Apocalypse Now Now by Charlie Human / review by Tim Atkinson

With fantasy these days increasingly resembling the long tail of YA fiction, it’s a post-Potter world in which we’re living now.

And Apocalypse Now Now (Century, pb), the debut novel by South African Charlie Human, exemplifies that shift. Cannily positioned on the cusp of YA and proper grown-up fantasy, it owes a sizeable debt to J.K. Rowling’s creation, even when it’s reacting against it. Indeed, much of its appeal comes from its simultaneous celebration and subversion of the usual teenage wish-fulfilment tropes against the colourful backdrop of Cape Town.

Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction #48: out now!

Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction #48 features six stories, twenty-two reviews, and a grumbly out-of-date editorial. The fiction includes epic punk fantasy (“A Thousand Eyes See All I Do” by Charles Wilkinson), Oulippean island adventure (“Beatrice et Veronique: Into the Island” by Antonella Coriander), meetings with the almost-dead (“The Collection Agent” by John Greenwood and “Contractual Obligations” by Howard Watts), self-published silliness (“I Couldn’t See Past the Spider” by Stephen Theaker) and even some genuine wisdom (“The Riches” by Tim Jeffreys).

Books by Charlie Human, Carrie Patel, Eviatar Zerubavel, Matthew Hughes, Ian McDonald, Katherine Addison, Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa, Joe Schreiber and Henri Vernes are reviewed, and there are also reviews of comics (A.B.C. Warriors, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Luther Strode), films (Edge of Tomorrow, Ernest et Célestine, Godzilla, Maleficent), and television programmes (From Dusk Till Dawn, Game of Thrones, The Tripods, True Detective). Plus a game (Injustice: Gods Among Us) and an album (Indie Cindy by the Pixies).

Here it is: free epub, free mobi, free pdf, print UK, print USA, Kindle UK store, Kindle US store.

These are the bakers of those tasty doughnuts:

Antonella Coriander has (in this reality, at least) only ever been published in Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction, to her great dismay. Her story in this issue is the second part of her ongoing Oulippean serial.

John Greenwood’s stories have appeared in Bourbon Penn and Rustblind and Silverbright, but his most recent fiction for our own magazine seems to have been all the way back in 2010, when the long-running (and much-missed) saga of Newton Braddell came to a conclusion in #32. He returns to the front of house in this issue with “The Collection Agent”.

Charles Wilkinson’s publications include The Snowman and Other Poems (Iron Press, 1978) and The Pain Tree and Other Stories (London Magazine Editions, 2000). His stories have appeared in Best Short Stories 1990, Best English Short Stories 2, Midwinter Mysteries, Unthology, London Magazine, Able Muse Review and in genre magazines/ anthologies such as Supernatural Tales, Horror Without Victims, The Sea in Birmingham, Sacrum Regnum, Rustblind and Silverbright and Shadows & Tall Trees. Ag & Au, a pamphlet of his poems, has come out from Flarestack and new short stories are forthcoming in Ninth Letter and Bourbon Penn. His story in this issue is “A Thousand Eyes See All I Do”, which may somewhat surprise readers after the quiet horror of the previous stories we have published by him.

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 five pets. In this issue he reviews the film Maleficent. His website: www.douglasjogurek.weebly.com.

Howard Watts is a writer, artist and composer living in Seaford who provides the cover art for this issue and a story too, “Contractual Obligations”.

Jacob Edwards belongs in truth to Australia’s speculative fiction flagship Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, but we’re happy that he dabbles with us. This writer, poet and recovering lexiphanicist’s website is at: www.jacobedwards.id.au. In this issue he reviews Edge of Tomorrow, Ernest et Célestine, Star Wars: Maul – Lockdown and The Tripods.

Stephen Theaker reviews too many things to list in this issue, but given that he has another twenty unfinished reviews on the go perhaps he should consider making them a bit shorter, hm? Or not trying to review absolutely everything he reads, hm? No one is interested in what he thinks about Sabrina the Teenage Witch: 50 Magical Stories! Anyway, his work has also appeared in Black Static, Interzone, Prism and the BFS Journal. His hobbies include the creation of new authorial pseudonyms and watching the arguments in Kickstarter comment threads.

