Indian SF

New on the online magazine scene is the juicy looking Indian SF which we hope to be reviewing soon... in the meantime, you can get your free copy from here.  Available to read online or download in a variety of formats!

Contents:

Flash Fiction: 
X Marks the Spot by Kat Otis

Short Stories: 
Staying Behind by Ken Liu
The Boy Who Cried Wolf by Ram V
Goddess by Lavanya Karthik

Plus there's artwork from Stephan Hurlmann, reviews and interview to chew on.

Shimmer #14

Shimmer #14
Reviewed by Jennifer Rickard

Shimmer is a very rewarding magazine to read because it always contains a real mixture of different genres, worlds and characters within it, and issue #14 is no different, with a range of different stories and different talents within it.

Food My Father Feeds Me, Love My Husband Shows Me by A.A. Balaskovits is the first story in the issue and is definitely one of the best. The story follows the daughter of a ‘great man of meat’, who is then married off to a vegetarian, thus forced to live a vegetarian lifestyle. Her obsession with the blood and meat she misses so much leads her to make a terrible discovery and terrible choice. This story is such a gem because the descriptions of blood and gore are utterly striking and vivid, staying inside the reader’s head for a long time after they have finished the story. There is also a real sense of foreboding inside this story which really keeps you reading. Perhaps the ending is a little rushed and unclear, but this does not do much to tarnish the shine of this otherwise excellent tale.

Chinvat by Sunny Moraine is in comparison a slightly weaker story, slightly outshone by the one that comes before it, which is a shame as it does have some good elements to it. The narrative follows a journalist who decides to shadow Denn, an old man who stops and helps the suicidal trying to jump off the Golden Gate bridge. The protagonist’s personal experiences and past intertwine neatly with what happens in the story and the setting is well described, but the plot feels rather aimless and wandering, and the back-story of what has happened to the world is not explained fully enough to be properly satisfying.

Made of Mud by Ari B. Goelman is a rather charming little tale, well executed. It follows a young boy’s experiences with the mudlings, small creatures who dig themselves pits in the soil and turn into mud if you try to separate them from these pits. The use of a young boy’s voice in this story is very effective and well written, and the idea of the mudlings is an intriguing one, though more back-story to these creatures would have made this better.

This House was Never a Castle by Aaron Polson is another striking story with good imagery. The story is about a boy and his two sisters who are living and hiding inside a magical house while what can only be described as a ‘plague war’ goes on outside the walls. The sense of entrapment, of a tentative peace which does not last, is palpable in this story, and although not everything is explained, the writer gives you enough hints for you to put the story together yourself.

Minnow by Carlea Holl-Jensen is a very short story, reminiscent of a dream where nothing makes sense. Whilst the descriptions are interesting and engaging, they are also ambiguous to the point of confusion.

Trashman by A.C. Wise is a story with excellent characterisation. It follows a young man’s experience with the trashman - part human, part something else entirely - who reads the lives of people by what they put in their trash. The protagonist’s struggle between his unwillingness to talk to the trashman and his desperate need for the man’s help is wonderfully portrayed, and the trashman himself is thrillingly creepy.

We Make Tea by Meryl Ferguson is another brilliant story in the magazine, following a futuristic group of robots on a plantation, who, after being abandoned for many years, are finally visited by a lost and distraught human. This story is fantastically imaginative and clearly well thought through, the dialogue is spot-on and the characterisation of the different robots very enjoyable. I feel that the ending is especially good in this story.

Bad Moon Risen by Eric Del Carlo is rather a generic idea, describing a post-apocalyptic world haunted by humans who have been changed into wild beasts. Whilst the action in the story is gripping and well written, the characters and plot line have been written many times before, and as such the story is not a particularly memorable one.

Some Letters for Ove Lindström by Karin Tidbeck has an lovely aura of mystery and suspense about it. The story is in the form of a collection of letters our character writes to their dead father, concerning their life and their mother. There is a real sense of the character waiting for something to happen and losing time as they switch from their past to their present.

Gödel Apparition Fugue by Craig DeLancey is a quasi biographical account of the scientist Gödel and his relationship with those around him, especially Einstein. This rather short account of his life is nonetheless compelling and reveals a very human side to this scientist.

Reviewer Sam Tomaino of SF Revu says that the stories in this issue of Shimmer ‘are like pieces of rich fudge, all very different but quite delicious’, and this is an opinion I definitely agree with, as there is something in this magazine for everyone, whether it be cannibals, robots or even just normal men. Well worth a read but be warned - it’ll make you want to subscribe to Shimmer!

To get your hands on a copy of Shimmer, check out their website here.

Something Wicked #19

Something Wicked Issue #19
Reviewed by Jennifer Rickard

Something Wicked #19 is a real eclectic mix of stories all inspired by different subjects - a writer, a band, a past, a profession - and as such, it is extremely difficult to compare one against another as a means of gleaning which is more expertly told, as each has their good parts and their weak parts.

