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Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction #54 is here. It features a new short story by Charles Wilkinson, “Septs”, and an entire novella – complete in this issue! – by Patrick Whittaker, former winner of the BFS Short Story Competition. “The Policeman and the Silence” concerns a murder investigation in the weird town of Kaza-Blanka. I think you’ll love both stories. The issue also includes a tremendously exciting editorial where I (a) apologise for this issue being late, (b) talk about a publisher who doesn’t pay their reviewers slamming people who don’t pay other types of writer, and (c) look back at my reading in 2015. The issue also includes thirty-one reviews, by Douglas J. Ogurek, Jacob Edwards and me.
We look at the work of Charles Chilton, Felicia Day, Warren Ellis, Johann Peter Hebel, K.J. Parker, Terry Pratchett, H.G. Wells, Royce Prouty, Malcolm C. Lyons, Pu Songling, Sam Dyer, Leo, Garth Ennis and John McCrea, Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener, CLAMP, Robbie Morrison and Brian Williamson, Keith Giffen and Robert Loren Fleming, Alexandro Jodorowsky and Zoran Janjetov, and Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra. Plus there are reviews of
Ant-Man,
Goosebumps,
The Green Inferno,
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2,
Krampus,
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (twice),
The Visit,
Trials Fusion Awesome Max Edition,
Arrow Season 2,
Doctor Who Season 9, and
The Flash Season 1.
The amazing wraparound cover art is, as ever, by the marvellous Howard Watts.
Here are the kindly contributors to this issue:
Charles Wilkinson’s books have included
The Pain Tree and Other Stories (London Magazine Editions) and
Ag & Au, a pamphlet of his poems. 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),
London Magazine,
Under the Radar,
Prole,
Able Muse Review,
Ninth Letter,
The Sea in Birmingham and in genre magazines/anthologies such as
Supernatural Tales,
Horror Without Victims (Megazanthus Press),
Rustblind and Silverbright (Eibonvale Press),
Phantom Drift (USA),
Bourbon Penn (USA),
Shadows & Tall Trees,
Prole,
Nightscript and
Best Weird Fiction 2015 (Undertow Books). He lives in Powys, Wales, where he is heavily outnumbered by members of the ovine community.
A Twist in the Eye, his collection of strange tales and weird fiction, is forthcoming from Egaeus Press. Several of the stories first appeared in
Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction.
Douglas J. Ogurek’s work has appeared in the
BFS Journal,
The Literary Review,
Morpheus Tales,
Gone Lawn, and several anthologies. He lives in a Chicago suburb with the woman whose husband he is and their pit bull Phlegmpus Bilesnot. Douglas’s website can be found at:
http://www.douglasjogurek.weebly.com.
Howard Watts is a writer, artist and composer living in Seaford who also provides the 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 now available on Kindle.
Jacob Edwards also writes 42-word reviews for Derelict Space Sheep. This writer, poet and recovering lexiphanicist’s website is at
http://www.jacobedwards.id.au. He has a Facebook page at
http://www.facebook.com/JacobEdwardsWriter, where he posts poems and the occasional oddity.
Patrick Whittaker has made the occasional foray into short film making and has two feature film scripts in pre-production. Two of his shorts – The Raven and Raspberry Ripple – have won awards. He has an honours degree in Media Production. In 2009, he won the British Fantasy Society Short Story Competition with “Dead Astronauts”, a tale of odd goings-on in English suburbia. His dystopian novel, Sybernika, is published by Philistine Press:
http://www.philistinepress.com.
Stephen Theaker’s reviews have appeared in
Interzone,
Black Static,
Prism and the
BFS Journal, as well as clogging up our pages. He shares his home with three slightly smaller Theakers, runs the British Fantasy Awards, and works in legal, medical and political publishing.
As ever, all back issues of Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction are available for free download.