Tim Atkinson makes his TQF debut in this issue with a review of Apocalypse Now Now. Tim lives, reads and works in the West Midlands. Sporadically he jots down thoughts about SFF and more at www.magpie-moth.blogspot.co.uk.

Tim Jeffreys is another Tim making his first TQF appearance in this issue, with the story “The Riches”. He is a UK-based writer of horror and speculative fiction, whose work has appeared in various anthologies and magazines.

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Bonus! To celebrate this new issue, all our Amazon exclusive ebooks will be absolutely free this week: Professor Challenger in Space, Quiet, the Tin Can Brains Are Hunting!, The Fear Man, Howard Phillips in His Nerves Extruded, Howard Phillips and the Doom That Came to Sea Base Delta, Howard Phillips and the Day the Moon Wept Blood, The Mercury Annual and Pilgrims at the White Horizon.

As ever, all back issues of Theaker's Quarterly Fiction are available for free download.

Guardians of the Galaxy / review by Stephen Theaker

Guardians of the Galaxy (Marvel, 121 mins), directed and co-written by James Gunn, begins with a boy, Peter Quill, saying goodbye to his dying mother. Running in tears from the hospital he is abducted by aliens. It’s the beginning of a life of adventure, and that’s where we meet him next, a couple of decades later. He’s a dumbcracking rascal, going by the name of Star-Lord, on the trail of an ancient relic. So are Yondu Udonta (a merc, his former boss), Ronan the Accuser, and Nebula and Gamora (the adopted daughters of Thanos). And Star-Lord has two bounty hunters on his own tail: tree-like Groot and Rocket, a cybernetically-enhanced raccoon. After causing a scene on a peaceful planet, Star-Lord, Rocket, Groot and Gamora end up in space prison, where they meet Drax the Destroyer, an implacable enemy of Thanos. At first, the five seem to have little in common, but they will become… the Guardians of the Galaxy!

Theaker's shorterly reviews

Hi chums!

You may notice that my reviews for our blog and zine, rarely very lengthy, get quite a bit shorter in future. It's not a general policy change for our publication: we're as happy as ever for reviewers to work at their own preferred length. It's just a change for me as a writer. I've been leaving an awful lot of reviews unfinished, because I don't have a lot of time to write, and it's been bugging me.

For one thing, the backlog has been a drag on my reading, because I don't want to start reading other books that are for review and thus add to the pile. And I think a timely hundred-word review is more use to everyone than a five hundred-word review that arrives three years after the book. I'll probably end up writing about the same amount in total, just spread across more items, and with reviews appearing more promptly.

As part of this change, I'm adding star ratings to my reviews. They're not universally popular, but if you're only writing a hundred words or two, a star rating saves a lot of time, saying quickly and clearly exactly how good you thought something was. I thought about returning to our old ten-point scale, but it doesn't have the equivalent of three stars, which I think is the perfect rating for something you enjoyed just fine but didn't adore.

Anyway, hope that's all okay. Just wanted to let you all know!

I Need a Doctor: the Whosical by Jessica Spray and James Wilson-Taylor / review by Stephen Theaker #edfringe

I Need a Doctor: the Whosical, by Jessica Spray and James Wilson-Taylor, showing daily as part of the Edinburgh Fringe at the Pleasance Above during August, is a comedic musical starring two performers, Jess and James, whose hopes of staging a Doctor Who show have been thwarted by BBC red tape. Hoped-for guest stars from the Whoniverse have sent their apologies and only the two of them are left. Undeterred, they press on. Jess will play the companion, and James will play everyone else: the Exterminators, Da Masta, Amy Wand, K-10, and a doctor (not the Doctor), cleverly dodging copyright concerns in an adventure through time and space. The songs are catchy (I even bought the CD), the performances are energetic and joyful, and with jokes about Tennant-fancying and fanlore this works as well for big kids as little ones.  ****

