Sunday 25 April 2010

HUB: UPDATE

Issue 119

Power in the Blood by Scott Roche

Reviews and Features
Reviews
God Emperor of Didcot
The Digital Plague
Doctor Who: The Time of Angels (s5, ep4)
Feature
Roll the Bones by J R Blackwell


http://www.hubfiction.com/

Friday 23 April 2010

BENEATH CEASELESS SKIES: UPDATE


Issue 41

Michael J. DeLuca
The Circus of King Minos' Masque
Condescension, from a slave, though Periphas. How appropriate. He got up, following the loggerhead along the circus' aisle as it swam. The carvings on its shell were spidery and thin, interconnected traceries meaningless in any language of logic or linear thought. He doubted that an untrained eye, even in the first row, would know them for what they were: the marks of madness bent to will. The symbols of a sorcerer's attention.

Adam Heine
Pawn's Gambit
Tarc was awake for a couple hours at the beginning and end of my shift, and those hours were longer than the ones I spent with my thoughts. He was chatty as a guiro-bug. He didn’t just talk, though. He asked questions. The more he asked, the more chary I got that he’d figure out what I was doing—that one of his marks was my little girl, and that I meant to stop him.

Wednesday 21 April 2010

GOLDEN VISIONS: UPDATE


Stories Online this Quarter


Rich Matrunick The Hole
Anna Sykora Under Cubicle City
Dale Harkness The Devil's Paradox
Guy Belleranti Face in the Mirror
Kristen Lee Knapp Jeak and the People of the Wheel
Nicholas Mena Twilight of the Ice Syphs
Richard Womack Choice

Paul Malone A Delightful Sound
Guy Belleranti Watchers
Peter Simon The Keepers
Kevin Brown Last Breath
W K Tucker A Brown Beauty
Donald Jodan Corporate Space
Chris Hillman The Butcher's Cloth Knife
Alva J Roberts Against the Grain
Julia Kelso The Athenians
KM Rockwood The Devil You Know


The Lorelei Signal


Merow' she heard constantly and wondered if her long time companion haunted her or if Chandra came back for some other purpose.

Eva Templeton has battled demons her whole life, but can she defeat the one who holds the key to her soul, even if it means destroying the man she loves?

Persephone Kore is the daughter of the Goddess of the Earth -- can she bring Spring to Hades Realm?

In the beginning, was woman - then came man - but how many tries did it take to get him right and has it actually happened yet?

Flash Fiction

Two women live to serve the past, believing it controls their future. What if the future breaks in on them like a revelation?

Poetry

Alise thought she understood the cost for assisting suicides until it became clear the true price exceeded anything she imagined.

Two girls - twins - each with their part to play in a great dance. When one twin is unable to serve will the other have the strength to play her sister's part and who will take her place?

Poetry

MYSTIC SIGNALS exclusive story
Gift Cards of an Ex-Goddess - Melissa Embry
When a girl's time is up as the avatar of the goddess, she decides it's time to start a new life for herself - and the best way to do that - with gift cards and a 200+ year old skeletal guardian.

STRANGE HORIZONS: UPDATE

FICTION:

Birds, by Benjamin Parzybok
I live in a world that I create. In my world--you've noticed, don't say you haven't--a passing crow might stop and have a conversation about a change in schedule at the city trash pickup, or, for example, the pigeons. It's a world I want to live in, all the rules are mine. Don't argue yet.

