INTERACTION

Please post any recollections or anecdotes you might have about the last 25 years of Interzone.

Here's Alastair Reynolds on 25 years of Interzone, courtesy of SFX:

http://www.sfx.co.uk/page/sfx?entry=hap ... _interzone

For me, Interzone and the impetus to write fiction are inseperable.

I don't remember the first five years of Interzone, coming to it comparatively late in 1987, but I do remember the thrill of discovering short genre fiction within its pages. Interzone was where I first discovered new writers who remain among my favourites today: Ian McDonald, Iain Banks, Alastair Reynolds, Stephen Baxter, Paul McAuley, Kim Newman, Chris Beckett, Eric Brown and Keith Brooke. And Ian R McLeod’s delicate and sad body-swapping story, “Well Loved” was the single thing that I can point to and say: “that’s what made me want to write”.

When I joined the Glasgow SF Writers Circle, Interzone was the goal for our short stories, a bar to jump for, and some of us made it: William King, Fergus Bannon, Gary Gibson and Michael Cobley found their way into its pages. Some years later I was fortunate enough to join them, and it’s marvelous with the 25th anniversary issue to see Hal Duncan in there too, and to see Paul Cockburn and Jim Steel cropping up regularly in the review pages.

And in the Interzone of today I’m still finding fiction that inspires me, that makes wish I’d written it and sets my mind wondering about where the story would have gone if I had. David Mace’s “This Happens”, Will MacIntosh’s “The Soft Apocalypse”, Chris Beckett’s “Karel’s Prayer” and, most recently, Jason Stoddard’s “Softly Shining In The Forbidden Dark” are all stories that spark me the way McDonald and McAuley and Baxter used to.

As long as I’ve been writing, Interzone has been inspirational, and it’s to the credit of everyone involved with the magazine over the years that it still is.

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Neil Williamson
www.neilwilliamson.org.uk

The current issue of SFX (number 155, April) dedicates a whole page to Interzone's 25th birthday, with tributes from Michael Moorcock, Stephen Baxter, Alastair Reynolds, Charles Stross, Paul McAuley, Ian Watson and Peter F. Hamilton. The page also contains a lot of artwork from IZ, including Doug Sirois's illustration for Tim Akers's 'Toke' (forthcoming), Jesse Speak's Jangly Man from IZ209, a couple of recent double page spreads and the IZ208 cover. Very nice indeed!

An extended interview with Alastair Reynolds about Interzone can be found on the SFX website: http://www.sfx.co.uk.

John Joseph Adams interviewed the IZ staff for scifiwire:

http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=0&id=40650

JJA had to shorten the interview, naturally, and only my name could appear as interviewee, but he also spoke with Jetse, Roy, Dave and Andy (H).

Like Neil, reading Interzone is bound up with my impulse to write. But, to be fair, it was really New Worlds that got me started. Like Interzone, here was a mag that encouraged unknown writers...even at the tender age of 19 I was getting great, constructive feedback from Hilary Bailey, which helped me keep at it until eventually I started to get stuff published (not in Interzone, sadly).

Early Interzone, I particular remember the Geoff Ryman stories, Barrington Bayley, Ian McDonald, JG Ballard...too many to mention, really. My preference has always been for humanist SF stories rather than the harder-edged stuff by the likes of Greg Egan, who featured quite a lot (though he's very good, in his own way).

I was listening to Billy Joel's We Didn't Start The Fire, yesterday, and thought an SFnal, Interzone-flavoured rewrite of the song's lyric/lists would make a fun exercise (perhaps something like it has already been done in the 'filk' arena?).

Anyone good with rhyming verse want to give it a try?

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