I came into this industry in 2005 after a ill-deserved stint of unemployment and immediately fell in love. There is nothing as satisfying - at least to me - as finding that gem of story that you can put your finger on once it's in print and say, "I found this one." It's a marvelous feeling of accomplishment at having trained yourself over time to truly appreciate a good piece of fiction - much like being able to appreciate a good piece of visual art.

It's hard, though, to pick stories for publication because my tastes differ considerably from most others. The trend that I have seen in the past decade - since I've really been a fan of the genre - has been toward the overwhelming surge of the Post-Modernist movement (or in some cases the Anti-Modernist), and quite honestly the shift takes away from a lot of great fiction that is getting passed up because it's "not contemporary enough" or it's "not marketable enough". I'm not sure that either of those assessments are entirely true, though they may be in some fashion.

People don't mind traditions, especially in fiction. There's a reason why H.G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, Robert Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov are still classics in the genre of science fiction: they're spectacular writers, writing in a very traditional vein. There wasn't anything terrifically groundbreaking in their method or style; it was their ideas that inspired people. That is what Sheer Speculation Press seeks to revive.

Fantasy, on the other hand, has been changed little over the years it's been around, and yet there are still fresh ideas to be had. The stalwart warrior and his band of adventuring friends is over-done and out-of-date, but it's still used over and over again in stories that continue to be published. Honestly, that's on tradition that could go by the wayside. But there are new worlds that grow as quickly as an author can craft them, and those are intriguing, because each individual author is fascinating in his or her own rite. Sheer Speculation Press hopes to gather together those new ideas in those new worlds and pick from them the most unique and tender of ideas.

We hope you enjoy our publication, and we hope that you return again and again to visit us.