Sam Tomaino of SFRevu also looks at the issue and its “very good stories.”

While Lois Tilton of Locus calls the zine “surreal, fantastic, imaginative. Worth reading.”

The April issue (#11) of Kaleidotrope is fairly typical of this ’zine, with a variety of stories and poems. I liked Eric Del Carlo’s ‘‘Ride the Shine’’, a YA-flavored piece set on a human-colonized planet where some people live in cities but others lead a more tribal existence tending the shines, insect-like alien creatures that bond to individual humans. Fel My is a boy ready to choose (or be chosen by) his first shine, at a Jubilee, when the unthinkable happens: one of the tribes attacks the others. Fel My’s only recourse is a risky escape with an unbonded shine. No surprises here, and not quite a complete story (I wonder if it’s from a novel in progress), but solid fun. Another good piece comes from Silvia Moreno-Garcia, ‘‘Shade of the Ceiba Tree’’, in which a young woman decides to confront the god to whom her village has long sacrificed virgins, her sister included.

The Summer (#12) Kaleidotrope is a departure for the magazine. It is entirely taken up by two pieces: a long poem, and a very long story, just shy of novel length: ‘‘Libations’’ by A.S. Moser. This concerns a priestess of a forest people, Asha, and a human man, Ili. Ili has been accused of a crime, and Asha travels to his human city to kidnap the merchant who can prove Ili’s innocence, while Ili is tortured. The story is promising work, though not quite fully successful, with the motivations of the characters a bit too muddled and the worldbuilding not sufficiently detailed.

Asha’s hand rose involuntarily to the sacred dahal vial hung on a thong around her neck, as though the holy mark of her office and the pure kalimar extract it contained — the essence of the Goddess Herself — would protect her. She had fashioned the mangrove wood vial by her own hands, claimed it with her own blood, and, while it was far from beautiful, it was a constant comfort to her. The forest had brightened and thinned out quickly, as though it ran right up against an invisible border. Ahead she could see the end of the trees, and beyond them…she had no words to describe what was beyond them. There simply were no trees. None. And it was so bright.

Plus a long-form, semi-experimental, story-poem from Jessey Nickells, cover art from Ted Jean, and the horoscopes you’ve come to know and love and/or dread.

Check it out and spread the word!

A hallmark of Kaleidotrope is how varied its stories are. This one has a lot of stories you’ll enjoy for different reasons. It also has the hilarious “Horoscopes” section, which are great fun to read. I’ll say it again, subscribe!

I read your magazine. It stinks. Seriously. The paucity of content is appalling. The excerpts above [in the latest issue] exemplify this. I asked a couple of editors I am associated with about you and this ragtag project. They just laughed. Get some real writers who know a little about constructing a story properly.

I was a little taken aback by this. Kaleidotrope has by now published nearly a dozen issues, and while the feedback hasn’t always been 100% positive, I haven’t had many people tell me that it stinks. I’ve had submissions from rude, potentially unstable writers, and I’ve had spam, but I think this may be the zine’s first genuine comment troll.

So I wrote back:

I’m sorry you feel that way. I suspect “paucity” isn’t quite the word you’re looking for here — it refers, typically, to a smallness or lack in quantity, not quality — and I naturally question anyone who leads with insults, only to build to nothing more substantial than “and some other people I know agree, too!” But I’m at least happy to know that my “ragtag project” has provided your “couple of editors” with a merry chuckle. While I’m sorry you won’t be reading Kaleidotrope again, I appreciate your candor (however nonconstructive) and thank you for providing me with some laughter of my own.

I can’t say I’m entirely surprised that my e-mail bounced back. If “Paul Davies” — presumably not this Paul Davies — actually exists, his comments lend me to suspect he’s the sort to employ a long list of fake addresses.

Look, obviously I don’t like it, but I’ll accept negative feedback when it’s warranted. I hope my contributors — who I think know quite a lot about constructing a story properly, actually — will do the same. But if it’s nothing more than an anonymous screed about how what we’re doing stinks, what makes you think we’re actually going to care?

Congratulations to the authors for their recommended stories!