Edition 17: Book Review: Vaudeville and Other Nightmares by Greg Chapman
Reviewed by Sophie Yorkston
Vaudeville and Other Nightmares—and if that isn’t a brilliant name for a horror anthology, I don’t know what is—is the first short story anthology from Australian horror writer Greg Chapman and the team at Black Beacon Books.
Edition 17: Where None May Pass by Matthew Spence
On a distant world, a gate stands open to the beyond. Perhaps it draws those only seeking to understand it, but the messages are enough reason to resist. An alien worlds sci-fi, this short piece by Matthew Spence touches on the fact that there are some technologies that should never be explored. SY
If you go to the world known as Far Passage and ask its inhabitants about the arch, they’ll tell you to look for the man known as Lehman. He still lives near the arch, out in the Great Desert where he makes a marginal living as a silicate supplier for fabricators.
He lives in a small dome, left over from the original expedition, where he can stay protected from the desert’s thousand-plus degree temperatures. He’ll tell you how his team found the arch, and why he used it only once and never again, and why it’s forbidden now, except for the dead or terminally-ill who don’t want extension treatments or a post-organic existence.
There are words written on the arch in a language that was dead when humans were still carving pictures on rocks. Lehman knows what the words mean, their significance and why they’re both a greeting and a warning.
If you’re smart, you’ll listen, and not try to use the arch yourself while you’re still alive and healthy.
The system that was home to Far Passage wasn’t important in the grand scheme of things. Few outsiders went there, and human deep space telescopes had found it by accident. Those ships that did perform flybys did so mostly because their navigational systems were using Far Passage’s parent star as a reference point while on their way somewhere else. But Far Passage did have its small share of human colonists, who lived in those hemispheres that had climates that were technically tolerable for them, with the aid of pressure domes and suits. They’d made contact with the natives, who had first told them of the arch. Lehman had been one of those who wanted to see it for themselves.
Edition 17: Results by Denise Robarge Tanaka
Lara Clarke offers another service that stays off her business cards. Not everyone is ready to have the darkness of their past stirred up. But for those special customers, Lara has a special skill, and sometimes they come looking for her help. The touch of the seedy underside of Hollywood in this paranormal psychic adventure leaves you feeling like a dirty deal has been done. SY
“So how does it work?” the client asked, not even taking off his sunglasses.
I get that question every time. People expect lots of chanting gibberish, incense that smells like burning a hippie’s sandals, furniture thumping, lights going out…You know, all that poltergeist crap. My specialty services are not listed in my front office brochure. Lara Diane Clarke, clinical physical therapist, can get you back on the team after that sports injury or back to work after that fender bender.
Not many people know about my paranormal services. He only found me by word of mouth, and even through his sunglasses, I could tell he didn’t believe.
I told him, “You just need to sign the waiver and I’ll prick your finger with a sterile needle. That’s it.”
“That’s it?” he asked skeptically.
“Yep.”
He scanned around the room like he was searching for the hidden camera. I couldn’t blame him for being suspicious. What I do is pretty strange.
“Shouldn’t I fill out a questionnaire or tell you something about my—”
“No,” I said. “That’s what you pay me for. I don’t do interviews. I get results.”
I deliberately used that word, interview, knowing the impact it would have on an actor.
Edition 17: Book Review: Engines of Empathy by Paul Mannering
Reviewed by Damien Smith
My absolute favourite author in the world is Sir Terry Pratchett. So often I read a book with the promise that it’s by “the next Terry Pratchett” because it’s funny, only to be disappointed by a series of cheap puns and unlikely slapstick circumstances. I wasn’t attracted to Paul’s book with the promise of the next Pratchett—nor is he (but then, is anyone?)—but in my eternal search for some decent humourous fiction I found a book that finally pulled me in.
Edition 17: Shutterblind by Jackie Neel
Dani’s vids are getting cut by a new guy, Bialystock, and he’s making her look bad, dragging her down all over the metanet. It spells disaster until suddenly, Dani finds a little perspective. Science fiction ruled by some cyberpunk, Jackie Neel’s tale is an acerbic comment on how connectedness hurts us in the digital age. SY
[Hey], I graff to the guy sitting at the bar. He’s cute, maybe a little shorter than the guys I would normally go for, but my standards are low lately.
[Hey, yourself.] His graff appears to float in white just off the center of my vision. He flashes me a bad boy grin, the type my dad used to warn me about. His name, floating by his graff, is Hunter.
I open a fresh frame in my MindsEye. I snap in a new cam and set it to check him out from the back. Nice toosh.
My main frame glows blue, letting me know someone new has set a cam on me. I pop a new frame and clone the cam—it’s his, and he’s returning the favor. From his smile I suppose those hours on the stair stepper must have done some good.
