AntipodeanSF magazine, issue 114 (November/December 2007): Annotated table of contents
10 tiny stories, 2 good. See opening remarks of #116 for any non-obvious conventions in the listing below. Full issue #114 is available here.
Story list (best first).
- Bart Meehan's "Heaven, As Built By Tackleby Ames" (A); download; science fiction, humor: Be prepared for unpleasant consequences if you don't keep the employees - engaged in building the machine to hold your uploaded consciousness - happy! Added to my best of the year 2007 list.
- Shaun A Saunders' "I Spy" (A); download; science fiction: In a society of conformists with government snooping even in your most private spaces, a girl wants privacy & this expectation has her mother worried because she doesn't fit!
- Peter Tennant's "The Death Of A Man" (B); download; science fiction: In a twist on Theodore Sturgeon's "More Than Human", we have a gestalt of telepaths called The Twelve. Among them is King, a brilliant "biogenticist". The gestalt has convinced King that they are now the highest form of life on earth, & must kill off all mere humans. King has developed a virus, to be released to wind, that will kill off anyone without telepathic gene. He is made to release this by gestalt - only he is the first one to die! Gestalt had convinced him that he was among them - to make him develop the virus.
I failed to read the logic of telepaths. They themselves were not competent even to develop this virus or identify the "telepathic gene", & depended on a human; yet they wipe out all humans as if they will never need them again! - Robin Hillard's "Selling The Plan" (B); download, non-genre: Devil's contract with padre will make them both happy!
- Matt Tighe's "Apocalypse...Now?" (C); download; fantasy: The "four horsemen" - Death, Famine, Pestilence, & War, were to meet to bring about apocalypse, but are forced to postpone because Pestilence cannot come to meeting now. I suppose "four horsemen" has some biblical significance; it didn't mean anything to me - though the story has the flavor of some similar stories in India.
- Barbara J Holten's "Things That Make You Go MMMMM" (C); download; fantasy: A woman executive is magically transported from boardroom to magical lands, & then returns after some adventures.
- Bren MacDibble's "For The Love Of Mike" (C); download; fantasy: Tale of a woman deeply in (romantic) love.
- Amanda Pillar's "Wishes" (C); download; fantasy: A woman suffering from terminal cancer wishes there were a way to survive. A demon or something kills her, turning her into ghost so she can survive!
- Carl Palmer's "Love Your Pet" (C); download: Probably intended to be read a humor, this light story is probably best called horror. A psychopath in the year 2099 is helping reduce the population of unwanted pets & uncaring pet owners - by shooting both the strays & their owners (strays have id tags identifying owners in this future).
- Andrea Gawthorne's "Conversations At A Garden Party" (C); download: A society where it is fashionable for women to wear a little flower garden on their heads, instead of normal hair!
1 comments:
Thanks for the excellent post about these very short stories. I didn't realize they were flash fiction, but I was quite impressed with "Heaven, As Built By Tackleby Ames" (I even wrote a short review of it on my blog if anyone is interested.)
AntipodeanSF is a great find - I'll definitely be going back to read some of their other stories.
-Rusty
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