AntipodeanSF magazine, #118 (March/April 2008): Annotated table of contents & review

10 tiny stories. See opening remarks of #116 for any non-obvious conventions in the listing below. Full issue #118 is available here.

Story list (best first).

1. Shaun A Saunders' "Golden Age" (B); download; science fiction: A human starship was forced to perform a certain maneuver somewhere far off to get out of a tight situation, & ended up in the vicinity of earth as a side effect! We will slowly learn they are from earth in an alternate universe; this earth is rather unfamiliar! There is also a reference near end to "space rangers" - I suppose from Heinlein's book, but I haven't read that book.
2. Simon Petrie's "Stranger Than..." (B); download; science fiction, humor: Interesting rejection letter of an unsolicited submission to "Aldebaran Stories" - an sf magazine in some alien world. Story described a society similar to current humans, & it was rejected as so utterly implausible to be suitable even for this magazine specializing in the fantastic.
3. Brendan D Carson's "Steel" (B); download; science fiction: A scientist has turned an experimental subject into a superman, & then into a vegetable on death bed. But thanks to an inadvertent but kind action of a nurse in hospital, his disease is gone & now he is superman again!
4. Paul Ryan's "Island" (B); download; non-genre: An agent, on a visit with a buyer to a now-uninhibitedly land of his mostly extinct tribe, is himself murdered by the buyer who can presumably now simply have the island without payment!
5. David McVeigh's "The Gravity Bomb" (B); download; science fiction: Inventor of an antigravity device has his family kidnapped by authorities to force him to hand it over. He capitulates. Military has tested a gravity bomb based on it - only it's out of control. Even after it's turned off, some sort of antigravity wave keeps moving all over earth - bring destruction in its wake. Inventor has an inhibitor - to kill the effect - but wants to watch destruction for a while, as revenge because his family was threatened.
   
   Reminded me of a story by Arthur Clarke - "The Road to the Sea". Some kind of a probability-changing propulsion system for a starship - tinkers with quantum probability of where a particle will be found in the universe - has gone out of control, & the wave is headed towards earth - threatening all life on it.
6. Jan Napier's "Oriental Bizarre" (B); download; non-genre: A woman's hopes of exotic adventures are dashed by mundane.
7. Jane Brown's "Where Am I" (B); download; science fiction: A woman, in deep freeze after her clinical death - preserved with the hope of some-day resurrection, is becoming aware of her surroundings - possibly because stasis machinery has broken down.
8. Chris Broadribb's "The Whale" (C); download: Cannot quite figure this out. A woman observing a whale from a rocky lookout has some mysterious experiences involving whale & a man - as if someone is attempting to contact her & than changed his mind.
9. Daniel S Santos' "The Man, the Faun, and the Washing Machine" (C); download; fantasy: A boy has taken laundry to a "laundry-mat" (shop where you can rent a washing machine & drier), & finds a magical world with wizards & fauns inside one of the machines!
10. Peter van der Male's "Return From Avalon" (C); download; religion: Sounds like a rip off some Christian tale; to me it didn't mean anything. You might make better sense of it if these names mean anything to you: Gael, Gwyr, "one who now called himself Lothario, and the brothers, Lob and Iddig", & Merlin. Tone & ending is humorous.

Related: All AntiSF stories.