Longtime readers know that we try to save up the best material of the year for our annual October anniversary issue---this was our practice even before we began publishing the double issue in 1991. This year we found it impossible to fit all the best stories into 240 pages, so look for more high-calibre fiction in the months ahead.

Our cover story in December is an imaginative science fiction novella about an unimaginative man, compliments of a writer whose name has been absent from our pages for far too long: Ray Aldridge. In "Soul Pipes," we'll explore a planet with some secrets that aren't buried deep enough . . .

Also lined up for next month is Ron Goulart's latest opus, "The Woman in the Mist." Mr. Goulart turns back the clock one hundred years to give us an atmospheric adventure for Professor Harry Challenger.

Other goodies on tap soon include Jack O'Connell's tale of two thieves, "The Swag from Doc Hawthorne's," Jerry Oltion's "The Unfamiliar," a late-1950s CIA adventure by Laird Barron, Alex Irvine's vision of the Wild West, another reimagined Greek myth from M. Rickert, and stories from new writers like Al Michaud, David D. Levine, and Jeremy Minton. Subscribe now before the rates go up and make sure you won't miss any of the reading pleasure.