Edition 26: Clockwork Hearts by J.B. Rockwell
Casey has lost the only person who seemed to care since the death of his mother. The unusual man at the duck pond, feeding Mrs. Kuschikin’s ducks, piques Casey’s interest and he has to find out the truth of his appearance. No matter what it costs him.
J.B. Rockwell leads us down the precarious and lively garden path of childhood; the dramatic need to have all the answers. This story looks at the need of another to make a better world for one’s self, and another. SY
They held Mrs. Kuschikin’s funeral in the pickle factory her family had owned and operated for over a hundred years, and a memorial in Wickering Park after. Not your typical send-off, but that’s what Mrs. Kuschikin wanted. She never had been one for fanfare and folderol, after all. Especially when said fanfare and folderol involved herself.
The funeral itself was mercifully short, and it was a fine June day for the memorial—the kind of day that made ten-year-old boys like Casey grateful to be outside—but the official in charge of Mrs. Kuschikin’s memorial just kept droning on and on and on.
Casey wished he’d hurry up already. He hated having all these stranger around him, whispering, staring, throwing pitying glances his way. ‘Look at the poor little broken boy in the wheelchair,’ their eyes said.
But he wasn’t broken. Casey’s legs just didn’t work like theirs.
Edition 26: Game Review: Lifeline by Dave Justus
Reviewed by Damien Smith
Symbiosis, as defined by a quick Google search, is “interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association, typically to the advantage of both.” This could be between two close family members, one of those little birds that pick bits out of crocodiles’ teeth or, in this case, between protagonist and reader.
Edition 26: Outbreak by Adam Kotlarczyk
What happens after the apocalypse is done? A group of survivors live in a former college, come to rely on one another. Kris is dying but what does that mean for the rest of them?
Symbiosis can be a very intricate and subtle process. It can be a community of organisms living and working together for the betterment of them all. Adam Kotlarczyk takes this idea and works it in delightfully into this post-apocalyptic snapshot.
SY
We’re all having dinner when my friend Kris collapses. Tony had just broken some bad news to us:
“Saw some Hendersons yesterday,” he says, working on an apple. “A whole mess of them.” Tony has these beautiful, sincere brown eyes, and he wields them like a superpower. We’re all about 90% sure he was a used car salesman before. He knows just how to use them to get an effect. Now the effect on the group is anxiety. All eyes turn to Phil.
“Hendersons?” says Phil, digging his fingers into his gray beard. “Why would they be all the way out here?”
“Water, I think,” says Tony, looking around the room. “Any rate, the pond is where I saw them.”
Edition 26: Against the Grain by S.L. Dixon
Marvin knows that the world around him is a dangerous farce. This is not his real life. His worlds exist side-by-side, but can he rectify them before his mask becomes his reality?
This horror piece, delving into the existence of an individual’s psychologically-perceived worlds existing side-by-side, perfectly captured the (sometimes) precarious balance of this edition’s theme. SY
Misery doesn’t love company. Complaints, bitchiness and boredom love company. Misery is a solitary place. A place where one exists alone with only thought and pain as company.
Marvin Jackson considered this whim in front of a mirror as he gazed into the red of his eyes, the tiny veins like hot red fingers reaching for his irises. It had been another long and uncomfortable night.
Physically, the pillow-top mattress with gentle heat and subtle cooling options was akin to resting on a genius cloud, one ready to accommodate with the push of a button. The remote sat where they always had next to the bed, untouched. Marvin’s eyes stared at the ceiling, casting aside the dark around him in search of more dark, a dark that could take him to a worthwhile life.
“This bed, this room, this is not who I am,” he mumbled.
Next to him, his wife rolled and smacked her lips while she slept. She always slept so easily.
Edition 26: Astralgaloi by A. L. Lorentz
Virralat and Ira are the only mission members that made it to Venus. As they work together to continue the mission, in the absence of any communication from home, their relationship seems fraught. But together they must continue to exist.
A.L. Lorentz has worked many layers of commensal relationships into this science fiction short. See if you can spot them all! SY
My emerald hands glittered with every twitch in the pale indoor light of the cleaning chamber. The diagonal facets tessellating my body echoed the heavy metal grating I stood on and the reinforced lights below. I remember the days, literally worlds away, when I wondered if anyone would ever give me just one diamond. Now I have millions.