POETRY:
Tweaking the World Bundle (Comstock's Synopsis of Improbable Events), by David C. Kopaska-Merkel and Kendall Evans
The transformation of Mr. Unger was accomplished / In a nanosecond

Tuesday 20 April 2010

GUD: UPDATE


Greatest Uncommon Denominator

stories
by Rose Lemberg
by T. F. Davenport
by Steven J Dines
by Isabel Cooper Kunkle
by Jason Hardy
The Tiger Man
by Geordie Williams Flantz
by Andrew N Tisbert
by Kevin Brown
by Paul Hogan
by Kenneth Schneyer
by Heather Lindsley

by Tammy Ho Lai-Ming
by Alicia Adams
by Paul J. Kocak
by Zac Carter
by Melissa Carroll
by Taras Castle
by Lucy A. Snyder

MINDFLIGHTS: UPDATE


by Lindsey DuncanFiction - Fantasy




LACUNA: UPDATE


A biannual e-journal of historical fiction and alternate history










Reviews

Into Suez by Stevie Davies

Memoirs of a Vampire Hunter by Peter Allchin


KINGS OF THE NIGHT: UPDATE


Updated fiction:




JUPITER: UPDATE



Issue 27


Features fiction from Garrick Fincham, W.R. Mitchell, Huw Langridge and Lee Russell . Cover artwork by Paul Drummond.


IDEOMANCER: UPDATE

Fiction

"Future Perfect" - LaShawn M. Wanak

"Sunshine, Sunshine" - Autumn Christian

"The Day the Sidewalks Melted" - Nicole J. LeBoeuf


Poetry

"Mundane" - Rachel Swirsky



"Lunar Parable" - Shef Reynolds


CLARKESWORLD: UPDATE


Issue 43

Fiction
Between Two Dragons by Yoon Ha Lee

January by Becca De La Rosa


by Daniel M. Kimmel

Read by Kate Baker

Audio Fiction: January by Becca De La Rosa
Read by Kate Baker


CHIZINE: UPDATE

ISSUE #44 (April–June 2010)
Carrie Laben
Heath Lowrance
An Owomoyela
Claire Barbetti
Andrea Blythe

BLACK GATE: UPDATE

By Diana Sherman
At the dark of the year, the Shadows and their darkling servants came creeping through towns, calling for the children.
By Chris Braak
The Thing was in her room again, shuffling softly by her bed. ‘I am the Hangman’s daughter,’ Cresy told herself, and opened her eyes….
By John C. Hocking
‘It comes at night,” said the chieftain. “No one has seen it and lived.”
By Matthew David Surridge
When the Angel of Death left the battlefield, Isrohim Vey knew he would live. And that he would spend the rest of his life seeking the Angel, and the meaning of its smile.
By Martin Owton
In which a band of desperate men pursue the slave traders who stole their families – across cold barrows where a dread thing sleeps.
Freedling
By Mike Shultz
Naia was pinned under the rubble when the quake hit, trapped with the cruel sorcer, Cer Vassir. And then her nightmare truly began.

By Alex Kreis
He’s sorry he tried to conquer the world. He’s very, very sorry.
By Michael Jasper & Jay Lake
It was her fifth suicide. Such was the way of the Killaster Witches. But as ambitious as she was, Lena’s schemes for revenge might not be quite treacherous enough…
By Dan Brodribb
The sarcophagus was empty, the mummy was on the loose, and Corporate expected her to deal with it. Seemed like a lot to ask, especially for minimum wage.
Red Hell
By Renee Stern
It looked like a routine hire… until Kellen found himself framed for theft, and embroiled in a plot to steal the secret of the Crown’s great airships.
By Jan Stirling
Lady Nyla was once rich and powerful. Now she lived in a hut on a lonely road. But tonight the Mother Goddess gave her back a measure of her old power — to set her against a terrible foe.
By Isabel Pelech
The crumbling passage led to an underwater city, filled with marvels, wild magic… and secrets. Including more than a few that could kill.
“On a Pale Horse”
By Sylvia Volk
Once there was a Bedouin girl who tamed a crooked stallion — and because of her, the Arabian breed was born. A tale of legend and desert war.
“La Senora de Oro”
By R.L. Roth
She was tiny and beautiful… and crafted of pure gold. Her gifts were pure as well: gold, and madness.
“Building Character”
By Tom Sneem
It’s hard to be a modern hero. Especially when the author can’t make up his mind.
“Folie and Null”
By Douglas Empringham
The ruined mansion seemed the perfect place to elude their pursuers… until they began to penetrate its secrets.
Novellas
“The Price of Two Blades”
By Pete Butler
The raiders were coming to destroy the village, but the Old Gods promised protection… if they were willing to pay the terrible price.
“Destroyer”
By James Enge
Thend was halfway through the mountain pass before he noticed the stones all around him were bones. A tale of Morlock the Maker.
“The Natural History of Calamity”
By Robert J Howe

