Bumbershoot
by Howard V. Hendrix
Editorial
Fix, Do Not Eliminate, The Semiprozine Hugo
Fiction
The Midnight Girls No Cord Or Cable In The Middle of Nowhere With Company Flash Deep Moves
by Wendy S. Delmater, Editor-In-Chief
by Lisa A. Koosis
by Bud Sparhawk
by Aliette de Bodard
by Ruth Nestvold
by William Highsmith
by Howard V. Hendrix
by Paul Christian Stevens
by Marge Ballif Simon
Night, a gun-blue umbrella tricked with distant suns and planets,
is not to be opened indoors -- more bad luck, or worse.
Hold it to the mind’s sky. Finger the trigger in its handle.
A meteor bullets the firmament. The universe falls shut with a whoosh.
Shake the drops of the stars from the loose skin of the darkness.
Think of nothing for which to wish. Step into a different house.
Howard V. Hendrix has held jobs ranging from hospital phlebotomist to fish hatchery manager to university professor and administrator. His degrees range from a BS in Biology (Xavier University, 1980) to an MA (1982) and PhD in English Literature (1987), both from University of California, Riverside.
Hendrix's first four published novels appeared from Ace Books (Penguin Putnam): Lightpaths (1997), Standing Wave (1998), Better Angels (1999), and Empty Cities of the Full Moon (2001). His fifth novel, The Labyrinth Key, appeared from Ballantine Del Rey in April 2004. His sixth novel, The Spears of God, was published by Del Rey in December 2006.
His most widely available works of shorter science fiction can be found in his short story collection Möbius Highway (Scorpius Digital Books, 2001), the Full Spectrum original anthology series Vols. 1, 4, and 5 (Bantam Books), and in The Outer Limits Volume 1 (Prima). His publications also include some three dozen works of shorter experimental stories, among them the chapbooks Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3 (EOTU Press) and The Vertical Fruit of the Horizontal Tree (Talisman Press). His more recent short fiction has appeared in the June 2002 Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, in the DAW Books anthology Microcosms (January 2004), and Aeon Two (February 2005), Aeon Five (November 2005), and Future Shocks (January 2006). His story “Palimpsest” appeared in the September 2007 issue of Analog, while “Knot Your Grandfather’s Knot” appeared in the March 2008 issue, and novelette “Monuments of Unageing Intellect” appears in the June 2009 issue. Several of his short stories have been republished in electronic format by Tek-No Books. He has several new short stories forthcoming, and is very much at work on his seventh novel.
He has also published numerous poems, political essays, book reviews, and works of literary criticism, including his book-length study of apocalyptic elements in English literature from Langland to Milton, The Ecstasy of Catastrophe (1990). His most recent science fiction criticism appears in Projections (2004), YLEM Journal (2006), and The Science of Fiction, the Fiction of Science (Greenwood Press, 2009).
An avid gardener, his book on landscape irrigation, Reliable Rain (co-authored with Stuart Straw), appeared in March 1998 from Taunton Press.
Hendrix lives with his wife Laurel near Shaver Lake, CA. They both teach at California State University, Fresno, and are firefighters with the Pine Ridge Volunteer Fire Department. They enjoy backpacking and snowshoeing in the Sierra Nevada, as well as training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.