Press

We organized a session of readings, writer torture, and trivia for the Texas Book Festival‘s Lit Crawl 2018! Jill Meyers of Lit Crawl writes, “Lit Crawl was a BIG success! Thank you so much for everything you did (which was a lot) to make that happen. From coming up with your show concept to assembling a brilliant lineup and promoting the event and getting people there to running a kickass show—you did it all. We’ve been hearing lots of good stuff from attendees. People were spellbound, engaged, moved, and more.”


We appeared in The Review Review’s 2015 list entitled “Brave New Worlds: Lit Mags Seeking Sci-Fi Writing.


Named one of Professor Michael A. Chaney‘s “Top 10 Literary Magazines for Surreal Flash Fiction“: “The flash you’ll read in Space Squid is rowdy. Some of it melds the realities of life as we know it with the unnatural in order to offer up some salutary distance.”


Coverage of us “clever and literary geeks” from the Austin Chronicle, which also tagged us with a “Best of Austin” in 2008:

scifi-mag-press
Click to embiggify.

Talent, though, will only take you so far. No, what clinched the con’s position on the hierarchy of honest-to-goodness geeky SFnal goodness was the august presence of Matthew Bey, David Chang and Steve Wilson, the diseased and twisted minds behind Space Squid, named for Margaret Atwood’s famous dismissal of science fiction, “Science fiction is rockets, chemicals and talking squids in outer space.” Naturally, any ‘zine that revels in thumbing its nose at this pissy, self-righteous attitude is one that I’ve absolutely got to check out, and by late Friday I had my very own copy to ogle. Two words, folks: Octopus boobs. This is definitely a publication I want to be a part of. I wonder how the editors would react to a squids-and-zeppelins story? Don’t dawdle, people. Grab your copy before they’re all gone.

– Jaime Blashke, RevolutionSF


A Texan science fiction fanzine. Oh yeah. And with an attitude. That is the very stuff of life.

– Bruce Sterling on his Wired blog. Yeah, Bruce contributed a piece to issue 1. So sue us.


Oh god it’s hideous!

– user njx about the space squid on the cover of Iain Banks’ new book. Ok, so it’s kinda unrelated.


Hilarious and awesome… can’t recommend enough to you listeners. I’m hooked.

– Norm Sherman, host of the Drabblecast sci-fi podcast


Self-described as “the science fiction zine Margaret Atwood warned you about,” it’s worth checking out, if only to hear the inestimable Chris Nakashima-Brown read each of his short-shorts from the first issue of the zine. “Barflies,” about a washed up veteran of the Kree-Skrull wars, encountered by the narrator in a bar, is a particular favorite of mine.

– writer Chris Roberson (Clockwork Storybook, Shark Boy and Lava Girl). Sue us #2.


Because it’s funny. Because it’s smart. Because it’s sci-fi. Because it’s local. Just because I do.

– “staff picks” note from Sara A. at BookPeople, “the best bookstore in the country”


Apparently Harry Knowles and the Aint It Cool News crew think we’re buttnumb worthy! Issue six will be distributed to attendees at Knowles’ 2008 Buttnumbathon film festival, allegedly the greatest film geek festival in existence, which has hosted special surprise guests like Mel Gibson, Peter Jackson, Vin Diesel, and director Guillermo del Toro.

– Bruce Sterling on his Wired blog. Yeah, Bruce contributed a piece to issue 1. So sue us.


I just want to say that I am a huge fan of Space Squid (and not just because you’ve given a home to my stuff!). It’s never been easy to find sci fi humor, in print or online, and lately the whole scene seems so DEADLY EARNEST. I’ve been told (in a rejection letter that some editor took time to craft personally) that my brand of humor almost never has a place in science fiction. So hooray for the Squid, waving that tentacle up high — you might just save the Universe from the black hole of excessive seriousness.

– Squid author Matthew F. Amati


 

The Austin writing group Cryptopolis counts among its members three of the three editors of Space Squid. SFSite says of the Cryptopolis short story collection, Tales from the Secret City: “I don’t hesitate to recommend it; and I trust that the “Secret City” won’t be all that secret for much longer.”


Of obvious interest to readers here, since it’s squid, stuff to read, and underside-embracing. Cool Texas sci-fi zine.

– Poor Mojo Newswire . Underside-embracing? We are not ass-huggers. Ok, maybe we are.


The giant squid, Architeuthis, is not only a cultural and media icon, but also a scientific enigma.

– Scotsman.com news article about the sex lives of squid. At first we thought they called us enemas, but then someone explained it to us.


Anecdote: Squidgrrl Cecil went to Book People to buy a gift for her boyfriend. She asked for something edgy with a SF bent. The bookseller promptly whipped out a copy of Space Squid and mentioned its virtues! Local, indie, funny, interesting, underside-embracing!

Cecil was underwhelmed. “Yeah, I know,” she told them. “That’s me on the cover.”

A true story! We swear. Ask Cecil.


On Epic Bloggery, NAZD isolated us as one of the top four notable things at Maker Faire 2008, saying, “I especially enjoy the short story that begins, ‘It wasn’t the first time that my mother ate my leg.'”


It’s worth it just for the drawings.

– Chrononautic Log


“Contrary to belief that the giant squid is relatively inactive, the squid we captured on film actively used its enormous tentacles to go after prey,” Mori said.

– disgusting exploitative scientists violate squid privacy and leave the victim maimed


The Space Squid editors (Matt, Steve, and Dave) get shout-outs from Gardner Dozois in the acknowledgements for the 23rd Year’s Best Science Fiction anthology! Thanks, Mr. Dozois!


More impressive are the wonders that its powerhouse processors perform on the monitor: water less like Vaseline than a million droplets that splash, puddle, and spill over — and that horrifying space squid contorting its mobile and spineless mass.

– Electronic Gaming Monthly perambulator Shawn Elliot rattling on about the next generation in squid fetish gaming porn