Daikaijuzine

This is my first editorial for Daikaijuzine, and I think this is where I’m supposed to impart some words of wisdom to our readers; something like, "Fantasy is a great metaphor for the human condition so everyone ought to read it!" or, perhaps, "Science is wonderful and everyone should know all about quantum physics!". I could also wax political, like many other editors (George Bush is a putz), but I’ll leave that for another day. I would love to write great editorials in the tradition of Stanley Schmidt, Martin Greenberg, Nancy Kress, and so on, but right now I have no pearls. At the end of a week like this one, where everything that could go wrong did, it’s hard to summon any wisdom at all. Right now, it’s all I can do to remember to put my socks on before I put on my shoes. And I’m not certain I got that right, either.

So instead let me just talk Daikaijuzine, and why.

It all started with George Plimpton: actor, author, sports figure, dilettante. More precisely, it started with the song "A Talk with George", by Jonathan Coulton (have you checked out Jonathan Coulton? If you haven’t, you’re missing out on some truly great music), which is about George Plimpton and the way he approached life. Plimpton was a sports dilettante; he joined the Detroit Lions at the age of 35 just so he could write about the experience. He fought Archie Moore and Sugar Ray for the same reason. He wrote wonderful books (I particularly recommend Paper Lion, even if you don’t like football). And he started up The Paris Review, arguably one of the finest literature magazines in the world. I’ll never be a sports dilettante myself, but Coulton’s song about Plimpton contains the line, "You should write a book or two and start a magazine / Even if it never makes a dime". I’ve written a couple of books, so I figured it was time to start a magazine: a magazine which would be, in a way, as much a dilettante as Plimpton was, though it would be a fiction dilettante instead of a sports dilettante

There’s a battle brewing in the blogosphere, see, about the definitions of the different genres. Sometimes it’s gotten nasty; I saw a preeminent science fiction author condemn George R. R. Martin as a "traitor" for switching from science fiction to fantasy, and when I was at Dragon*Con earlier this month I felt like I couldn’t swing a dead Klingon in a writers’ panel without hitting someone lamenting the merging of the fantasy and science fiction sections in their local bookstores. People get into heated discussions about the difference between "hard" science fiction and "mundane" science fiction, and that’s not even touching the issue of what defines science fiction versus fantasy versus horror. Is Star Trek science fiction or fantasy? Is Frankenstein horror or science fiction? What about Alien?

I’m not about to try to nail down these definitions myself. Mostly, I think of these genres as marketing tools. What is science fiction? It’s a convenient place in the bookstore to put Dune. Other than that, as Theodore Sturgeon said, "Science fiction is what I point at when I talk about science fiction". Same goes true for fantasy and horror. These are useful words for dividing up a bookstore, but beyond that there’s not much that’s concrete. Where do we put Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale? It’s science fiction, surely, but it’s found in the literature section. Christopher Moore’s novel Bloodsucking Fiends is about vampires, but it’s categorized in literature instead of horror. Why? Some whim of the publisher, who figured more copies would be sold if it were stacked in literature instead of horror (and they were probably right).

Then there’s the term "speculative fiction". I like it, even if there is some prejudice against it in some of the writers’ circles I hang out in. There’s science fiction, and there’s fantasy, and there’s horror, and there’s just about everything else, and some of us like them all. So why limit yourself to one genre? Still, it is useful to have a single term to use to refer to all these different genres together in order to distinguish them from, say, literary fiction or romance.

My goal with Daikaijuzine, then, was to create a single place where readers could find top quality speculative fiction. I didn’t want to limit it to science fiction or to fantasy; I wanted writers to feel like they could contribute anything, and I wanted readers to feel like they could find high quality fiction, poetry, and essays all in one place, regardless of genre. And while the focus is definitely on speculative fiction, I think there’s definitely room for mainstream fiction as well.

So far, it seems to be going all right. In this issue we have for you some great science fiction, fantasy that runs the gamut from modern fable ("Outside the Box, Inside the Box") to comic ("Hero Takes a Fall") to thought-provoking ("Rules of War"), and horror stories which should make you laugh ("Listening to the Dead") and think ("Mrs. Misaki’s Eyes") while you squirm in your seat ("Barking").

We have some great nonfiction as well, such as the first in Jason Rennie’s column, "Sci Phi"; if you’re into podcasting, you probably recognize Jason Rennie as the host of the excellent Sci Phi Show podcast. We also feature "A Brief Look Into Pre-Modern Siege Warfare", an outstanding piece of historical writing delving into castle warfare and how it was conducted. Not only is this a fine piece of writing, it should prove invaluable to anyone writing heroic fantasy who wants to put in a castle attack.

And we’re also happy to provide you with an excellent poem and a piece of flash fiction which surprised me because I normally don’t care for its subject matter.

That’s a pretty diverse collection right there. I think you’ll be happy with it.

I’m hoping for even more diversity in the future. There aren’t many venues for superhero fiction, for example, or for mad scientists or giant monsters; I’d like Daikaijuzine to feature a few of those in the future. We’re also actively looking for reviewers, people who will review books, movies, music, games, whatever you think is worthy of being reviewed.

There are more features for Daikaijuzine planned for the future as well. There are discussion forums where readers can talk about the stories they’ve read or anything else that’s on their minds. In the future, we also plan to distribute our stories via RSS/XML feeds so that you’ll be able to read our stories and articles in your favorite client or Bloglines. And while we plan on major releases on a quarterly basis, we may drop bits of content here and there from time to time as well. And, of course, readers are always welcome to send us their ideas or suggestions to make Daikaijuzine better. Feel free to sign up, to put yourself onto our Frappr map, to buy any of the swag in our online store, or to donate money to the cause. We are a paying market, after all, even though our content is distributed for free, and the funds for our authors (not to mention the costs of running the site) come from the generous donations of our readers (and the editor-in-chief’s wallet).

The production of this first issue took a lot of hard work, and I’d like to thank the very talented and hard working team of editors: Bonnie Schutzman, Betsy Boyce, Jennifer Rutherford, Ed Gyles Jr., and, of course, my wife Jennifer Crawford. I’d especially like to acknowledge the efforts of Beth Johnson, who, as Left Minister of the Honorable Slush, had the unenviable task of choosing which stories and articles got to go on to further review, and which ones were to be outright rejected (mostly for just not meeting our guidelines). All of you guys are outstanding and wonderful to work with, and this just wouldn’t have happened without you.

As to why I chose the name Daikaijuzine: well, it’s simple. I like daikaiju. Daikaiju are the giant monsters that stomp around Tokyo from time to time, munching people and causing dozens of dollars in damage to special effects models. They’re fun. And I wanted Daikaijuzine to be fun as well.

I think you’ll find that it is.

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