In the words of Alfred Beesley, ‘Lucky’ James Dixon’s roommate in ‘Lucky Jim’: “A spot of good news to take home with me for the week-end.”

‘Prisoner of War’ has been lurking at the Dark Wisdom offices for almost four months, so I decided to send them a query email today. The unexpectedly quick reply from assistant editor Charles P. Zaglanis was:

I liked your story and put it in my recommended folder.

Yes! I’m in the recommended folder! He does go on to say:

I wish I could give you an ETA on a decision, it all depends on various factors that that eat up William's time. I can say that we have a few stories we've held for as long as 13 months, so I guess you could use that as a worst case scenario.

Realizing that 13 months is unusually long even in the tough competitive world of speculative fiction magazines, he concludes:

If that is too long and you wish to pull your story, we understand completly and apologize for the wait.

Yeah, right! As if, after waiting patiently for four months and discovering one of the editors likes my story, I would withdraw!

More news in about 9 months, I guess… 😀