HANDSHAKE #41, A4, 2pp, free for SAE from J.F. Haines, 5 Cross Farm, Station Road, Padgate, Warrington WA2 0QG. Market information and news of SF-poetry-related events, plus poetry from Andrew Darlington, Giovanni Malito, and Bruce Boston.
HEADPRESS #20, ISBN 1-900486-08-3, B5, 164pp p/b, £8:50 (US $14:50) from Headpress, 40 Rossall Avenue, Radcliffe, Manchester M26 1JD (e-mail: david.headpress@zen.co.uk; http://www.headpress.com/). Travelling back through time, this issue talks to Andrew Darlington about his quest for the perfect poetry groupie, interviews comics writer Harvey Pekar and porn star Jade Marcella, and gets inside the heads of women who box and the men who watch.
LOSING TODAY #2, A4, 80pp, USA $6:99, Canada Can$8.99, otherwise enquire to Losing Today, 11 Rue de Saint Senoch, 75017 Paris, France (e-mail: info@losingtoday.com; http://www.losingtoday.com); editorial address: Losing Today, Casella MBE284, Via Oderisi da Gubbio 67, 00146 Roma, Italy. Though this glossy full-colour indie music magazine is run from southern Europe, its outlook has a distinctly Anglophone aspect. In over 50 pages of interviews, for example, Peter Ulrich and Brendan Perry each talk about life after Dead Can Dance, ex-Chameleons front man Mark Burgess discusses his new life as Invincible, and Australian alternative rock band Underground Lovers are philosophical about their brief brush with fame in the 90s. Other bands and musicians featured include Marty Willson-Piper, Mira, Alex Ayuli, The Ecstasy of St Theresa, and Simon Raymonde, while the reviews and free CD provide a revealing snapshot of current indie releases.
NEW YORK REVIEW OF SCIENCE FICTION #142, A4, 24pp, $3:50 (12/$32; Canada 12/$37; r.o.w. 12/$45) from Dragon Press, P.O. Box 78, Pleasantville, NY 10570, USA (e-mail: info@nyrsf.com; http://www.nyrsf.com). Essays, reviews and topical comment for the SF field from an eleven-time Hugo award nominee. This special Avram Davidson issue presents excerpts from his travel memoir Dragons in the Trees and Hugh Leddy on Davidson's travels in British Honduras, plus reviews of works by Poul Anderson, Philip Wylie & Edwin Balmer, Richard Bowes, and Charles L. Harness.
PANDA #2, A5, 60pp, £3 (4/£10; USA 4/$15) from Esmond Jones, 46 First Avenue, Clase, Swansea SA6 7LL (e-mail: esmond@swansea93.freeserve.co.uk). A quarterly magazine of poetry and prose which promises 'to deliver fresh, modern, unbiased material ... ignoring the critics who are stuck in a time warp'.
SCAVENGER'S NEWSLETTER #196, A5, 28pp, $2:50 (12/$22; Canada 12/$21; r.o.w. air 12/$27; r.o.w. surface 12/$18) from Janet Fox, 833 Main, Osage City, KS 66523-1241, USA (e-mail: foxscav1@jc.net; http://www.jlgiftsshop.com/scav/index.html). Monthly newsletter for SF/F/H/mystery writers and artists with an interest in the small press. Market news, letters and reviews from USA, UK and elsewhere, plus fiction by Deborah J. Beyer and an interview with author and Dark Matter editor Cristopher Hennessey-DeRose.
ROADWORKS #8, A5, 118pp p/b, £3 (4/£10; USA 4/$20; r.o.w. 4/£15) from Trevor Denyer, 7 Mountview, Church Lane West, Aldershot, Hampshire GU11 3LN (e-mail: tdenyer@aol.com; http://www.roadworksweb.free-online.co.uk). Now repackaged in a digest format, the latest issue of this "imaginative fiction" magazine has Steve Harris as featured writer, plus stories from Sean Russell Friend, Sara-Jayne Townsend, Peter Tennant, James Ward, John B. Ford, Geoff Jackson, Steve Dean, jon g, Rhys Hughes, Jake Lagnado, Stuart Young, Wilson Orozco, Paul Pinn, Paul Lockey, and L.H. Maynard & M.P.N. Sims.
WRITERS' BREW PRESS NEWSLETTER Vol.3 #2, A5, 16pp, enquire to Writers Brew Press, P.O. Box 241, Oakengates, Shropshire TF2 9XZ (e-mail: spell@writers.brew.clara.net). News, chat, and lots of adverts for magazines and competitions of all genres, plus Writers' Brew Press's own publications and services.
THE RESERVOIR OF DREAMS by Paul Bradshaw, A5, 100pp p/b, £4/$7 from B.J.M. Press, 95 Compass Crescent, Old Whittington, Chesterfield, S41 9LX. Ten short stories from an author who's proving to be one of the most exciting talents in the UK small press.
THE MIDNIGHT MAN by Stephen Laws, ISBN 096751570X, 263pp limited edition hardback (1 of 300 copies), $35 from Silver Salamander Press, 4128 Woodland Park Ave N., Seattle, WA 98103, USA (e-mail: jpelan@cnw.com; http://www.horrornet.com/silver.htm). A handsome volume gathering the majority of Laws's short fiction from the past decade, including such highly regarded tales as "The Crawl", "Yesterday I Flew With the Birds", and the beautiful and horrific "The Song My Sister Sang".
DREAMS OF A DISEASED MIND by Steve Lines, A5, 70pp p/b, £3:50/$6:50 from B.J.M. Press, 95 Compass Crescent, Old Whittington, Chesterfield, S41 9LX. The long-lost sonnets of Haydon Atwood Prescott have been rediscovered, edited and illustrated by Steve Lines.
THE CERULEAN ANTHOLOGY OF SCI-FI/OUTER SPACE/FANTASY POETRY AND PROSE POEMS edited by Blair H. Allen, ISBN 0-917458-17-6, A5, 141pp p/b, $12:95 from Cerulean Press, 9651 Estacia Court, Cucamonga, CA 91730, USA. Top SF poets such as Bruce Boston, Denise Dumars, Robert Frazier, Andrew Joron and Steve Sneyd are among the 55 contributors to this substantial anthology exploring outer space and the SF/fantasy of the unknown.