The game is alive in me, the give and take of pulling. I can almost feel his fingers brushing my neck already, warm and soft and urgent. And I can see already how I’ll cut my vids—a months-long dry spell, a disastrous failed hookup with that Chad guy, and then fade to black as we slip into my apartment. A clean little narrative.
But his smile fades when my frame turns green. He’s looking at my main page, flipping through my vids, checking out the comments and votes. He picks up his beer and turns away.
Edition 17: Book Review: Rooms by Lauren Oliver
Reviewed by Mysti Parker
With the Halloween season comes the pull toward all things spooky. So, for this edition of SQ Mag, Rooms by Lauren Oliver looked like it fit the bill. The book is the first foray into adult fiction by this bestselling YA author. For the most part, the writing was superb, but unfortunately the actual story didn’t quite live up to my expectations.
Rooms opens with the two main protagonists, ghosts Alice and Sandra, taking bets over whether the house’s current resident, Richard Walker, will die at home or in the hospital. After his death, his estranged family arrives to take care of the arrangements. We’re introduced to his ex-wife Caroline (an alcoholic), son Trenton (a suicidal teen), his daughter Minna (a sex addict), and her daughter Amy (a normal six-year-old).
Edition 17: Riding the Tiger By Thomas Canfield
Sorcerer Jusan and servant Asrai travel to Irushtan, purporting to seek diamonds from the miners who toil in the deepest, darkest shafts. What they seek is much more important: the prevention of a war that would destroy them all. Thomas Canfield’s mythological quest is a great example of the great world building of sword and sorcery epics. SY
The mines of Irushtan were the richest ever discovered. They burrowed into the hard red clay of the Laramie outback, cut through layers of sediment and rock and opened virgin earth which no man had heretofore thought to plunder. They honeycombed the land with an elaborate array of shafts and tunnels. No one individual could attest to the full extent of the mines or profess to a complete knowledge of them. They yielded more precious stones and claimed more lives, bred more misery and incited greater greed, than any operation ever had. It was here that the sorcerer Jusan came, announcing that he wished to purchase diamonds.
For seven days the miners flocked to the cottage Jusan had rented. They waited in line, clutching knotted handkerchiefs in which they carried their hoards, eyeing one another warily. They were admitted one at a time, bid to enter by Jusan’s servant, Asrai. Asrai was a supple-limbed youth of nineteen who bore the dusky complexion and dark eyes of those who dwelt far to the East.
“Welcome,” Jusan greeted each miner in turn. “I see that you are a veteran of many years hard labor in the mines. It resides in your face and in your eyes. A difficult life by any measure, and one which none but the stout of heart dare to venture. Perhaps it is you for whom I have been searching. Come, let us see what you bring me.”
Edition 16: Notes From the Editor
As I write this entry to the new edition, I sit listening to the beautiful sounds of White Vinyl Design’s music of the solar system. It’s so fitting to the time of year in Canada, where I am currently, full of soft and lullaby-like tunes. You can find the link on any of our social media sites, posted on the 30th of August. Astounding the way the creativity the galaxy inspires.
We’re gathering our energies together again after the publication of Star Quake 2, our Best of 2013 edition. There’s been so much wonderful feedback from our contributors who have received the books, and for a limited time, you can get Star Quake 1 and 2 in a special two-for-one deal. Awesome! Please help support us by getting the word out.
It’s that time of year where we also start talking about our special edition for May 2015. This year we’re looking for new spins on fables and fairytales; legends of a new age. What will catch our eye are stories that haven’t been told, or fables that aren’t Eurocentric, like Grimm or Christian-Anderson. Details will be forthcoming soon after the publication of this issue.
Edition 16: Internal Exile by Jim Lee
What if your worst memory or your most regretted action was replayed for you over and over again. Welcome to corrective therapy, the capital punishment under the current planetary government. Jim Lee’s science fiction world shows us that it is our ideas which can be dangerous to the powers-that-be. SY
They roused Sidi Mohamed Daoud from a very old nightmare—one he once dared imagine he’d left behind with his troubled and far-distant adolescence. Ironically enough, it was the one that had driven him into social activism in the first place. And now, with a secret and shameful certitude, he knew it would be used against him.
And the ones who were about to do this unspeakable thing to him had no idea, no conception what he faced. If they did, perhaps they would understand his attempted suicide. But would they care—even if they knew?
He looked at the Senior Attending Physician’s impassive face and doubted it.
Two brawny orderlies, one of either gender, deactivated the restraints. They slipped his naked form into one of the new ‘smart’ hospital gowns—one that would detach itself and slither away upon the Senior Attending Physician’s order.
With the SAP, the orderlies escorted Daoud from the temporary holding cell. They ushered him down one final hallway to Corrective Therapy Room D427.
“That many?” Daoud blinked, turned to the SAP. “Doctor Sayem? Each inmate does require a separate room?”
SQ Mag 