Isku and Ässä out

Two of my fiction fanzines are out. Ässä came out just before we headed off to the cabin (more about that later) and Isku is, well, not actually out, but just leaving off to the printers. Ässä (= Ace) contains thirteen flash stories by such authors as CJ Henderson, Duane Swierczynski and Sean Chercover. Stephen Rogers wrote one especially for Ässä (so if there are any Stephen Rogers completists, they'd better ask me for a copy). I have a Joe Novak story in (well, naturally, since I'm the publisher) and there are also two archive finds: a story by Otso Kantokorpi from the Like Uutiset magazine in 1994 (published under the pseudonym Sam Tanner) and a story by Jussi Kylätasku from the Koti-Posti magazine in 1968. Apart from that, there's only one Finnish story, by Petri Laine. If there will be another issue of Ässä, I'll try to get more original Finnish stories.

Isku, the hardboiled crime mag, contains a translation of a story by Bill Crider (to whom warmest greetings) and two flash stories by James Reasoner and David Terrenoire (thanks, guys!) and several Finnish stories one of which is a reprint of the first crime short story the Tampere-based Seppo Jokinen wrote in 1990 (written at that time, but published only in 1994 in a small press magazine) . It's never been reprinted before. There are also new stories by other Finnish writers, such as Tapani Bagge and myself. I have also two lady debutantes, Laura Apell and Elina Mäenpää who both delivered great stories. Elina's story is more a horror story than hardboiled crime, but I don't really care for rigid genre rules.

The cover illos are by Henri Joela (Ässä) and Timo Ronkainen (Isku). They really delivered, too! The Ässä cover is for the story by J.D. Rhoades called "Hundred".

(For some reason I can't seem to make proper headlines. The problem seems to be with Blogger.)