In which New York’s first karma detective discovers a simple case to re-unite two lovers conceals a sinister conspiracy… and an opponent who may not be entirely human.

Poems
“Wanted! A Clown Incognito,” Aamir Aziz
“Broadcaster,” Arthur Porges
“Spanish Dance,” Arthur Porges

AURORA WOLF: UPDATE


Current Issue Includes:
Daughter of Challow By Neil Carstairs

ANDROMEDA SPACEWAYS INFLIGHT MAGAZINE: UPDATE


Andromeda Spaceways Issue #43

Fiction
Thief of Tears . . . Jason Crowe
Instructions for Lighting Candles . . . Martin A Reed
From Little Things . . . Felicity Dowker
Star . . . Aimee Smith
Emergency Rebuild . . . David Conyers
Relative to Elsa . . . Martin A Reed
By the Banks of the Nabarra . . . Daniel Russell
The Prize . . . Carine Heidmann
The Painted City . . . David Tallerman
Fairy Gothic . . . Tracie McBride
Scars that Let the Light Shine Through . . . Victorya

Poetry
My Naked Hand . . . Helen Patrice
Higg's Boson . . . Don Webb

ABYSS AND APEX: UPDATE


Short Fiction

How We Fly by Lisa A. Koosis
Here's where we first meet: in a room with moss green recliners and faded Monet reproductions on cinderblock walls, a scatter of ancient magazines on low tables, IV poles and wheelchairs. I notice her first, maybe because she's so vibrant and young amid men and women with colorless hair and exposed wrists, skin so thin it might be vellum. Dressed in baggy denim overalls and a yellow tee-shirt, the girl sits cross-legged in the recliner, a magazine open in her lap. A tube winds from beneath her sleeve to a bag hanging on the IV pole beside her.
My first thought: she doesn’t look like someone who's been told she’s going to die.

The Tortuous Path by Bud Sparhawk
What he was doing was strictly against the rules. Acolytes were not supposed to fraternize with the passengers, officers, or, most especially, crewmen.
That’s what made it so exciting to break the rules.

Deutoroi by Samantha Henderson
They're coming, rumbled the oak.
Oh, damn you, she thought. She usually avoided talking to the trees. It inched her that much further towards the madness that took her mother in the end. Tell me something I don't know.
There are three. Did you know that? said the oak, taking her at her word.

Night Of The Manticore by Tony Pi
The guests, likewise taken by my idea, clamoured for Mason to show his contributions to the Grand Expo. At first, Mason turned beet-red under the barrage of pleas, but slowly, the spirit of competition overtook him. He smirked and called out to the Hespereian alchemist across from me.
"What do you say, Fowler? Shall we show them a true manticore?"

The Wishing Stone by Edward Greaves
"This stone could work miracles!" Arrod stared at the scintillating gem in his fingers.
"It better," said Lady Damaske. "For the cost, I better not be disappointed."
"Have I yet failed you?" he replied.

Flash Fiction
Anything Chocolate by Caren Gussoff
When White Roses Freeze by Amy Power Jansen

Poetry
Changeling by Mary W. Jensen
Small by Richard Schiffman
Uttu's Garden by Gwendolyn Clare
Waiting by WC Roberts
My Wife by Albert Melear


HUB: UPDATE


Issue 118

Sescompandyby Joshua Scribner

Feature
Interview - John Romita Jnr and Mark Millar

Reviews
Necroscope: Harry and the Pirates by Brian Lumley
Servant of the Underworld by Aliette de Bodard
Doctor Who: Victory of the Daleks (s5, ep3)


Sunday 18 April 2010

APHELION: UPDATE



By Sarah Deckard
Growing up without a father in the little village was hard for Galina and her mother. Things would get much more complicated when she became a woman...

