Tempestuous weather is forecast for our September issue. Our first stop is Venus, where Hugo and Nebula Award winner and NASA scientist Geoffrey A. Landis escorts us on a wild ride full of pirates, intrigue, and the stunning scenery of the second planet’s upper atmosphere and introduces us to “The Sultan of the Clouds.” The roiling skyscapes in this novella are gloriously captured by Jeroen Advocaat’s dramatic cover art. If the clouds were Terran and the air-borne kayak was a two-seater biplane, the cover could almost do double duty for Eugene Mirabelli’s first story for Asimov’s. This Nebula finalist flies us to “The Palace of the Clouds”—a fabled destination much closer to home, yet no easier to reach than the cloud cities of Venus.

ALSO IN SEPTEMBER

We leave the skies of Venus and Earth for the enclosed worlds of two very different generation starships. John W. Campbell Award winner Mary Robinette Kowal gives us hard metal walls and hard moral choices wrought by limited resources and the calamity that arises “For Want of a Nail”; Benjamin Crowell’s light tone and pastoral setting belies the equally dire circumstances that surface when his spaceship encounters “Wheat Rust.”
Back on Earth, Nancy Fulda plunges us into a taut tale of terrorism and time travel in “Backlash,” her first story for Asimov’s.

In her Thought Experiments column, Aliette de Bodard visits “The View from the Other Side: Science Fiction and Non-Western/Non-Anglophone Countries”; Robert Silverberg’s Reflections warns about the new dangers our evil robot overlords may be plotting and tells us why we should be “Calling Dr. Asimov!”; Paul Di Filippo contributes
“On Books”; plus we’ll have an array of poetry you’re sure to enjoy. Look for our September issue on sale at newsstands on July 27, 2010. Or you can subscribe to Asimov’s—in paper format or in downloadable varieties—by visiting us online at www.asimovs.com.
We’re also available on Amazon.com’s Kindle!

new stories by Kij Johnson, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Mike Resnick, Tom Purdom, Mary Robinette Kowal, Sara Genge, Robert Reed, Will McIntosh, Tanith Lee, Ian Creasey, Kate Wilhelm, and many others!