HUB 114

HUB ISSUE 114

Fiction

The Unpopular Opinion of Reverend Tobias Thackery by Adam Christopher

Reviews and Features
Feature
Interview - Joe R. Lansdale (part 1)

Reviews
The Age of Zeus by James Lovegrove
Tomes of the Dead: Tide of Souls by Simon Bestwick

http://www.hubfiction.com/

NITEBLADE: UPDATE

March 2010 Issue

Cats in the Backyard by J. David Bell
And the cats, undeterred, continued to creep down the hill. It swam as if with maggots. In the fall he burned them in piles of leaves, in the winter he pried their bodies from the cement with a shovel, in the spring he dredged them from puddles of rainwater, oil and fur slowly swirling.
Finally Never Again by Crystal Lynn Hilbert
He smelled fear far off in the distance, faint as feathers rasping on the back pockets of his tongue. In a second he was off, moving through alleyways stained purple with twilight, burrowing like a needle stitching and unstitching the dried up, labyrinthine veins of the city.
Judas Dances by Paul Walther
Quentin would think of this every night as he rolled over on the filthy mattress that served as his bed and watched the skeleton dance.
Happy Halloween, It’s a Bloody Puppet Show by Bill Ratner
Like Torquemada at the Spanish Inquistion, he enlisted those least appropriate to help in his insufferable enterprise — the ones whom he knew would experience the most discomfort at his hands: incorrigible delinquents, boys with severe stutters, athletes, and the chronically shy.
AutoCanniBioTech by Joseph A. W. Quintela
It’ll be just a few months after the surgery. It happens every time. You’ll show up at my office again with a strange look on you face. I’ll play dumb even though I know exactly why you’ve come.
The Devil at Your Heels by Robert Mammone
The rumbling rose sharply into a banshee wail, a shrieking that was matched by Arthur’s own. In his side mirror, the yellow car surged forward.
The Night The Cricket-Man Came by Alejandro Omidsalar
He thundered across it with a victorious yell, and true to the tale, I stopped Daredevil, who reared up and nearly threw me of. Crane spun his horse about and shook his fist, shouting oaths and challenges, his lanky body nearly sliding off the horse.
Sickeningly Sweet by Maia Lena
All her life she had been surrounded by sugar. It was all she ate, for her father would not share with her the raw meat that constituted his own diet.
Bride of Neanderthal by Jonathan Sweet
Visions of my death played themselves in my head like black & white newsreel footage. I tried to clear my thoughts and meditate, as Beatrice and Gordon had taught me. But I could manage no deep breaths, bound and rocked by despair as I was.

http://www.niteblade.com/march-2010/

MIRROR DANCE: UPDATE

The Spring 2010 Issue of Mirror Dance!

• Fiction by

Nick Poniatowski,

Michele Stepto,

Sylvia Hiven,

Meghann McVey,

Stuart Sharp

R. W. Nichols

• Poetry by

Changming Yuan,

Shelley Bryant,

Robert Shmigelsky,

Holly Day

http://mirrordancefantasy.blogspot.com/

SORCEROUS SIGNALS: UPDATE

By An Old Oak Tree - Derek Ivan Webster

Trapped in an oak tree, a wizard reflects on love lost and yet to be redeemed.

Condemn - James Jason Dye Poetry

Demons of the Dark Sun - Mitch Allen

Coyotl the Chichimec must fight along side his enemies, the Aztecs, to prevent the Demons of the Dark Sun from destroying the world.

Fairy Kingdom - Eric J. Juneau Flash Fiction

Figuring Sums - Robert Collins

Trent the Tinkerer creates a magical calculating machine.

Flour Power - Rebecca S.W. Bates

Felicity is a wizard and a cook - whose special purpose is to follow the flour and help to prevent a disaster that will kill hundreds in the 'real' world.

Magic, Sword and ... Turnips - Olga Godim

When a sword fails and magic is not enough, two young sisters, a warrior and a magician apprentice, improvise to save their city.

The Little Guy - Dale Phillips

That story you probably heard about me is nothing but bull. The little guy always gets the shaft, and that's what happened. Let me tell you about it...

The Pipes are Calling - Robert E. Keller

Desperate to find the magic left behind by the Iron Smiths, a young man learns the truth in his reflection.

The Spirit Shaman- Yeoryious Pantazis

A mercenary who rejected his people's traditions, earning him the title of oathbreaker, is about to find out how inescapable those traditions truly are.

http://www.sorceroussignals.com/

RESIDENTIAL ALIENS 4:3

Speculative Fiction from the Seven Stars

SHARP STICK
by Walter G. Esselman
The young dragon, Pavataro, heard the crackling fire. Smoke rolled across the ceiling of the cave, illuminated by the glowrocks embedded in it, casting shafts of color throughout the grey. The dragon walked around the corner. Before a small fire was a young boy with dark unkempt hair and bright orange eyes. The boy, Gideon, stuck the end of a sharpened spear in the fire for a moment and then took it out.

