Welcome again all to our November edition and Happy Halloween or All Hallow’s Eve to our northern hemisphere readers. I love this time, caught between the two hemispheres, of all the colour of these stages of life; the bursting forth of the new, ready to begin, and the slow whiling away of the old in a last burst of vivacity into decrepit waste.

Our edition unintentionally came together with a bit of a spooky feel. There’s a psychic who sees ghosts, a portal to the afterlife, a collection of dark and twisted tales reviewed, and another novel assessed with ghosts at its heart. Perhaps the forces of the other side have helped bring it all together for appropriate enjoyment for those still amongst the living…

We are on a bit of a science fiction kick at the moment in our submissions, which is lovely, as it had been lacking for a while there. There’s several stories in this edition to evidence just how versatile a genre it is. It also ties in particularly well with the great 70s and 80s-style sci-fi cover brought to you by the talents of artist and writer Andrew J. McKiernan. Thanks for the nostalgia, Andrew!

The edition begins with a delightful tale from Meryl Stenhouse of Endless Jones and her quest to return to the home she doesn’t remember in Hunting the Sky Gods. In the dark exploration science fiction, Where None Shall Pass by Matthew Spence, a gate to another place stands open but there are some lines that shouldn’t be crossed. Jackie Neel brings us a cautionary word on today’s life and the detriment of always being connected in Shutterblind. Thomas Canfield’s Riding the Tiger ends the edition with the delicious flavour of the selfless quest, the one standing against the greed of ages to save life as it is now. As always, we really enjoyed each of the contributed stories and hope that you will too.

We’re wrapping up Arthur Davis’ pursuit across the sand of The Moreland Basking Plains in this edition, and I think that we can all agree that there aren’t enough new epics around these days. But today, the fate of hero Logan Drewry is revealed.

Reviews for this edition represent three of our largest readership. First off the bat is the suitably dark short story anthology, Vaudeville and Other Nightmares, by Greg Chapman, who is an Aussie author and illustrator, and published by an up and coming Australian small publisher. The book’s official launch is Halloween and we wish both Greg and Black Beacon Books a successful launch. Damien Smith is back reviewing Engines of Empathy by New Zealand author Paul Mannering, which ended up being right up Damien’s alley by harnessing his love of humorous speculative fiction. Mysti Parker also picked a suitable book for the season about the intersection of the living and the dead in Lauren Oliver’s Rooms. We’d love to hear if you had any thoughts on the books yourself; don’t forget to comment at the bottom of the review page.

The entries for this year’s Story Quest competition, depending on your hemisphere, are closed or almost there. We’re looking forward to seeing what a talented world of writers has done with the theme, Punkin’ the Train, and the variety of -punk worlds we’ll see. Judges for this year are: Tonia Brown, writer of great steampunk with darker twists; Gerry Huntman, chief of IFWG Publishing; yours truly; our communications manager, Esme Carpenter, and another member of the founding members of IFWG Publishing, Warren Goodwin.

The release of the theme of our Special Edition in May of 2015 is just around the corner. We have the talented Angela Slatter locked in as one of our feature authors and will announce the others as soon as they are finalised.

That’s all our news for the moment, so I will leave you to the part we all like best—the fiction! Enjoy and if you do, comment, share the love in some way. We would love to have our site seen on screens in every corner of the globe and we know that’s the best bit of free fiction.

Until a brand new year, may you find many strange and wonderful new worlds of speculative fiction to escape to.

Sophie
Editor, SQ Mag