Theaker's Quarterly Fiction #33

I don't think it's at all a stretch to say that this is one of the strangest issues of Theaker's Quarterly Fiction we've ever published!

Our lead story is "NON", by Douglas Ogurek, a dizzying blur of new words, new fashions and new ideas, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as written by Anthony Burgess. I guarantee that by the end of it you'll be thinking of certain people as dreadfully uncleused.

Then we have Steve Redwood's "Nose Trek", the story of a nose that implodes upon itself, and the brave souls who go inside to investigate. What happens once the mass of mucus in a nostril has passed the Chandrasekhar limit?

"Houseguest" by D. Harlan Wilson is as odd – and exciting – as anyone who's read his other work would expect, while "El Aullido del Diablo" by Dean M. Drinkel is so entertainingly barmy that I have to confess I'm not entirely sure what it's about, but I know I enjoyed it!

By these standards, "Bird Talk" by Mark Lord is almost incongruously normal, despite its mix of witches, clerics and boozy tramps.

The issue is rounded out by a relatively normal selection of reviews (as long as you think there's nothing unusual about lengthy discussions of whether Superman can move his lips quickly and skilfully enough to mimic the softness of a human kiss, that is).

The cover is by the wonderful Howard Watts.

Download the pdf of this issue here. Ebook versions are available for free from Feedbooks. The paperback is available from Lulu.

Theaker's Quarterly Fiction #30

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Issue 30 of TQF features not one but two writers using the initials K and J. How many other magazines can say that? Black Static, Interzone, Postscripts and McSweeney's may have their fans, but only Theaker's Quarterly would dare to bring you two K.J.s in a single issue!

The issue opens with "Citadel Ninety-Nine" by Michael Canfield, in which a bloodthirsty army tears its way across a strange, strange world. Also in this issue… John Greenwood plots the next point in Newton Braddell's weary journey. Jon Vagg shows what really goes on at conventions in "DeadSoulsCon". K.J. Hays tells the story of "The Zombie Who Went to Town in Style". K.J. Hannah Greenberg writes about creatures in mailboxes in "Just One Case of Flash: Another Chimera Story". And Ben Thomas & Skadi meic Beorh win this issue's best title award with "The Periodic Honking of the Fruit-Seller's Truck".

The issue ends with our usual bountiful selection of reviews, including comment on all of this year's British Fantasy Award-nominated novels, two books from Rhys Hughes, and a collection by Steve Redwood.

And of course the editorial apologises for the lateness of this issue!

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Crisis on Earth-One!

This issue is out two months late, and that’s down to the British Fantasy Society taking a lot of my spare time. I can’t complain, though, it’s mostly been a lot of fun.

First there was the reading of submissions for Dark Horizons 55 and all the work involved in putting that together, then organising the BFS Short Story Competition, and then helping out with the online voting for the British Fantasy Awards, and then trying to straighten out the BFA constitution to take into account changes made over the last year or so. It was all very fascinating stuff to be involved with, but didn’t leave much time for the magazine you hold in your (virtual) hands.

Then I went to FantasyCon, held in Nottingham, where I had a great time. I hosted a panel which was nerve-wracking but enjoyable (though next year I must remember to take a watch). I announced the winner of the BFS Short Story Competition at the awards ceremony in a way that would have done Mick Fleetwood proud.

On the Sunday I attended the AGM, where it turned out that a book of interviews with horror writers, launched by the BFS at the convention didn’t include any interviews with women, despite being billed as an overview of the genre.

Disaster!

An apology for this “lazy sexism” was quickly issued by the BFS chair and special publications editor, luckily in time to be included when The Guardian picked up the story. We were perhaps also lucky in that two British Fantasy Awards had gone to women.

The upshot of all that is that next year we’ll just have four issues of Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction so that I can schedule things a bit more sensibly (and maybe even bring out a few more books).

On to this issue: hope you enjoy it and feel it’s been worth the wait. I think it contains some of our most interesting and unusual stories ever!

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Editorial

• Crisis on Earth-One! Stephen Theaker
• Contributors

Fantasy

• Citadel Ninety-Nine, Michael Canfield

Science Fiction

• DeadSoulsCon, Jon Vagg
• Just One Case of Flash: Another Chimera Tale, K.J. Hannah Greenberg
• Newton Braddell and His Inconclusive Researches into the Unknown: Cigarettes of the Gods, John Greenwood

Horror

• The Periodic Honking of the Fruit-Seller’s Truck, Ben Thomas and Skadi meic Beorh
• The Zombie Who Went to Town in Style, K.J. Hays

The Quarterly Review

The British Fantasy Awards

• The Graveyard Book
• Memoirs of a Master Forger
• The Victoria Vanishes
• The Midnight Man
• Rain Dogs
• Thieving Fear

Other Books

• Bad Thoughts
• Broken Symmetries
• Dust and Shadow: an Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr John H. Watson
• The Smell of Telescopes
• The Postmodern Mariner
• Wild Robert

Comics

• Hellblazer: Empathy is the Enemy
• The Compleat Next Men, Vol. 1

Movies

• Dark Floors
• Deadgirl

Television

• Lost, Season 5
• Primeval, Series 3
• Supernatural, Season 4

Also Received

• But Not Yet Reviewed

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Here are the people who gave me the bricks to build this house…

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Skadi meic Beorh is a fantasy novelist presently abiding in Pittsburgh with his girl Amberlynn and their three faery-cats Winkin, Blinkin, and Nod. His books Always After Thieves Watch and Pirate Lingo are presently in print. More books are forthcoming from Wildside Press, Sam’s Dot, and Rebel Satori Press.