ARTIST INTERVIEW: LANCE RED
ResAliens (RA) is trying something different this month. We’re interviewing artist Lance Red (LR) and publishing a story that he illustrated (read Walter Esselman’s “Sharp Stick” in this issue!). (Did you notice the same icon? Caught your eye, didn’t it?) Lance is an accomplished free-lance illustrator with aspirations of expanding his work to include illustrating books, comics, role-playing games, trading cards, video games, and more. You can find him at RedDayDream.com.

THE DIPLODOCUS EFFECT
by Rob Hunter
Hubert arrived in a cardboard box, the kind they used to mail painted turtles in when I was a kid sending in comic book coupons. Sally Murtaugh, my FedEx driver, pulled up one sunny May afternoon while I was exercising my electric hedge clippers. “Careful, Jim―you’ll cut the cord and kill us all.” We had dated in high school and she felt this gave her some room for comment.

THE OMELET
by Mark Joseph Kiewlak
Keith awoke one day and knew that the world was falling apart. It was only our belief that held it together. And that belief was weakening. The sky was formed from our imagination. We pictured the sky and there it was as we imagined it. But what if we imagined a huge crack across the sky, a tear in our reality? The world could crack open like an egg. We could spill out into the nothingness.

ETCHED IN STONE
by Kate Larkindale
A thin, misty rain falls as I walk up the beach. It is not a heavy rain, but the kind that sinks into your clothes almost insidiously, soaking you to the skin before you realize you are even damp. My hair clings to my cheeks in clumps, water dripping from the long ends. Beneath my feet the stones and pebbles glisten in the muted light, threads of pink and white running through the slate gray. My feet are bare. I like the sensation of these sea-smoothed rocks beneath my feet, some slippery smooth, some still coarse and ridged.

http://www.resaliens.com/

BENEATH CEASELESS SKIES: UPDATE

Beneath Ceaseless Skies

An Online Magazine of Literary Adventure Fantasy

Issue #38 -- Mar. 11, 2010
Also available in EPUB, PDF and Mobi PRC e-book formats, downloadable from the Issue's

Table of Contents.
"Sanji's Demon, Pt. I," by Richard Parks
I didn't have to ask whom he meant, but it seemed that Daiki, in this one regard, was not going to get his wish. The bushi produced two flea-bitten, scruffy men. Both were bruised and bloody but alive. Two more were not. Daiki kicked the body so that it rolled face up and studied the dead man's features. "It would seem the bandit has escaped me after all."

"In Memoriam," by Alys Sterling
I felt it, or rather Gaumont's body did, and with such force that it took me a moment to throw it off, a sudden desperation not to see what lay beneath that heavy drape of fabric. Yet I watched eagerly as the hands drew back the folds of grey material to reveal a granitic face, human in form, but so frozen that its wrinkles might have been carved from stone.

Audio Fiction Podcast 033
"A Skirt of Many Colors," by Catherine Mintz, from BCS #37
I go further in, to the ghosts. The first ghost is the ghost of the Boots. They are two holes in the wave of stone that half-fills a room of the old house. No telling who felt inside the pair of holes and found they were the shape of the inside of a boot. If you slide your feet into them—first checking that nothing has gotten there first—you can ask the ghost for a wish.

BENEATH CEASELESS SKIES: UPDATE

Beneath Ceaseless Skies
An Online Magazine of Literary Adventure Fantasy

Issue #37 -- Feb. 25, 2010

Table of Contents.
"A Skirt of Many Colors," by Catherine Mintz
I go further in, to the ghosts. The first ghost is the ghost of the Boots. They are two holes in the wave of stone that half-fills a room of the old house. No telling who felt inside the pair of holes and found they were the shape of the inside of a boot. If you slide your feet into them—first checking that nothing has gotten there first—you can ask the ghost for a wish.

"Pale," by Kathryn Allen
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.

Audio Fiction Podcast 032
"To Slay with a Thousand Kisses," by Rodello Santos, from BCS #36
Her age was impossible to say, for her face was crusted with muck and roots. Her teeth were like kernels of mottled corn. She was naked, her skin textured like stone, gray and gravelly. Wet, bulbous mushrooms grew in the moss around her womanly crevice. Her reek nearly brought me to my knees.

APHELION: UPDATE

February 2010

In A Time Past

By J. E. Deegan

Cleo and her beloved dog, Joe -- or at least their spirits -- visited their graves every year, remembering the lives they had led and the events that had ended their brief lives. But this year would be different...

The Homecoming

By K. A. Masters

When Larissa Macsterna found the stranded and injured merman in the tidal pool, her life would never be the same.

Dreams On The Wind

By Steele Tyler Filipek

As punishment for their crimes, working on the Atlantic Basin High-Altitude Wind Plant -- a gigantic wind turbine suspended miles above the earth -- had seemed better than the death penalty. But if Corey and Jackson couldn't fix the cables that kept the machine suspended like an enormous kite, they would ride the wreckage all the way down.

The Rebound Effect

By Roderick D. Turner

He thought he was pretty ordinary -- less than ordinary, judging by the way most people treated him. But then the girl said he had potential, and told him to meet her yesterday...

Wanderling

By Benjamin Taylor Jr.

