A Webzine of Astonishing Tales

Issue #1, Fall, 2006

Bisson, Blumlein, Doctorow, Kadrey, Laidlaw, Rucker, Saknussem, Shirley!

Issue #1 Contents:

Rudy Rucker and Paul Di Filippo
Elves of the Subdimensions

Richard Kadrey
The Arcades of Allah
(Liner Notes for Luchenko's Third Symphony)

Marc Laidlaw
Evaluation of the Hannemouth Bequest
(Hannemouth Self-Configurable Combinatorial Array)

John Shirley
Provocatourist

Terry Bisson
Billy and the Circus Girl

Michael Blumlein
Strategy for Conflict Avoidance:
Memo to the Commander-in-Chief

Cory Doctorow
I, Row-Boat

Kris Saknussem
Mystery Customer

From the Editor

August 29, 2006

If you have comments or questions about Flurb #1, please post them in the comments section of the "Rudy's Blog" entry where I announce the issue.

August 28, 2006.

Whew! I'm done with Issue #1 now. I just put in late-arriving contributions. A funny, strange short story by Michael Blumlein, an astounding postsingularity novelette by Cory Doctorow, and a fine piece of Disneyesque surrealism by Kris Saknussem.

August 20, 2006.

Hi, I'm Rudy Rucker, editor of Flurb.

Recently Paul Di Filippo and I wrote a story called “Elves of the Subdimensions.” We were in a rush to publish, so we tried a couple of SF webzines, and horrors, the fuddy-duds turned us down! Our tale was maybe too...astonishing.

And then I had a revelation that, if all I want is a freakin' Web publication of a piece, there's no reason to go through the same painful “submission” (how apt a word) process that is standard for ink on paper zines. Why not do it myself?

So I decided to start Flurb and present the kinds of stories I like to read. Hip, witty, deep, unafraid.

Fittingly enough, the word "flurb" comes from a beautiful line Paul wrote for our story, where some frenetic subdimensional elves are discussing life in the high-plane human world, and one of them exclaims, “Of flurbbing they know not!”

Flurbbing is a bit like sex, and a bit like blending things together, an apt word for the off-kilter strange tales I hope to be printing here.

As well as the fantasy-SF hybrid by Di Filippo and me, we have a Lovecraftian horror tale by Marc Laidlaw, a haunting fractal fantasy by Richard Kadrey, a shockingly un-PC meditation on terrorism by John Shirley, and a Zen-pure dirty story Terry Bisson.

You might think of this as the Cyberpunk issue, or maybe the California issue. I have further theme ideas for future issues. We'll see what emerges.

I still have a backlog of writer friends to hit on, so, at least for now, rather than sending me stories that you'd like me to post for you --- DIY!

Let a thousand flurbs bloom.