Michael Canfield has published seventeen short stories. His work has appeared in Realms of Fantasy, Escape Pod, Strange Horizons, the anthology Fantasy: The Year’s Best 2006 (Prime Books), and other places. For more info, and links to free stories, visit his website, www.michaelcanfield.net.

K.J. Hannah Greenberg gave up all manner of academic hoopla to chase a hibernaculum of imaginary hedgehogs and to raise children. Hannah’s writing has been accepted for publication in venues including Doorknobs and Bodypaint, Fallopian Falafel, Ken*Again, Literary Mama, Morpheus Tales, Poetry Super Highway, Shakespeare’s Monkey Review, Static Movement, The Externalist and The Lesser Flamingo.John Greenwood is laughing right now at these very words.

K.J. Hays lives in Orange County with his churlish dog, Mr Bear. His work has appeared in such publications as Sex and Murder, Bareback Magazine, The Flea, Dark and Dreary and the delightfully named Breadcrumb Scabs. He keeps a blog here: http://illegalfunk.blogspot.com. It wants followers and commentary.

Rafe McGregor recently celebrated the publication of his historical thriller, The Architect of Murder. See www.rafemcgregor.co.uk. To this issue he contributes two reviews.

Ben Thomas is the author of dozens of short stories, three screenplays, and a perpetually unfinished novel. In 2007, he founded The Willows, the now-defunct magazine of Victorian tales and art. These days, he spends much of his free time studying ancient cultures and languages, a passion he hopes will lead to a high-level degree in an archaeological field. He lives in the Los Angeles area with his girlfriend.

Jon Vagg mainly writes reports and training materials on social exclusion, deprivation and deviance, often drawing on his own life story. He has previously published fiction under pseudonyms, mostly in niche gothic magazines.

Theaker's Quarterly Fiction #29

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So here is TQF29, seven stories high. Douglas Thompson takes the lead, with the eerie and poetic "Madame Mortadore & the Clouds". "Foundling" by Nick Sansone follows a painter through a troubled life. "Imaginary Prisons" by David Tallerman has a good deal to say on the subject of prophecies. John Hall delivers the last of his forgotten stories to our horror section, "The Feaster from the Stars". Its final image is unforgettable. John Greenwood then lets us have it three times in the third eye, as Newton Braddell wends his hopeless way across the world. The review section contains the usual batch from me, as well as ones by John Greenwood, Rafe McGregor and Steve Redwood, who consider Morpheus Tales #3, a Hound of the Baskervilles graphic novel, and Midnight Street #12 respectively.

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No Essays This Time

There’s only room for the tiniest of editorials [or at least there was on the page this editorial originally appeared on!] – we’re trying to keep each issue down to eighty pages for the rest of the year and we’ve got seven fantastic stories and lots of reviews to fit in. Have a great time in here!

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Editorial

• No Essays This Time, Stephen Theaker

Fantasy

• Madame Mortadore & the Clouds, by Douglas Thompson
• Foundling, by Nick Sansone
• Imaginary Prisons, by David Tallerman

Horror

• The Feaster from the Stars, by John Hall

Science Fiction

• Newton Braddell: An Exile in Loungewear, The Man in the Tree, In the Valley of the Speakers; all by John Greenwood

The Quarterly Review

Books

• One
• Peckinpah: an Ultraviolent Romance
• On Basilisk Station
• The Wailing Asteroid
• Halo
• Tom Swift and the Visitor From Planet X

Comics

• 100 Bullets, Vol. 1: First Shot, Last Call
• 100 Bullets, Vol. 2: Split Second Chance
• The Hound of the Baskervilles: a Sherlock Holmes Graphic Novel
• Be a Nose!

Magazines

• Midnight Street #12
• Morpheus Tales #3
• Phobia #1

Movies

• Star Trek

Also Received

• But Not Yet Reviewed

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Here are the people who made it all worthwhile…

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John Hall’s collection of Lovecraftian tales, probably to be called Five Forgotten Stories, will be published by Theaker’s Paperback Library later this year. He is best known as a Sherlockian scholar, and a member of the International Pipe Smokers’ Hall of Fame. His numerous literary interests include Raffles, Sexton Blake, H.P. Lovecraft and M.R. James. He is the author of Special Commission, a medieval murder mystery. Previous stories by John appeared in TQF23 (TQF#23) (“Shaggai”), TQF25 (TQF#25) (“In the Vale of Pnath”), TQF26 (TQF#26) (“The Burrower Beneath”) and TQF28 ("The Stairs in the Crypt").

Steve Redwood’s short story collection, Broken Symmetries, will be published in August by Doghorn Press. His review of Midnight Street 12 appears in this issue.

Nick Sansone has worked as a wildland firefighter and environmental do-gooder in the National Forests of the western United States. He typically spends his summers in the UK, working as an academic administrator for a theater program at Oxford College.

John Singer Sargent was the painter of Madame X, a detail from which appears on this issue’s cover.

David Tallerman can be found online at http://davidtallerman.net. His fiction has appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Pseudopod, Hub and Dark Horizons.

Douglas Thompson’s stories have previously appeared in TQF28 and Dark Horizons 54, with another to appear in Dark Horizons 55. He won the Grolsch/Herald New Writing Award in 1989, and second prize in the Neil Gunn Writing Competition in 2007. His stories have been widely published in magazines and anthologies, most recently Ambit, New Writing Scotland, Subtle Edens and Dark Horizons. “Madame Mortadore & the Clouds” is from his first novel/collection Ultrameta which will be published in August 2009 by Eibonvale.

Rafe McGregor recently celebrated the publication of his historical thriller, The Architect of Murder. He contributes a fine review to this issue.

John Greenwood is everything you wish you were, and a tiny bit more!

Stephen Theaker is smaller than the garden of your uncle, but larger than the pen of your aunt. He wrote many of this issue’s reviews.