soon Lee

“Halstead IV” by Jeff Crandall

DEPARTMENTS

Three Score and Ten by Robert Silverberg

Books to Look For by Charles de Lint

    This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

    Radicalized by Cory Doctorow

    Becoming Superman: My Journey from Poverty to Hollywood by J. Michael Straczynski

    The Golden Age of Science Fiction by John Wade

    Dracopedia Field Guide by William O’Connor

    Best Game Ever by R. R. Angell

Books by James Sallis

The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh

Films: Love Death + Some Regression by Karin Lowachee

Science: Net Up or Net Down? by Jerry Oltion

Plumage from Pegasus: A Giraffe Yoked to an Ox: A Review of Flora Columbia: Goddess of a New Age by Paul Di Filippo

Curiosities: Science Fiction: Complete with Everything: Aliens, Giant Ants, Space Cadets, Robots, and One Plucky Girl by No-Frills Entertainment (1981) by Thomas Kaufsek

Cartoons by Mark Heath, Danny Shanahan

Cover by David A. Hardy

The issue has vanished from the stands like the ghost ships in my story. But you can buy individual issues from the F&SF website. Or, if you're the kind of person who likes to throw an Ipod loaded with their entire library into their carry-on bag just before making a spontaneous trip to Katmandu, from Weightless Books.


And as always . . .

I'm on the road again. I'll post my adventures, if I have any, from the wilds of Michigan.

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