It Pays To Read The Safety Cards is a sci-fi short story by R.W.W. Greene, who was inspired by his work as a high-school teacher. The tale is told from the point of view of a young girl whose family is joining a group of colonists on their exodus from a stricken Earth to Proxima Centauri, four light years away. However, the expedition is sabotaged almost as soon as it begins by a group of religious terrorists who believe that everyone should remain on Earth to face the repercussions of what they have done to the planet. Greene’s narrator means that the story is told from an interesting perspective, from one who has not got the grasp of all the facts, but as the writer himself is a middle-aged man, his voice as a young girl seems at times forced and generic. The world which Greene creates is an interesting and imaginative one but the plot is rather predictable in its execution.

Stained, by Chris Stevens and inspired by his life, has a real sense of atmosphere to it - the title on its own is excellent because the story itself covers almost all the meanings of the word. The story follows Colin in his attempt to resurrect his dead grandfather using dark magic, and it is well worth reading this piece for the twist at the end alone. Although a great ambience is set up by the narrative it does feel a little stilted at the beginning, but the subtle characterisation easily overcomes this.

Ghost Love Score, by Peter Damien, is strongly influenced by the symphonic metal band Nightwish and one of their songs is taken as the title. A fan of the band myself, I listened to the song and found it fascinating as to how he had incorporated the lyrics into his own story and then had developed it from there. The story itself concerns a young woman, Charlotte, who has been abducted by a serial killer and is now being driven back to his hometown. Damien sets up a good feeling of Charlotte’s delirium, of the shift between her meditations back into reality, and you do get a real sense of the character slipping away. The encroaching sense of something supernatural is also subtly and cleverly put into play, but I feel that the ending is too ambiguous to work with the rest of the story and as such leaves it on a rather weak note.

The Book of Love, a Lovecraftian style piece written by Nick Scorza, is possibly my favourite of them all. Scorza has really got into the writing style of Lovecraft or Machen but he brings his own style to the characters, making you really feel for them. The story concerns an antique dealer, married to a woman who does not love him back, who becomes influenced by a strange book. The plot behind this story could easily fill a novel and as such the writer does not go into as much detail as you would like him to, but the unnerving idea of possession, of love being dangerous and the overarching sense of ‘be careful what you wish for’, makes this an enchanting read.

As well as the short stories, this issue of Something Wicked also features Sixth Sense of Humour: Twisted Sinister, by Mark Sykes, who explores the idea of plot twists in short stories and explains how Roald Dahl does the short story so well, a book review of Stephen King’s time-travel novel 11.22.63 by Deon van Heerden, which was so enthusiastic that it now makes me want to track the book down and read it, and a thorough, spirited and informative interview with Brandon Auret by Joe Vaz.

All in all, this issue of Something Wicked is an diverse and interesting mix, and is well worth a read.

Something Wicked can be read for free online or bought as an ebook edition here.

Albedo One #41

Albedo One - Issue #41
Reviewed by Jenny Barber

Issue #41 of Albedo One is definitely a mixed bag. While there are enjoyable tales to be had, most interestingly from the winners of the International Aeon Award 2010 Short Fiction Contest and one of the winning stories from the 2010 John West Brainfood.ie Fantasy Writing Competition; there were still a good few that didn't quite work for reasons of being either too surreal, too gross or not enough appeal in the main characters.

My favourite story in this issue would have to be the 3rd place winner of the 2010 Aeon Award - A Room of Empty Frames by Robin Maginn. It's an atmospheric tale which carefully pulls together pieces of an intriguing mystery involving a missing artist and the pictures he left behind. The hints of the shape of the story tease without giving an obvious resolution but there's a nice enough feel to it that any lack of definite answers are unimportant.

The 1st place winner of the Aeon Award, Aethra by Michalis Manolios (translated from its original Greek by Thalia Bisticas) makes for uncomfortable reading. It's a story that shows the systematic abuse of clones created by a famous artist who makes not only her artwork but also her pets and furniture out of clones of herself, and it's the loving detail applied to showing this spectacle that brings a certain amount of wincing. The story itself is interesting enough - a murder investigation where the artist is the prime suspect, and as you would expect with so many clones about the house, the final answers aren't simple.

From the winner of the brainfood.ie Fantasy Writing Competition (& winner in the Junior Secondary Category) is the fun story Ways of Making Math More Interesting by Lauren Mulvihill. There's a nifty Alice in Wonderland vibe to this as the heroine of the tale is thrown into a world of anthropomorphic numbers and must do battle with the evil Minuses to rescue the Common Denominator.

On the down side, Lost Highway Travelers by Judy Klass didn't really work - it's a rambling story about country music and musicians whose subtler nuances are obviously lost on me. Likewise Demon by Bruce McAllister which was a slog of excessive navel gazing that quickly lost my attention.

I had hoped for something better from Eric Brown in his story Differences, but I found it rather flat with too much space taken on selling the world without giving a reason to care much about the main character and the trouble they find themselves in, and the ending tried too hard to create a fanfare of something that only merited a vague shrug.

So not the best issue of Albedo One I've ever read, as, despite some intriguing premises, the final execution fell short too many times.

Albedo One is available in print and PDF versions from their website here.