I Killed Rasputin by Richard Herring / review by Stephen Theaker

A film, I Killed Rasputin (1967), has been made of the memoir of Prince Felix Yusupov, who claims to have killed Rasputin, the dangerously influential Russian monk. Well, he claims to have kicked off the process with a bit of poisoning, before shooting and drowning finished the tenacious Mad Monk off. Or did it? Was any of the story true? An American journalist has his doubts, and comes to interview the elderly Yusupov (played by Nichola McAuliffe), though the prince’s wife Irina (a niece of the executed tsar) often chips in. This is the story of I Killed Rasputin, a new play by Richard Herring, showing during August at the George Square Theatre as part of the Edinburgh Fringe. It’s a very funny piece, cleverly staged – the windows of the prince’s apartment double as windows into the past, scenes playing out behind the fog of transparencies. To some extent it’s the dramatisation and exposition of a theory, but it’s an interesting theory and it works with the characters, illuminating rather than overwhelming them, taking us further into the heart of the foolish man who says he did it. Even now he is plagued by the Mad Monk: the play begins with him seeing off Rasputin once again, this time with a waste basket! Though at first it came as a slight disappointment that Herring wasn’t playing Rasputin (I thought that was him in the poster), the cast is excellent, right down to the prince’s dog, showing wit and versatility. And though I saw a fairly early show in the run, it felt well-rehearsed, the quick changes passing off without a hitch. I do recommend it, though families should be warned that the 12+ rating in the Fringe guide is a bit off – I’d put it at 15 at least, thanks to swearing and simulated (albeit jokey) sex. Otherwise, if you’re in Edinburgh this month, be sure to catch this play. ****

Empress of the Sun by Ian McDonald, reviewed by Stephen Theaker

Ian McDonald’s Empress of the Sun (digital audiobook, Audible, 10 hrs 40 mins), read by Tom Lawrence, is on the whole a audiobook of two sides. One deals with Everett Singh, off on an airship, Everness, that can slide between alternative Earths with a rough and ready crew. In this adventure they find themselves on an Earth where the dinosaurs never died out, and their evolution and development continued, to the point where they were powerful enough to re-engineer most of the solar system into a great torus around the sun.

The Buried Life by Carrie Patel, reviewed by Stephen Theaker

In The Buried Life (Angry Robot, ebook, 4443ll) Carrie Patel tells the story of two women. Jane Lin is a laundry woman trusted by the height of high society to deal with their dirtiest and daintiest unmentionables. Liesl Malone is a police officer, currently getting used to a new partner with a theatrical background. They are brought together by a series of murders: Malone is shut out of the investigation – at least officially – but won’t let that stop her getting at the truth, while Jane is knocked unconscious after literally stumbling across the body of a Mr Fitzhugh during a late night laundry run. A conspiracy is afoot!

Injustice: Gods Among Us, Ultimate Edition, reviewed by Stephen Theaker

Injustice: Gods Among Us (Xbox 360) begins in the aftermath of the nuclear destruction of Metropolis by the Joker. He’s in custody, being roughed up by Batman, when Superman turns up and gets uncharacteristically rougher. Then we cut to a scene of the Justice League fighting various villains, and, if we didn’t already know, we discover at last what kind of game this is: a 2D fighter, like The Way of the Exploding Fist without the tranquil backdrops. Each chapter of story mode lets us fight a few bouts as a well-known character, as “our” JLA is thrown into the dark dimension now ruled by a dictatorial Superman.

The Winds of Gath by E.C. Tubb (audiobook), reviewed by Stephen Theaker

The Winds of Gath (4 hrs 55, Wildside Press, Audible edition) is the first book in the long-running Dumarest Saga by E.C. Tubb. This is a new audio version produced by Wildside Press, and read by Rish Outfield. It could, however, have been book six or seven just as easily, since when we join Dumarest for this first time he is already an adult, already searching for Earth, already tested by circumstance and hardened by experience. This first novel is the most derivative of those I’ve read – it copies Dune very closely, with its own Bene Gesserit (the Matriarchs of Kund), mentats (the Cybers), a duel with a beautifully sculpted muscle man, a bedroom encounter with a flying assassin, etc. But it’s much shorter than Dune, much less portentous, and subsequent volumes do head off in new directions.