By TN Dockrey
Francesca Adler wanted nothing more than to escape life in the small town, serving the whims of her brilliant but obsessive father. But then she became fascinated with his studies of the nature of Time.

By Pedro Blas Gonzales
The scientists were prepared for some similarities between themselves and their clones. They never expected to be quite as close as they turned out to be.

By Alex Granados
Marcus and Eliza were players -- or vital pieces? -- in a game thousands of years long.
By Kurt Heinrich Hyatt
Moondog, wandering scavenger extraordinaire, had a chance to score a sweet handgun and all the ammo he could carry (to say nothing of the girl). All he had to do was steal or scam some food from the 900-foot Tin City tower, with packs of half-feral children doing their best to kill him.
By Bruce Memblatt
Henry needed a job. Working for the never-seen woman along with her household staff of misfits and the maimed wasn't exactly ideal, but it had its moments.
By Jerrod Cotosman
Diaz fully expected the must-attend business presentation to be deadly dull and a waste of everybody's time. He was almost right.
By Chris Sharp
Another tale in which the artifice of the theater intersects with the spirit world in surprising ways...
By Frisco Macae
Bill Padinski didn't think much of the new exhibit at the Museum he guarded every night. It looked like an empty room with glaringly-white walls...
By Andrew Nash
They called him Lucas Newchild, the first infant to have memory- and thought-enhancing hardware implanted in his brain at birth. He spent his childhood like a lab rat, only gaining freedom when they changed his name and his face so he could go out into the world.

Friday 16 April 2010

THE ABSENT WILLOW REVIEW: UPDATE



Jurisdiction
by Manek R. Mistry
Released from its rack in the elevator bay, Ginger eased into the flow of departing traffic and accelerated. When the ship had cleared the elevator terminal, Rashna loaded her flight plan into the navigation computer and allowed the software to take control. Although her classmates had scored jobs in the piloting departments...


Interview: Jim Butcher
We like to say a few words about the author we are interviewing but in this instance nothing we can say would top Jim’s own self-written bio. To top it of we have to also give Jim the “Best Advice Award” that we’ve seen in a long time. After your done laughing you realize it...

by Allison M. Dickson
A boy named Elvis came to me with a plan to help save the world.When I first saw him walk through the revolving door, looking like a minnow lost in a sea of sharks, I felt a flash of recognition. The morning commuters skirted around him in the same subconscious way that [...]

by Bruce James Lin
I told him you couldn’t do that with a zombie, but Gene just shrugged it off.“You just don’t get us,” he said. “You’re just jealous that I have someone.”I wasn’t. I tried to convince him that he was wrong. He was infatuated. I talked about how they weren’t human. I talked about [...]

The Sea Cave
by Amber Foster
At 130 feet below the surface, I find myself thinking of that Frost poem, the one about the woods. The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, it goes, but I can’t remember the rest. I never did too good in school, but for some reason the first line of that poem stuck in [...]

There is something very innocent sounding about the title I’ve hastily attached to this manuscript. Perhaps it is appropriate, for the business I am about to relate began innocently enough. Perhaps it isn’t. But I must not hesitate to tell my tale, for it is meant as a serious warning–a warning to those [...]

There’s a shadow that lives in my fireplace and I fear that he is in the final grips of dementia. His condition has been worsening for quite some time, and I fear that he is beyond return. His chuckles and fleeting feet have been replaced by a grim dissatisfaction with his plight… a [...]

