Sunday, 29 April 2012

Theaker's Quarterly Fiction #40 – now available for free download!

It's springtime! Don't you deserve to be happy? Then download issue forty of Theaker's Quarterly Fiction – or buy a print copy if you're so inclined!

This issue features our last seven micro-fictions from Rhys Hughes in  “The Delusions and Tangents of Thornton Excelsior”, Lewis Gesner's strange little fable “The Journey of Toil Ling; a Folkish Tale”, a man coping with memories of off-world troubles in “Homecoming” by Mitchell Edgeworth, and thirty-odd pages of reviews by Stephen Theaker, Howard Watts, Jacob Edwards, John Greenwood and Douglas J. Ogurek. Cover art is by Howard Watts and interior art is by Ben Ludlam.

I've been extraordinarily busy with work this month, so (a) I'm really sorry for this issue being a month late and (b) additional apologies if my tired eyes missed anything while proofreading it last thing at night. I'll be giving it another read next month and will hasten to correct any mistakes I find.

Hope you like the new cover design!

This 102pp issue is available in all the usual formats, all free except the print edition, which we’ve priced as cheaply as possible:

Paperback from Lulu
PDF of the paperback version (ideal for iPad – click on File and then Download Original)
Kindle (free)
Epub (ideal for Sony Reader)
TQF40 on Feedbooks

More about the fluffy bunnies who have shared their crunchy carrots with us this time…

BEN LUDLAM is an artist from the wastelands of County Durham. See http://banthafodder.deviantart.com for more of his work. To this issue he contributes the stunning illustration for Rhys Hughes’ sub-story “The Juice of Days”.

DOUGLAS J. OGUREK’s work has appeared in the British Fantasy Society Journal, The Literary Review and Dark Things V (Pill Hill Press). He has also written over fifty articles about architectural planning and design. He contributes a review of Chronicle to this issue. He lives in Illinois with his wife and their six pets.

HOWARD WATTS is an artist from Seaford who provides the celebratory cover to this issue, as well as an in-depth review of Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which has rather been taking over his life. (I learnt my lessons from games three and four in that series, and now stick to safely non-addictive games like The Adventures of Tintin and NCIS: the Game.) He has previously provided covers for Pantechnicon, Dark Horizons and TQF. He has also provided the first cover for Fantasy Short Stories. Check out his page on Deviantart.

JACOB EDWARDS is currently indentured to Australia’s speculative fiction flagship Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, as Jack of all Necessities (Deckchairs and Bendy Straws). The website of this writer, poet and recovering lexiphanicist: www.jacobedwards.id.au.

JOHN GREENWOOD is among us. In this issue he reviews Crimewave Eleven: Ghosts.

LEWIS GESNER is an American writer and artist, living in Taiwan. He publishes, exhibits and performs internationally, and is a member of Mobius artist group in Boston, MA, USA, currently on leave. His book In the Shadow of the Still Hosts is now available from White Sky Books.

MITCHELL EDGEWORTH is a 23-year old writer living in the western suburbs of Melbourne, for his sins. His first short story, “The City”, was published in the Autumn 2011 edition of the Battered Suitcase. Find more of his writing here: www.grubstreethack.wordpress.com.

RHYS HUGHES is a writer of absurdist fantasy that is sometimes serious and realistic but mostly isn’t. His three best books are due out sometime in 2012 and are called The Truth Spinner, The Impossible Inferno and The Abnormalities of Stringent Strange. (And I've just interviewed him for a future issue of the BFS Journal, so look out for that.)

STEPHEN THEAKER is the eponymous co-editor of Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction, and writes many of its reviews. His work has also appeared in respectable publications like Interzone, Prism, Black Static and the BFS Journal.

All thirty-nine previous previous issues of our magazine are available for free download, and in print, from here.

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