Deliver Us from Evil, reviewed by Douglas J. Ogurek

Demonic possession/police procedural mash-up delivers, but doesn’t stand among most hallowed horror films

A mysterious hooded figure hanging out at a zoo coaxes a woman into attempting to kill her child. So begins an investigation that will call into question Bronx cop Ralph Sarchie’s (Eric Bana) faith (or lack thereof) and sanity. 

Deliver Us from Evil (2014), directed by Scott Derrickson, adds a police procedural twist to levitate the film to above par status in the overdone demonic possession subgenre. During Sarchie’s journey, the viewer encounters a horde of proven scare tactics: disturbing video footage, creepy wall text and symbols, basement explorations, toys moving on their own, faces and bodies popping onto the screen, and sinister noises.

Terra Obscura: S.M.A.S.H. of Two Worlds, reviewed by Stephen Theaker

Terra Obscura: S.M.A.S.H. of Two Worlds (Vertigo, tpb, 336pp), written by Peter Hogan, collects two mini-series set on Earth, though not our Earth, nor the Earth of Tom Strong, although he has visited. He dubbed this Terra Obscura. It mimics his home in many ways, and provides a home to super-heroes from the forties who have fallen out of copyright and trade mark protection, like the atomic-powered American Crusader, The Liberator, The Woman in Red, The Green Ghost and the Scarab.

A.B.C. Warriors: The Mek Files 01, reviewed by Stephen Theaker

The stories in A.B.C. Warriors: The Mek Files 01 (Rebellion, tpb, 308pp) are all written by Pat Mills, with artwork from a superstar cast of artists that includes Kevin O’Neill (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), Dave Gibbons (Watchmen), Brendan McCarthy, Mick McMahon, Carlos Ezquerra, Brett Ewins, and Simon Bisley (the only one I hadn’t heard of before is the mysterious S.M.S.). With a line-up like that you’d expect the book to be much better than it is, but it’s still pretty good.

Justice League of America, Vol. 1, reviewed by Stephen Theaker

Justice League of America, Vol. 1 (DC Comics, tpb, 192pp) is mostly written by Geoff Johns, with most art by David Finch. It presents us with an all-new JLA B-team in the post-Flashpoint DC Universe, where, on the evidence of this book at least, continuity has quickly become as knotty as it was in the old one. The team is led by Steve Trevor, apparently fresh from romantic disentanglement with Wonder Woman, and also features Green Arrow, Katana, Vibe, Martian Manhunter, Stargirl, Hawkman, a ludicrously undressed Catwoman and a new (to me) Green Lantern.

Would save if my house burned down: Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer #bookaday

Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer (subtitled Pseudoscience, Superstition and Other Confusions of Our Time), is the book I would save if my house burned down, without a doubt. Not because it's a terrific book, although of course it is – chapter three in particular should be taught in schools - but because it is one of the first books on the first bookcase when you enter our house, on a shelf at chest height, and it sticks out from the other books on there.

Maleficent, reviewed by Douglas J. Ogurek

Mistress of All Evil repackaged as multidimensional heroine

Excepting the horror genre, not many films are named after a villain. Villainesses are even rarer. Moreover, it’s hard to find a fully developed hero in a contemporary special effects-heavy blockbuster.

Maleficent (2014), directed by Robert Stromberg, fills these gaps exquisitely by recasting the iconic Mistress of All Evil as a fairy born into a privileged, human-free life of gallivanting amid an idyllic forest filled with magical inhabitants. Then she meets the boy Stefan, who ultimately betrays her to assume the throne. Jilted lover Maleficent slaps a curse on King Stefan’s daughter: before her sixteenth birthday, Aurora will prick her finger on a spinning wheel needle and fall into an eternal sleep, lest she be awakened by true love’s kiss.