Creature Comforts
by James A. Ford
It was outside the door.I could hear its weirdly- intelligent scratching against the solid oak of the basement door. The creature was searching for a way in, that was clear. It was very clever, there was no doubt it understood that the door was all that stood between us; no doubt it [...]

Flowers for Colleen
by Roland Allnach
It was the first Saturday morning of the month, and Darryl went to get flowers for Colleen, as was his routine. He stood in the florist shop, waiting behind a rather impatient man, while the young woman behind the counter prepared the man’s bouquet. The customer stood there, his impatience evident in the [...]

The Binary Man
by David Keight
Stalwart Johnson was having trouble sleeping again. He had been having the same trouble for two-hundred and eighty nine days now. The headlights of a car outside sent a wave of light rushing over his bedroom ceiling as they snook in under the blinds. The light went and faded as the car scuttled [...]

A Perfect Summer Day
by Janine Queenin
Through the window of the taxi she saw nothing but pavement — then sky –- pavement — then sky as the cab flipped across three lanes toward the guardrail. The thunderous crush of steel and glass against asphalt was deafening. The woman in the backseat heard only the scream from her throat.

Mourning Light
by Pamela J. Jessen
As evening drains the sunlight from the sky, he moves, a fluid shadow in the mist. A hunger builds inside he can’t deny, his vampire thirst a curse he can’t resist.

Spectral Compromise
by Maria Mitchell
Something is coming Sickly, but sly, Something is coming;You best let it by...

Thursday 15 April 2010

HUB: UPDATE


Issue 117

The Cyclamen by Emma Jane Davies

Reviews

The Infernal Game: Cold Warriors
Battery Farm
The Human Target
Doctor Who: The Beast Below (s5, ep2)

Feature
Interview with Joe R Lansdale (part 3)

Monday 12 April 2010

FEAR AND TREMBLING


The only site dedicated to publishing original and Christian-friendly horror on the web: original fiction and poetry alongside classics from the horror genre and interviews, columns, reviews, and other regular features.

Current Content
Poetry
Time to save some money!
Poetry
The cold loneliness of being a ghost.
Fiction
The Spanish Inquisition has burned Don Pedro's daughter at the stake, and the Spanish nobleman knows it will come for him and his family next. Will Don Pedro's vengeance betray his country or cleanse it of fear and evil?

Poetry
Poetry
Perhaps they once were mortals, stagnant now and jaundiced leaning against the shards
Fiction
Ever wonder why the devil plays a fiddle?
Fiction
How can you possibly punish a murderous ghost?

Zombie Haiku - roadside cafe by Joshua Gage
Poetry
Fiction
Are you unhappy with yourself? Ever wish you could change the person you are? It's not as simple as that; nothing ever is.


Thursday 8 April 2010

BENEATH CEASELESS SKIES: UPDATE


Beneath Ceaseless Skies
An Online Magazine of Literary Adventure Fantasy

Issue #40 -- Apr. 8, 2010
Featuring new Cover Art by Christophe Vacher, and From the Archives, a select past BCS story related to one in the current issue.

"Knowing Neither Kin Nor Foe," by Nancy Fulda
She was in the fields and out of sight of the kin-nest before she stopped to reconsider. Tahn would die anyway, once the Destroyer broke completely free of the barrier. If the old fool wanted to hurry the process, why stop him? He was no friend of hers, just another selfish lackey of the ley-readers. He’d probably only gone to manipulate her into following him. And like a soft-shelled hatchling, she was doing exactly that.

"Waiting for Number Five," by Ton Crosshill
He'd called her excellent! Four's heart soared, and she sped up to keep pace with the music's racing beat. Oh, let them watch. Let them ooh and aah, them with their foul stinking breath. Even when sweat rolled down their noses and fell to her platform in large blobs, splashing so she had to jump out of the way, she never flinched. Let Master see how strong she was.

