Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction #59 is now out! This issue, one of our best ever, contains seven short stories, all of them likely to amaze: “The Devil’s Hollow” by Rafe McGregor, “Give You a Game?” by Michael Wyndham Thomas, “The Baby Downstairs” by Jessy Randall, “The Constant Providers” by Charles Wilkinson, “Man + Van” by David Penn, “The Night They Sacked New Rome” by Elaine Graham-Leigh and “Anathema: The Underside” by Chris Roper. The issue also features the announcement of the first annual Theaker’s Quarterly Award winners, and an essay on fake internet reviews, plus a selection of the fake reviews we wrote to raise money for Comic Relief on Red Nose Day.
Then there are ninety pages of real reviews, by Stephen Theaker, Jacob Edwards, Douglas J. Ogurek and Rafe McGregor.
We review books and audios from Joey Graceffa, John Scalzi, James Lovegrove, Emily Foster, Greg Egan, Nick Mamatas, Bruce Campbell, S.T. Joshi, Oliver Langmead, Bruce Sterling, Lisa A. Koosis, Kai Ashante Wilson and Matthew Hughes; comics including Marceline Gone Adrift, Bloodshot: Reborn, The Complete Scarlet Traces, Groo: Fray of the Gods, The Great Darkness Saga, and X-Men: Legacy; films including Assassin’s Creed (reviewed in verse!), The Bye Bye Man, Get Out, Kong: Skull Island, The Lego Batman Movie, Logan, Rogue One, Spectral, and Split; plus a whole bunch of television programmes: Ash vs Evil Dead, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, Doctor Who: The Power of the Daleks, The Expanse, iZombie, The Man in the High Castle, Sherlock, and Westworld. The spectacular wraparound cover is by Howard Watts.
Here are the wise and generous contributors to this issue:
Charles Wilkinson’s publications include The Pain Tree and Other Stories (London Magazine Editions), Ag & Au (a pamphlet of poems from Flarestack), and his collection of strange tales and weird fiction, A Twist in the Eye, now out from Egaeus Press. His stories have appeared in Best Short Stories 1990 (Heinemann), Best English Short Stories 2 (W.W. Norton), Unthology (Unthank Books), Best British Short Stories 2015 (Salt) and Best Weird Fiction 2015 (Undertow Books), as well as in genre magazines/anthologies such as Black Static, Supernatural Tales, Horror Without Victims, The Dark Lane Anthology, Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction, Phantom Drift, Bourbon Penn, Shadows & Tall Trees, and Nightscript. He lives in Powys, Wales.
David Penn’s short stories have appeared in the magazines Midnight Street, Whispers of Wickedness and previously in Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction, and his poems in Magma, Smith’s Knoll and the Poetry School anthology I Am Twenty People (Enitharmon, 2007). He lives in London, where he also works as a librarian.
Douglas J. Ogurek’s work has appeared in the BFS Journal, The Literary Review, Morpheus Tales, Gone Lawn, and several anthologies. Douglas’s website can be found at www.douglasjogurek.weebly.com.
Elaine Graham-Leigh is a writer and campaigner based in London. When not bringing down the system from within, she writes speculative fiction and has had previous stories published in Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction, Jupiter SF, Bewildering Stories and The Harrow. Her website: www.redpuffin.co.uk.
Howard Watts is a writer, artist and composer living in Seaford. He provides the spacetacular wraparound cover art for this issue. His artwork can be seen in its native resolution on his DeviantArt page: http://hswatts.deviantart.com. His novel The Master of Clouds is available on Kindle.
Jacob Edwards also writes 42-word reviews for Derelict Space Sheep. This writer, poet and recovering lexiphanicist’s website is at www.jacobedwards.id.au. He has a Facebook page at www.facebook.com/JacobEdwardsWriter, where he posts poems and the occasional oddity, and he can now be found on Twitter too: https://twitter.com/ToastyVogon.
Jessy Randall’s science fiction stories and poems have appeared in Asimov’s, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Strange Horizons, and Theaker’s (“The Night of Red Butterflies”, December 2013). Her most recent book is Suicide Hotline Hold Music, a collection of poems and comics. She is a librarian at Colorado College and her website is bit.ly/JessyRandall.
Michael Wyndham Thomas’s novels include The Mercury Annual and Pilgrims at the White Horizon, and his poetry collections include Port Winston Mulberry, Batman’s Hill, South Staffs, Come to Pass and The Stations of the Day. His work has appeared in The Antioch Review, Critical Survey, The London Magazine, Magazine Six, Stand Magazine and the TLS. His novella “Esp” was shortlisted for the UK Novella Award. He is currently working on Nowherian, the fictionalised memoir of a Grenadian traveller. Twitter: @thomasmichaelw. Blog: swansreport.blogspot.co.uk. Website: www.michaelwthomas.co.uk.
Rafe McGregor is the author of The Value of Literature, The Architect of Murder, six collections of short fiction, and one hundred and fifty magazine articles, journal papers, and review essays. He lectures at the University of York and can be found online at @rafemcgregor.
Stephen Theaker is the co-editor of Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction, and the father of two amazing super-friends, one of whom also contributes a review to this issue.
As ever, all back issues of Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction are available for free download.
