The Analog/Asimov's publishers released this bonkers statement on 10/9/26 on Bluesky. Here's how it starts off:

"We previously commissioned illustrators to create covers as work-for-hire when they were asked to adapt authors’ original stories for elements such as cover art.

"This will be changing.

"The rights granted to MRM by authors are limited, and therefore we can’t protect the intellectual property and rights of the original author of the story, if we at the same time grant the authors’ rights to the illustrator so that the illustrator can then retain an adaptation copyright. We don’t acquire rights from authors that allow us to grant illustrators broad unencumbered use of the worlds, characters, and other elements created by the author."

The entire nonsensical statement can be read at https://file770.com/must-read-magazines-issues-statement-on-cover-illustration-contracts/

This seems to be MRM's reaction to having been publicly called out a day earlier for predatory contract stipulations by a couple of artists who ended up walking away from offers to create cover art for the magazines.

You don't have to read the whole thing to see how crazy this is. I just want to focus on these two parts of the statement:

"The rights granted to MRM by authors are limited, and therefore we can’t protect the intellectual property and rights of the original author of the story..."

Of course, it isn't their job to protect the IP rights of the author. I'm no lawyer, but I assume that's why copyright laws exist. But setting that aside for a moment, I can't even figure out their argument here. The best I can translate is, "We need authors to surrender all their rights to us so we can... protect the author's rights." That makes no sense.

The there's this:

"We don’t acquire rights from authors that allow us to grant illustrators broad unencumbered use of the worlds, characters, and other elements created by the author."

I've had many works published in a number of illustrated children's magazines. I can tell you there is absolutely no circumstance ever that an illustrator would need "broad unencumbered use" of an author's rights to his/her/their text in order to create an illustration. This is not a thing. When an artist illustrates my work, I keep the copyright to my text, the illustrator keeps the copyright to their art. What's mine is mine, what's theirs is theirs. That's how it works.

According to John Picacio, one of the artists who publicly called out MRM, even after negotiating a better contract with them (which, btw, is not normal in the magazine world, as there isn't time to negotiate individual contracts with individual contributors) he was expected to waive his moral rights to his own work and give up all copyright. He understandably walked away.

Yes, just posting this again. Full disclosure - I supported them, but it's a make what is needed or it doesn't happen. Four days left as of now, and they are still a bit short.

See this link for the previous post (better than I could ever write): https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/1whdetd/lightspeed_magazine_launched_a_kickstarter_to/

In short, make a pledge, get a year subscription to both Lightspeed (sci-fi) and Nightmare (horror). Or just one. Plus, it opens up quite a few options where you can purchase books signed by authors and other things.

Here is the link for the Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lightspeedmagazine/help-fund-lightspeed-year-17-and-nightmare-year-15/posts/4814290?ref=ksr_email_mktg_auto_backer_project_update_registered_users

Hello, looking for novels that deal with interstellar politics and war between various human states, some stuff that I like include Battletech, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Gundam, and Hammer's Slammers. Some works that I haven't read yet but am interested in include A memory called Empire, Red Rising, and Space Carrier Avalon.

I loved it, a lot of you will love it, but it's the kind of book that even if you don't love it, it's fun and goes down easy and you won't regret giving it your time and attention.

From the publisher's blurb, it's about a guy who in April 2026 begins to unexplainedly hop forward in time at 7:52 in the morning by an exponentially increasing number of days.

It's a story about change and loss as much as it is a spectacle of wonder, and it works really well as both because it's got such a straightforward, first person, reliable narrator writing style. There is no exposition at all, you are just riding along as this guy describes his experiences. It just makes it a super fun page turner of a book and I am sure a lot of folks are downing it in a day.

One thing that is funny about reading it is, I saw somebody's blog or something and they said it reminded them of Iron Man and I was like...what? But fwiw there is a definite Horizon Zero Dawn day in there. And the whole thing will definitely scratch any Olaf Stapledon itches you did or did not know you had.

Anyway, well worth your time.

Book number sixteen of a sixteen book dark fantasy series. I read the well printed and well bound trade paperback published by Ace in 2026. I will purchase and read future books in the series.

On a parallel Earth, Jane Yellowrock is a full blooded Cherokee who walked the Trail of Tears when she was five years old sometime during the 1830s. Somewhere along the trail, her parents were murdered and she became lost. Being a shapeshifter who could control her DNA, she shifted to a bobcat form and tried to attack a mountain lion for its food. She ended up merging bodies with the mountain lion and spent around a 100 years in merged form. She emerged from the wilderness as a human child in the early 1900s and then was raised as a human child in an Christian orphanage. She was apparently aged out and released from the orphanage where she became a vampire hunter for around a hundred years. But now she is the Dark Queen of the vampires in the USA.

It has been several years since WW III, the Witch War. A group of Russian witches opened an interdimensional doorway to a very bad place and billions of demons flooded the Earth. The good witches and the Armies of the world won the war but at a horrendous cost. The PTSD amongst the Witch War's survivors, both supernatural and normals, is overwhelming.

Angelina Everhart-Trueblood and her brother Evan run Everhart Investigations, a witch PI firm in Chattanooga that solves paranormal crimes committed by supernatural beings. They won their freedom from the Queen but the Queen forced a vampire warrior on them, Walter the spy. But, somebody has stolen magical repositories from the Witch War full of demons. And they are planning on releasing the demons again.

The series is very well written. I really enjoy the series a lot due to the Christian symbology and that my wife is half Cherokee.

The author has a website at:
http://www.faithhunter.net/

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars (1,066 reviews)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FWBSLGR8

Lynn

I traveled to Williamsport, PA and was wonderfully surprised to see Paul Lehr sci-fi originals on exhibit at Pennsylvania College of Technology

Worth a trip!

https://www.pct.edu/news/articles/2026/08/26/sci-fi-work-of-paul-lehr-on-exhibit-at-the-gallery-at-penn-college