The Captain of the Wanderling seemed to think his current assignment as skipper of a research vessel was boring after years commanding combat ships. The Chief Scientist almost agreed with him -- their mission to gather water samples from remote locales was hardly likely to produce any interesting results. The First Officer, however, found magic in the simplest things.

The Collector

By James Mascia

Jerry was a collector. He retrieved surveillance devices from their observation stations when their tasks were complete. It only looked like he was kidnapping children from their beds.

Best Short Stories of 2009 (Selected by Robert Moriyama)
The Glass Cage

By James Lecky

Ulphia's beauty was legendary. No man could resist it. To preserve it, she would pay any price... (Originally appeared in the February 2009 issue.)

The Wellness Center

By Lee Gimenez

When humans colonized Azulation, they found the natives to be very useful, as slave labor -- and more. But when some of the Blues forget their place, Detective Erik Larson must investigate. (Originally appeared in the March 2009 issue.)

Faux Pair

By Patrick Welch

Apprentice thief Brendell was elated to be given an important assignment the moment he arrived in Perlenz. There was, of course, a catch -- no one who had attempted the job in the past had returned. (Originally appeared in the April 2009 issue.)

Virtual

By T. Richard Williams

Alexis was to participate in a total-immersion telepresence mission to Sedna. Two men thought they knew why; both were wrong. (*Contains adult situations*) (Originally appeared in the May 2009 issue.)

By Invitation Only

By Noel Carroll

Cassie and her husband wanted to see something special on their vacation in the Greek islands. They got their wish at a quaint, very out of the way restaurant... (Originally appeared in the June 2009 issue.)

Wood, Mud, Blood

By Mark Ward

The wizard Edmund Farrier had been sent to investigate trouble in the North Country -- an escalating battle between the king's soldiers and an army of ludkin -- magically animated wooden men...(Originally appeared in the July 2009 issue.)

The Sword in Zoe's Hand

By Gary W. Feather

All that Zoe had left of Michael -- her lover and her sensei -- was a sword and the skill to use it. And with zombies everywhere, it was a very good thing to have. (Originally appeared in the August 2009 issue.)

Pale Nations of the Dead

By James Lecky

In Pame Glorias, the Llorona Xalbadora wept tears of ruby crystal, and waited for one who could free her from her eternal sorrow. (Originally appeared in the September 2009 issue.)

Rad Day

By Roderick D. Turner

Most people sealed themselves in their homes on Rad Days, when radiation levels rose to dangerous levels. But intrepid reporter Kayla Foster knew that the best stories happened when the weirdos figured there were no witnesses... (Originally appeared in the October 2009 issue.)

Blood, Bears, and Canvas

By P. F. White

A two-fisted -- well, two-pawed -- tale set in the dark and dirty world of underground interspecies boxing. (Originally appeared in the November 2009 issue.)

Thy Kingdom Come, My Will Be Done

By Frederick Rustam

The starship TerraNav carried scholars for every major discipline on a mission of exploration. Unfortunately, it also carried a frustrated Chaplain and an A.I. that was eager to hear The Word. (Originally appeared in the December 2009 / January 2010 issue.)

Receipt For A Dragon

By Stuart Sharp

Brian was between jobs, and about to be between girlfriends, thanks to his love of reptiles. Investigating the odd receipt he found in an old book would at least occupy his time.

http://www.aphelion-webzine.com/

ABSENT WILLOW REVIEW: UPDATE

Tales of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: February 2010

Across the Ashes

by Robert Norton

The Dog

by J Westlake

The Interment of Fedella

by Sylvia Hiven

Devil’s Club

by S.P. Miskowski

Plus New Fiction from:

Kate Kelly

Ali Eickholt

Donald Lunsford

and others

http://absentwillowreview.com/

RESIDENTIAL ALIENS 4.2

Speculative Fiction from the Seven Stars

WAIT UNTIL LAST YEAR
by George Duncan
I suppose if you enjoy baseball – OK, if you’re a baseball fanatic – and deal in the science of time travel, you have to expect a few surprises from time to time. Errors – those unexpected bloopers that can change the outcome of a matchup – are just part of baseball. And, of course, there is always that unpredictable element in science. Some call it chaos theory. I just call it part of the game.

NEITHER FISH NOR FOUL
by Walt Staples
“The Law was made for Man, not Man for the Law.”– a Galilean carpenter.
Major Erik Mellien looked up from the papers in his hands at the knock on the door and called, “Come.”
The officer from the Judge Advocate General, Captain Meyer, opened the door and walked in. Mellien eyed the folder in the JAG’s hand with a distaste made up of a 60/40 mixture of experience and fear. Lawyers carrying papers were rarely a good thing in the Fallschirmjäger major’s life.

APOKALUPSIS
by James C. Clar
The four cavalrymen sat in the cold barracks and played cards by the feeble light of a kerosene lantern. The harsh wind outside the ramshackle structure carried the neighing, stomping, and snorting of their mounts from the nearby stable.

ARTIST INTERVIEW: JASON ZAMPOL

ARTIST INTERVIEW: SAMANTHA MOON

http://www.resaliens.com/