Audio Fiction Podcast 035
"Pale," by Kathryn Allen, from BCS #37
There's always a woman. And she plays her part, one way or the other. “The stranger’ll come for you,” I tell her, trying to tip-toe round the vulgarity. Whether it’s The Marshal or The Hired Gun, the innocent’s champion gets the woman. He’ll be good to her, but she’ll never forget, never be quite the same when he rides away.

From the Archives:
"Precious Meat," by Catherine S. Perdue, from BCS #5 and Audio Fiction Podcast 005
I lifted my muzzle and sniffed. The wood was different today. Fine dust still hung in the air and sparkled in sunlit shafts. Such a thing this sparkling was. I gazed at it in wonder. Had the light ever been just so before? Was this a new thing?
http://beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/

Wednesday 7 April 2010

Tuesday 6 April 2010

HUB: UPDATE



Issue 116 Doctor Who Special Guest-Edited by Scott Harrison


Profiles on the first 5 Doctors - by Scott Harrison
Origins: The First Doctor
Gods and Monsters: The Second Doctor
Exile: The Third Doctor
Icon: The Fourth Doctor
Ghosts From the Past: The Fifth Doctor

With Special Guest Contributors:
Components of Fear by Simon Clark
Cathode Ray Dreams by Andrew Cartmel
Fan of Dicks by Paul Magrs
Life on Earth Can Be an Adventure, Too by Joseph Lidster
The Day it Came Back by Mark Morris




The Absent Willow Review Short Story Contest‏


The contest is open to all unpublished works of speculative fiction (Horror, Fantasy, and Science Fiction).

The contest deadline is May 31, 2010 with the winner to be announced on or before July 01, 2010.

Cash Prizes are as follows:

1st Prize $150.00

2nd prize $75.00

3rd prize $25.00
Complete Contest Rules can be found at

Thursday 1 April 2010

A FLY IN AMBER: UPDATE



The current issue of A Fly in Amber features new fiction from:

Ernest Williamson III

Steve Ramey

Ryan Kinkor

Lawrence Buentello

A. J. Kirby

and others

http://www.aflyinamber.net/

AURORA WOLF: UPDATE


Aurora Wolf is a monthly journal of science fiction and fantasy. We feature short fiction of new as well as previously published authors in each issue.


Our mission is to transport our readers to inspiring places never visited before.


The current issue features

COLABERATOR’S MOTHER By Rory Steves

FAIRY DUST GUITAR by John Miller

YOU ARE WHAT YOU READ by W. K. Tucker

BENEATH CEASELESS SKIES: UPDATE


Richard Parks Sanji's Demon, Pt. II
The old man’s form shimmered in my grasp, like a mountain peak glimpsed through summer haze. Another instant and I did not hold an old man at all, but rather an oni. He was perhaps a head taller than myself, with red skin, gleaming tusks and horns, and black hair as coarse and thick as a horse’s mane. He continued to struggle, and it was all I could do to hold him.


K.J. Kabza
The Leafsmith in Love
Jesper whirled. Right at his back, feet clacking on the limestone, was one of his steam-powered wolves. But instead of ambling across the gravel path and back into the forest, it went utterly mad, hoping forward and back, tail pinwheeling. It jumped forward, teeth bared; the air rent with a scream and the ugly sound of ripping fabric; the wolf danced away with a mangled petticoat in its gleaming jaws.

HEROIC FANTASY QUARTERLY UPDATE


Issue 4

Fiction Contents
LIVING TOTEM, by Vaughn Heppner
A tale of adventure both in the physical and spirit worlds — a tale so old-school it’s Neolithic! What’s not to like about a story featuring a red stone axe named Blood of the Earth?
Jafar and Ketei brave a pitiless desert and its merciless tribesmen to confront sorcery and secrets in an ancient temple.
Poetry Contents
THE FOOTMAN, by W.E. Couvillier
Would that we all put on so brave a face at the end.
HERO OF OLD, by John Keller
This time, a horseman. And just when you thought things were all grim . . .