Edition 13: The Girl in the Glass Bottle by Brian G Ross
Amy is in a desperate situation and seeks help by message in a bottle. When she starts to receive replies, Amy opens up and her friend across the sea helps her plan to thwart the evil in her life. SY
I rolled up the piece of paper tightly, until it was no larger in diameter than a fast-food milkshake straw. My favourite doll, Miss Louise, was squeezed under my arm. She couldn’t breathe, but even though she didn’t complain, I still tried to be quick about it anyway. As soon as I dropped the paper into the glass bottle, it immediately uncurled and filled the empty space inside.
Most of what I had written had been obscured by the curvature of the glass, but as I turned the bottle this way and that, I could make out some of the words. Hit. Broken. Scared. Need help. I wrote that bad things would happen if they didn’t act soon, and left my name and address at the bottom.
Edition 13: Catch of the Day by J. R. Johnson
Ray is a glorified smuggler, who finds himself in an untenable situation that can only be solved with some outside intervention. Full of tricks and betrayal to make the waters murky, Ray’s plan requires all his wits and cunning to get out of the game. SY
The last drops of morning rain skittered past me, chased by sun shining brutal and hot against a backdrop of dark clouds. Gulls crowded the Walmart parking lot where I stopped to make the call, their white and grey feathers highlighting a magnificent post-storm rainbow. The colorful illusion faded as I watched, leaving only birds fighting for crumbs and screaming. Yanking at my thinning hair, I tried to think of options that didn’t end with me dead.
Nope, nothing. Except to turn my back on everything I knew, everything I was, and make a play for a real life. One with Keri.
Edition 13: Interview with Jeremy C Shipp
Interview by Sophie Yorkston
Tell us a little about yourself? What are you like to meet?
I am a cat-loving, spork-wielding, tea-drinking primate living in a haunted house. The first time you meet me, I’m like Bashful, one of the seven dwarves from Snow White. The next time you meet me, I’ll be less shy. I’ll be a combination of Doc, Happy and Dopey.
You write dystopian, horror and bizarro fiction. Do you find that it overlaps and which is your favourite to write? Which is your favourite to read? Read the rest of this entry
Edition 13: Stills by Jeremy C Shipp
The latest in home decorating style are the Stills, key to any successful social engagement. Their position requires time, patience, and only the very best will do. A great bizarro piece from our guest author, Jeremy C. Shipp. SY
You can imagine the shock to my nerves when I catch my son balancing on a wobbly barstool, placing a diaper on a woman’s head.
“Look, mama,” my boy says. “She’s a diaper queen. Mama, look.”
I cross my arms over my chest, so that he knows I mean business. “Take that off of her. And get down from there. Now.”
Steven leaps off the stool and I gasp. Thankfully he doesn’t break a leg or even twist an ankle. He rushes away from me, giggling, flapping his arms like a frightened chicken.
Edition 13: Notes From the Editor
Hello everyone! We’d like to welcome you all back for Edition 13, a special edition with guest contributor Jeremy C. Shipp.
Jeremy C. Shipp is a writer of Bizarro fiction, a genre that some of our readers may not have encountered before. Jeremy is a writer who experiments in a variety of different genres, but is well known for being a leader in Bizarro. He has very generously contributed a story for the e-zine, The Stills. We hope you enjoy it and the questions he answered about himself and his work for SQ. The announcement of the winners of a recent contest, who will receive signed copies of his books, will be happening shortly after the publication of this edition.
We also have tons of other great fiction on the agenda for you. J.R. Johnson tells a tale of magical artefact smuggling, full of betrayal and twists and turns in Catch of the Day. Third place in IFWG Publishing Australia’s Story Quest contest, Dan Rabarts writes Keeping an Open Mind, a positing of where the soul resides and the gory answer.
Notice
Welcome to SQ Mag
On 2 April 2014 a computing catastrophic event caused our ezine site to lose all of its data and formatting permanently. We can only be grateful that we have all material to reconstruct the site, and that it occurred halfway between our editions.
We apologise for the disruption, but we will be rapidly rebuilding the site, although with a new format and design. Every cloud has a silver lining.
We have decided to rebuild our site in ‘real time’ – that is, we will publish all our changes as we go along, until we get close to the end of April, when we will hold off publishing until the May edition is released on the 1 May.
If you want to view our site up to our January 2014 edition, it can be found at the National Library of Australia’s digital archive.
Any comments on our style and format are welcome.
Apologies again for this disruption. We have taken steps to ensure this does not happen again.
Gerry Huntman
Publisher, SQ Mag
Edition 1: Notes From the Editor
Welcome to the very first edition of SQ Mag, our all new ezine.
All of us here at the magazine, and at IFWG, are loving the great new online format. We are also excited with the possibility of reaching great new audiences and other speculative fiction enthusiasts.
If you enjoy what you’re reading, please share it with others. And if you’re feeling generous, drop us a donation so we can keep on entertaining.
Our new edition showcases the exceptional quality of short stories received here at the magazine and for the associated Story Quest competition, run by IFWG Publishing.
Edition 1: Rationalized by Larry Hodges
“Rationalized” was the winner of the 2011 Story Quest Short Story Contest. Dystopian short fiction has a long history, the modern era examples stretching back to the late 1940s, and some of the best science fiction fall into this sub-genre. The judges of the Story Quest contest determined that Larry Hodges’ piece, Rationalized, took a fresh approach, and carried a clear and brutal message. Hodges, a seasoned wordsmith, asks the question, what do I do if the odds are overwhelmingly against me? I’ll leave the answer to those who read his short story. GH
How nice—to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.
~ Kurt Vonnegut
It had been a long Saturday morning, but the training was over. Now Dr. Bruce watched Jeremy and his friend Lara as they played games and drank lemonade. Both actions were illegal.
He took a sip of the chemically-created lemonade he made himself. It was a break from the dreary diet of nutricubes and water, the only approved food or drink allowed or needed. He wondered if actual lemon trees still existed.
Jeremy came over. “Dad, where’s the puppy?” he whispered.
They’d “borrowed” it from the puppy farm.
“I kept it a secret like you asked, but when are you going to tell us what it’s for?”
“Soon,” Bruce said.
Edition 1: Nullus by Mitchell Edgeworth
Traversing the Nullarbor can make you think you’re alone in the world. But this time, it’s not just a feeling. An Australian twist on apocalyptic fiction that’s sure to raise the hairs on the back of your neck. SY
You didn’t think you’d have bad weather in summer, yet here are grey skies lying sulky over the Nullarbor in the middle of February. Nothing you can do about it. You take the tent down and stow it in the panniers before straddling the Kawasaki and continuing east. With luck, you might hit Ceduna before nightfall.
At Balladonia an Irish backpacker serves you coffee and a sandwich, and looks wistfully out the window at your bike parked by the petrol bowsers, the clutter of occy-strapped luggage teetering on the rear of the seat. “You take carr on dat boike, all right? Just take it easy.”
Ravens flutter and croak in the spindly trees at the edge of the road. The flat and barren landscape is broken only by the occasional road sign or ruined farmstead. You gear down every time a road-train approaches, lowering your head so the whoosh of displaced air doesn’t pick you up off the bike. At 120 kilometres an hour, the buzz of the engine levels out as a steady drone. The frigid wind picks out the exposed bits of skin between helmet and jacket. Still, the weather holds out.
SQ Mag 
