Periodically, there’s idle talk here and there about the apparent death of the short story; of how it seems to be of little relevance or interest to today’s readership. We see no such weakening from our vantage point and we think, once you’ve read what we have to offer in our March issue, you too will agree that the rumors of the short story’s demise have, as usual, been greatly exaggerated. As Steven Millhauser so admirably wrote in a recent essay for the New York Times, the short story’s “method is revelation . . . its littleness is the agency of its power.” We couldn’t agree more.

To begin with, consider March’s novella by multiple award-winner Nancy Kress, “Act One”: Barry Tenler, dwarf manager to Desmondesque actress Jane Snow, must somehow juggle his responsibilities resuscitating her flagging career while navigating both his failed marriage and the difficult post-9/11 future Snow finds herself embroiled in. To make matters worse, the bio-terrorists of this future do not wield bombs, but, instead, a more sinister kind of transmitted virus: involuntary empathy.

Harry Turtledove returns in March with a bleak and sure to be controversial look at the hazards of “Getting Real”; Holly Phillips, making her welcome return to Asimov’s, presents a wholly different sort of bleak as the next ice age descends upon a new, northern fin de siècle in “The Long, Cold Goodbye”; Sara Genge regales with a tale of ragged mud-pirates swashbuckling their way across the lumbering lines of alien elephant caravans in “Slow Stampede”; Benjamin Crowell, making his Asimov’s debut, the witty “Whatness,” that may well prove dogs to be the great intelligence on this planet most worth preserving; and R. Neube contributes his patented blend of funny/scary wit with a tale of a decidedly malignant “Intelligence”

Robert Silverberg, in his Reflections column, presents a timely examination of possible “Doomsday”; James Patrick Kelly offers his On the Net column, “The State of Pod”; Paul Di Filippo brings us “On Books”; plus an array of poetry you’re sure to enjoy. Look for our January issue at your newsstand on January 27, 2009. Or you can subscribe to Asimov’s—by mail or online, in varying formats, including downloadable forms, by going to our website, www.asimovs.com. We’re also available on Amazon.com’s Kindle!