Welcome to issue 25 of IGMS. There's so much to tell I hardly know where to begin, but let's start with the schedule, since this issue is 30 days later than expected. For a variety of reasons, we've permanently shifted our schedule, so from now on issues will be published for January, March, May, July, September, and November. Issue 25 being published as the November issue instead of the October issue is simply to reflect that new schedule and shouldn't affect your subscription in any way. In the unlikely event that it does, please let us know immediately and we will take care of it.

In addition to being the beginning of our new schedule, issue 25 also marks IGMS's 6^th anniversary. Six years! Wow. That makes me optimistic that this whole internet publishing thing might be for real. What next? Electronic versions of whole entire books? (Kidding. We know THAT will never happen.)

Speaking of books, within the next few weeks we'll also be celebrating the release of the InterGalactic Awards Anthology - Vol. 1. It's a collection of the winners of the 2010 IGMS InterGalactic Awards Reader's Poll (both the stories and the artwork), plus popular stories from the years before the award was launched. Edited by Orson Scott Card and yours truly (Ed Schubert) and featuring an all new introduction by Peter S. Beagle, InterGalactic Awards Anthology - Vol. 1 will be available from Spotlight Publishing shortly after Thanksgiving.

Getting back to our 6^th anniversary issue, we're pleased to bring you the following:

Cover story "Under the Surface" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman (which is also our audio story, read by IGMS regular, Tom Barker). "Under the Surface" tells the tale of a young girl from a family with powers tied to nature, and how a monumental natural disaster forces her to make choices and grow up faster than anyone could have predicted.

"Walks Before Greatness" by Kate Marshall is a fantasy tale about a young girl who struggles as she literally Walks-Before-Greatness (her older sister) and how this young girl comes to peace with her role in the world.

"Nanoparticle Jive" by Tomas Martin is a near-future sf story about a graduate student in the sciences who learns a few things about the power -- good and bad -- of social media.

"Counterclockwise" by Alethea Kontis (our resident princess and book-reviewer) is a timetwistedsteampunklovestory (yes, that's all supposed to be one word) that also turns out to be a yrostevolknupmaetsdetsiwtemit. (You could sit here and try to puzzle that out or you could just go enjoy the story.)

Part Two of "Whiteface" by Jared Adams concludes the novelette started in issue 24; it's about a father's quest to find a place in the world for his son, a son who repeatedly chooses the path of the outcast, first as an unknowing child, but also later in life with the full knowledge of not only the ramifications of his choices, but the full knowledge of his father's displeasure with those choices.

Darrell Schweitzer interviews John Clute, whose articles on speculative fiction have appeared in various publications since the 1970s. Clute is co-editor of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (with Peter Nicholls) and The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (with John Grant), as well as The Illustrated Encyclopedia Of Science Fiction, all of which won Hugo Awards for Best Non-Fiction.

Last, but by no means least, we bring you part two of our sneak-peek at Orson Scott Card's forthcoming novella Shadows In Flight, a direct sequel to his hugely popular novel, Shadow of the Giant. Shadows In Flight is due out from Tor in January of 2012, but IGMS is previewing it, presenting chapter one in the last issue, and chapter two in this issue.

And as we go into 2012, be on the lookout for more new features from IGMS. Details are still being finalized, but we are looking at a variety of ideas to bring you even more content in each and every issue, with no increase in the cost of a subscription. More great stories, more great articles, more great greatness -- all for the same low price. Stay tuned!

Edmund R. Schubert
Editor, Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show

P.S. As usual, we've collected essays from the authors in this issue and will post them on our blog (www.SideShowFreaks.blogspot.com) Feel free to drop by and catch The Story Behind The Stories, where the authors talk about the creation of their tales.