Excerpt
Introduction
I had help with narrowing this down, I have to admit. My problem (as editor) is when I go back into the pages of the first ten issues of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine looking for a certain type of story, I glance at a story and next thing I know I am reading.
Every story. Every issue. No matter how familiar I am with the story.
So thankfully, I had Gwyneth Gibby, the Associate Publisher of WMG Publishing narrow the field for me so that it only took me a few days of reading instead of forever to find these stories among all the alien stories we have published.
Now granted, my problem is a good problem to have, liking every story I publish. But sometimes there is liking them too much to get any work done.
So, thank you, Gwyneth.
Stories in Pulphouse Fiction Magazine cover all genres, from science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, romance, and literature. And just about everything between all of those. In fact, I look for the stories that are not only high-quality fiction, great stories, but also just a little off.
Stories that don't fit, that just feel sort of different, but in a good way.
And with each issue I also try to balance the different genres as much as I can. So even though you think you might not like a mystery story because you read science fiction, in Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, you might discover you really like that mystery story that follows that great science fiction story.
In fact, mixing the genres, both from story to story and often in the stories themselves, is one of the great features of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine. A feature that I intend to continue as long as I can find good stories.
With this fun book, my task was to find the best stories with aliens in them in that were published in the first ten issues (from Issue Zero through Issue #9.)
And wow do aliens bring out the "Pulphouse factor" in writers. Stories just go way off the beam, and I do mean way off, so far off you often can't see the beam anymore.
And for fun, I included one of my own alien stories as well that would fit perfectly in Pulphouse Fiction Magazine pages. I just don't put my own fiction in the magazine. You get enough of me with my editing and introductions in there. But in this fun book, I just couldn't help it.
So now sit back and enjoy some of the best and strangest alien stories from the pages of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine. You will never look at aliens in the same way again.
Dean Wesley Smith
Las Vegas, Nevada