My contributor's copy of the Russian SF magazine ESLI (IF in English) arrived today. They purchased the reprint right to my story "The Ships Like Clouds, Risen By Their Rain" (PDF download), which was originally published last year in Interzone, and subsequently reprinted in Year's Best SF 14.

ESLI is a beautiful magazine, about the size and thickness of a double issue edition of Asimov's or Analog before they went to their new size. Since I don't read Russian, I can't comment on the quality of the content. But there appears to be a good mix of original Russian SF stories and translations of stories. In addition to my story, there are translations of "Boojum" by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette, "Fury" by Alastair Reynolds, and "The Others" by Lawrence C. Connolly.

The best thing about ESLI is the amazing black and white line art for each story.

At left is the art for my story. Without giving too much away, the art perfectly captures in an abstract way the essence of my tale. Great art. I wish I knew the artist's name so I could give him or her credit. I also figured out that the wording at the top of the page is my name in Russian.

At right is the art for "Boojum" by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette, one of my favorite science fiction short stories of recent years. Unlike the art for my story, this artist took a realistic approach to a story which could have been dang hard to illustrate. But the artist captured the story perfectly, and in the process created a small masterpiece.

I wish I could read Russian because ESLI looks like a great SF magazine. Definitely a great place to be reprinted in (and from a financial point of view, they paid promptly, which is always a good thing).