They said Venus was the best chance to start a much needed human colonization effort, but they gave me so many changes I barely felt human by the time we arrived. NASA’s microbes turned my skin verdant and my lungs ochre. The sparkles were a fortunate side effect of using my skin to separate carbon and oxygen from the otherwise deadly troposphere. Fortunate not for aesthetic reasons, but protection against acid rain.
NASA gave me a suitor too: Ira.
Edition 26: Book Review: The Eschatologist by Greg Chapman
Reviewed by Lee Murray
In our time-poor society, novellas are becoming a mainstay of our literary diet: stories which can be told in manageable bite-sized chunks, ideal for bedtime reading or workday commutes. So, when Greg Chapman’s The Eschatologist came across my desk, just 96 pages of concentrated darkness, it didn’t languish on the pile for long.
Edition 26: Given Shape by Moonlight by Suzanne J. Willis
Devon finds the unexpected in the dusk dive. But the history of her family and the Asrai goes back further than she could have known.
Cooperation and coexistence appear at the end of this delightful fantasy, even if only for a brief moment. SY
The last of the sunlight shafted through the water, twining through the green kelp and transforming its tips into diaphanous siren hands. Devon was mesmerised by it momentarily, and then checked the regulator and her oxygen readings. Sunset dives were tricky and more than one diver had been lost in these underwater forests as day turned to dusk, then night.
A flash, a slivering gleam far below caught Devon’s eye—she hadn’t imagined it earlier. It flickered through the fronds, a mysterious beacon in the watery gloaming. Her diving partner, Christine, was observing sea otters near the top of the kelp, close enough for Devon to feel safe to dive just a little lower.
There. With each pulse, the light outlined a gate made of glass and faded gold. Above Devon, Christine motioned for her to come to the surface. She shook her head in response, pointed below. At that distance, in these waters, she shouldn’t be able to see it so clearly and in such detail.
Unbelievable, she thought, checking her oxygen again. But it was there and behind it, a city of molten glass, rising through the green depths in spires and turrets and ever-changing gables. Mist swirled and eddied in the glass buildings and—impossibly—through the streets and alleyways between them. It glimmered, shifted, reformed, a ghostly song made into faery palaces twisting in the tide. Read the rest of this entry
Edition 26: Risk Analysis by Tom Dullemond
Ships find transformative nodes, buried in proscribed space. Someone must go in to destroy or salvage what they can of these evolving ships. On this mission, not all is as it seems.
Tom Dullemond brings us all the dangers of a mission of salvage with the additional dangers of a ship cannibalising itself and its crew. Helping another organism to achieve its ends is symbiosis; but sometimes this seemingly commensal relationship can be coopted. SY
[static]
Mission log: Today’s salvage target, The Great Bluefin, is a registered Mitsuyama Corp long-range supply transport. It was unofficially flagged as a conversion-risk vessel after impact with a dormant node in proscribed space. Please note: I will commence this salvage operation by entering through the primary outer loading hatch. This was also the entry point of the failed recovery mission launched by Mitsuyama Corporate Security three hours ago.
[clicking]
~~~
Supplementary: This recording is supplementary to the mandatory safety and operational mission log, reference number Q-B7054. It’s the only safe way to record these operations. I don’t know when you’re reviewing this so please indulge me.
News: Shadows Award Trophy
We have just received the trophy for last year’s Shadows Award for Best Collected Work: 2014. What a magnificent beast! It’s with the publisher at the moment, but it rightly goes to Sophie Yorkston, Editor-in-Chief of SQ Mag. It was Edition 14 (May 2014) – the Australiana issue, that wowed the judges, where they said:
Sophie Yorkston’s edited work showcases some of the best dark writing coming out of Australia today. Many of the stories are powerful and haunting, all of them are original. SQ #14 gives us a collection that is unified by its Australian voices and at the same time wonderfully diverse. It’s threaded with nonfiction pieces that have a firm grip on the pulse of Australian genre writing.
Well done to Sophie again! She will be handed the trophy very soon, after the publisher gloats for a while.
Also thanks to the Australian Horror Writers Association for creating such an impressive trophy.
The Publisher, Gerry Huntman, gloating.
SQ Mag 