The one I have reread most often: The Slings & Arrows Comic Guide #bookaday

Doctor Who: The Television Companion by David J. Howe and Stephen James Walker was my first thought here. I must have read it all a dozen times over, bit by bit. You start by looking up a transmission date, then begin reading the analysis, and next thing you know it's time to go to bed and you're wondering where the day has gone.

Other Doctor Who books were contenders too - Planet of the Daleks, The Discontinuity Guide, The Claws of Axos (which I got in exchange for some marbles at middle school), Day of the Daleks (77p at Millers), and Image of the Fendahl (borrowed from the town library three or four times and read in a single night each time).

Then I thought about novels, like Planets for Sale by A.E. van Vogt and E. Mayne Hull (which led me to read loads of tedious A.E. van Vogt books before realising I should probably have been looking for E. Mayne Hull books), The Duelling Machine by Ben Bova, The Time Trip by Rob Swigart, The Stainless Steel Rat for President by Harry Harrison, or Biggles in France by Captain W.E. Johns.

But no, it had to be the second edition of The Slings & Arrows Comic Guide, edited by Frank Plowright, a wonderful series of critical essays surveying American comics from the 1930s to the present day. The other books I've read several times, but this book I've never stopped reading. It was published in 2003, over 3800 days ago, and I'd estimate I've read from this book on at least three quarters of those days.

Bought at my fave indie bookshop: Bone and Jewel Creatures at Weightless Books #bookaday

Millers in Keighley was my favourite independent bookshop as long as I lived there. It had a great mix of new and secondhand titles at a wide range of prices. It fed my hunger for science fiction for years. I would walk into town to save my bus fare so that I could afford to buy a 15p comic or three 5p books from the discard box. I bought loads of books there – lots of Moorcock, Doctor Who, Star Trek, The Sword of Shannara. Their new books had often been sitting on the shelves a while so they still had old prices on, making them more affordable than in other shops.

Her, reviewed by Jacob Edwards

Love bytes.

The Goodies episode “2001 and a bit” (1976) is perhaps the most fantastically offbeat of all the Goodies satires, extrapolating a violent yet progressive, absurdist future from the social mores and concerns of the mid-1970s. Each Goodie plays the lookalike son of one of the others – they were equally fond of Raquel (Welch, the picture from One Million Years B.C. would suggest), so when triplets came along they guessed and took one each – and in revealing whatever it was that became of Graeme, Tim confesses that, “He was put away for having an unnatural relationship [half-pause] with his computer.” Never mind that such an affair already had been the subject of “Women’s Lib” (1971), one memorable scene of which sees Graeme and his desk-sized desktop skipping hand-in-hand through the woods. In 1976 the idea still was ludicrous enough to power a good one-liner.

Want to be one of the characters: Plague Ship by Andre Norton #bookaday

For day twenty-seven of #bookaday we are asked for a book where we would want to be one of the characters. After rolling this around for a while I came up with Plague Ship by Andre Norton, and the other books in the Solar Queen series, Sargasso of Space and Postmarked the Stars.

I bought the pictured copy of Sargasso of Space this month in a secondhand bookshop on a seaside trip, got a chapter or two into it on the way home before realising I’d read it, and carried on anyway. Not sure where my Plague Ship is (I think it’s an ex-library yellow Gollancz edition) but I’ll add a photo if it turns up.

I love stories about science fiction traders, have done ever since playing Elite for the first time on a BBC Micro and reading Robert Holdstock’s tie-in novella The Dark Wheel. (Plug: see the Black Swan series by Mitchell Edgeworth in recent issues of TQF for another fine example of the type!)

The crew of the Solar Queen are capable and hard-working, and if I was forced to live in a place as dangerous as the interior of a novel, they'd be good people to be around. They understand the importance of good training and procedures, come up with good ideas, and are always ready to take advantage of a lucky break.

I considered James White’s Hospital Station and the Sector General series for similar reasons (plus it’d be nice to live in a galaxy like that where all problems have solutions), but the Solar Queen won out. I'd struggle with the pleasant bedside manner, and no one expects that of a space trader.