Favorable comments to our last issue came from Ann Wilkes, Jim Schicatano, Lou Antonelli, Richard E. Geis, Kevin Ahearn, Oscar Deadwood, Joanne Tolson, William Gillard, Shelby Vick and Paul Carlson.  Other (perhaps favorable also) comments follow:

Bob Bolin, New Mexico: Thank you for publishing my stories in Surprising.  Although Prell is a fictional character, I believe he thanks you too.  Surprising Stories is so well done that I even brag to my friends about it.  Keep up the good work.

     That's touching, to think of that thanks coming from Prell.  I will keep up the good work.

Daniel Chesler: Thanks for the heads up, I'll have to check it out.

     I feel your pain about the artist not coming through.  I couldn't get anyone to illustrate “Alternity” either.  I had an artist lined up but sadly she got sick and the project seems to have died.

     “Detour” was written solely by Tarantulas and myself so the authors know about it being posted.  A couple of the stories in the series were written by Xeromem and there are two WIPs being written by two other authors but life seems to be taking its toll on all of us and stories seem to be getting stuck in limbo half-written.  I know I don't seem to have any free time to write at the moment.

     Anyway thank you for adding our story to your magazine.  Hopefully it will attract more viewers to both of our sites.

     Amen, I'm trying to get a crossover of my own with the TV and Movie public.

     I never did ask that artist anything further when he didn't come through.

Jessica Howe: Nice!  You're right, the stories in it—I'll admit, including mine—are pretty unsettling, but all of them raise issues that make a person really think.  I especially loved “Last of the Languagers” and (though it really made my stomach churn) “Plasm”.  Like I said, they make you think…

     I also like the illustrations in this one.  My favorite one is the textured print on the cover of the “Printout” page—lovely!

     Anyway, good issue, I'm looking forward to the next one (the asteroid story sounds fascinating…).  Jessica also says, in another e-mail: Somebody at another mag once told me I have a tendency to write in dystopia; guess they're right…

     I'm not expecting any Utopia stories in the near future—maybe they don't make people think enough, just keep them happy and contented.  Hope you like Manachino's story this issue.

David Hollis, Muncie, Indiana: I see the early days of the country are not being ignored in this issue.  The first story refers to Houston, Texas, named after Sam Houston, noted at the Alamo by the Rio Grande River.  Then Houston figures big in Lou Antonelli's story.  And General Custer is referenced in the title of Albert Manachino's story.  I still wonder if Houston does or doesn't read.

     “Detour” was indeed an interesting crossover, and I see your reviewer mentions a few other crossovers.  I think the TV series personnel like those crossovers.  Then they don't feel so all alone in space.

     I hit SURPRISING 46 times on June 26.  Did it show up?

     No, it did not.  Maybe they only register one hit per day from a single source.

     You'd find more local color moving along down the contents page; for example the next writer lives in New Mexico.  A lot of our writers are from the Southwestern states, like Gary Every this issue.

John Purcell:  It has been a long time since I've corresponded with you, hasn't it?  Good to see you're still actively publishing.  I just got done looking over your latest effort, Surprising Stories #11, and enjoyed it.  Thank you for putting it together.

     This is not the sort of thing that I tend to put together, but that's okay.  I will be honest with you and tell you that I've only read a handful of the fiction pieces you've published here—“A Sad Day for Astronauts”, “Plasm”, “The Search for Human Beings”, and “The Dragon of Yellow Wood”—and enjoyed them for what they were: short stories by people who enjoy science fiction and fantasy stories.  They're not bad at all, and with some additional polishing, I believe that these could very well be published professionally (read: as in getting money for them).  I hope you keep this up and continue working with some folks who show writing promise.  Whether it is a paper zine, an e-zine, or a web-zine, fans need an outlet for their creative muse, and I completely encourage your efforts.

     The poems were good, too.  Based on comparing them to what I've read recently in Weird Tales, Asimov's, Realms of Fantasy, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, the poems you're publishing are just as good.  Again, keep it up, John.  Wouldn't it be cool to say someday that, “Yeah, I remember when Lawrence Dagstine and Apryl Fox used to write for my fanzine.  Now look at them winning Nebula Awards!”  It could happen.   Heck, I was active in Miss-stf before Steve Brust, Emma Bull, Will Shetterly, Pat Wrede, and others began selling professionally.  It was a cool feeling to say that I knew these folks, and I still get a kick out of seeing them doing so well.

     A quick comment is in order for Eric Thiel:  that photo of Steens Mountain outside of Burns, Oregon, reminded me of how much I love camping in Utah and Wyoming, or wherever I get the chance to camp.  You know, it's amazing sometimes how we need to get away from the cluttered, crazy pace of our 21^st Century lives and enjoy the simple necessity of dealing with the immediacy of surviving in unknown territory.  I think it's good for us to get back to our primeval selves and simply be alive again.  Dealing with the basics of life has a way of getting ourselves back in touch with ourselves.

     Hah. Amazing how much response a simple picture can evoke from somebody, isn't it?

     To wrap this up, I just re-read your editorial, John, and think that your hopes of providing a means of discussing our modern life in juxtaposition with how mankind survived in the Dark Ages…you ask if we are heading into a new Dark Ages.  My answer is that we could very well be.  I have recognized a lot of tunnel-vision lately, people not willing to take into consideration the input of others, and even a certain amount of xenophobia.  Yes, sometimes it does sound like we're regressing instead of progressing.  Maybe as a civilization we'll get lucky and realize collectively that we need to take a step or two backwards to start moving forward again.  If this is the sort of dialogue that you're after, John, I do hope you are one of the voices to get it started.

     Many thanks for the interesting reading.  I look forward to seeing more.

    Thanks for making the editorial a dialogue, instead of a monologue.  You can't do better than to in fact send some input on the topic, as you did, to encourage that attempt to get discussion going. I think that some of the televised SF studies the topic of man's progress and regressions, too.  Like the Merlin episodes of SG-1.

     I went camping at Shades State Park here in Indiana about eight or so years ago and had a very nice night of it.  I really enjoyed being in one of the flimsiest tents ever in a thunderstorm.

     Nice to hear that you enjoyed some of the issue and I hope you will give this one a good looking-over, too.  Manachino's story about wizardry in planetary phenomena may be a very good bet.

JOE NAPOLITANO:  Surprising Stories must be taking up more and more of your time, went there just today and looked around and like what's there but didn't read much.  There was a pop up at the SS website so you must be trying to generate some income?  Good idea. I ran a check on N3F and found out they have a web site and just 90 members but don't know if that's the total membership or just the online membership.  N3F also has an entry in Wikipedia but there isn't much there.  There doesn't seem to be much going on there for a fan site.  Jessica Alba has an active message board at IMDB, just thought I'd mention that.     

    We don't see the popup.  We'll check it out...it's spamming and hacking into our site for there to be one there.     

     I found the N3F to be rather dormant.  I hope something happens to liven them up.

    Note from WebMaster Eric: The pop-up is being generated by our hit-counter. It looks as though I will have to remove it. We don't do pop-ups. We don't generate income, either, and that's not our purpose here. Surprising Stories is ad-free, sponsor-free and does not generate any cookies or interfere with your browser or computer in any way. That counter is gone next issue.

     Heard from George Wells, too, a long-time sf acquaintance, but he was too busy with personal problems to comment on the issue.

     That's all the letters for this issue; anybody finding something they want to comment on in this one, feel free to write!

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