* Craig Miles' "Greenhouse Gases" (flash fiction, science fiction)

A panel of dinosaur scientists debating "the best solution to increasing greenhouse gases, or coping with the impact of rising temperatures". A worthy suggests it's natural due to undersea seismic activity, & heralds the down of a new ice age; he's promptly killed by panel chairman & served as dinner!

Fact sheet.

First published: AntipodeanSF magazine, #111 (August/September 2007).
Rating: B
Download full text.

Note: Why is this post so short?

* Craig Miles' "Interrogation" (flash fiction, non-genre)

Very well written, not implausible, & politically relevant - but rather dark. Law makers & enforcers make a mockery of fairness & decency in a world afraid of terrorists & willing to give enormous powers to government.

Fact sheet.

First published: AntipodeanSF magazine, #113 (October/November 2007).
Rating: B
Download full text.

Note: Why is this post so short?

AntipodeanSF magazine, #111 (August/September 2007): Annotated table of contents & review

10 tiny stories. See opening remarks of #116 for any non-obvious conventions in the listing below. Full issue #111 is available here.

Story list (best first).

1. Karen Maric's "Fighting For Peace" (A); download; science fiction, humor: A meeting of diplomats of a multi-species colony goes the way most meetings go... Colorful characters reminded me of Jack Vance's "Meet Miss Universe".
2. Townsend Walker's "Pretty Lady" (B); download; non-genre: Second of the two parts spoiled it for me. First part is a moving account of the burial of a man, narrated by his little boy who doesn't even know his daddy is dead.
3. Francis Conaty's "The Fatal Adventure" (B); download; science fiction: A gaming company into immersive virtual reality adventures has made the game so thrilling there have been 3 deaths in a year due to extreme fear. Now the company is under cops' scanner, & there is a real chance it will be shut down & operators will end up in jail.
4. Tom Williams' "Florescence" (B); download; science fiction: A man making pass at a woman in her magic garden with active plants receives a quick death at the hands of plants! Story reminded me of Arthur Clarke's "The Reluctant Orchid", but Clarke's version is infinitely more nuanced & entertaining.
5. Frank Roger's "Catch A Last Breath" (B); download; science fiction: An experiment "changing the nature of time. We are speeding up time by chopping off a bit of every minute" is too successful - with disastrous consequences.
6. Tavis Potts' "True Love" (B); download; non-genre: A man poisons his dear girlfriend (or wife) to save her from painful death; she's suffering from some kind of a fatal disease.
7. Craig Miles' "Greenhouse Gases" (B); download; science fiction: A panel of dinosaur scientists debating "the best solution to increasing greenhouse gases, or coping with the impact of rising temperatures". A worthy suggests it's natural due to undersea seismic activity, & heralds the down of a new ice age; he's promptly killed by panel chairman & served as dinner!
8. Liam Brennan's "The Space Between Us" (C); download; science fiction: A spaceman dies somewhere away from earth. We aren't told where but it's in darkness & due to his air running out. Story is of his last thoughts before death, later parents laying flowers at his grave on earth.
9. Shaun A Saunders' "What Else But War" (C); download; non-genre: A man lets a salesman sell him very expensive & unnecessary gadgets, instead of the specific thing he went to buy in the first place.
10. Steve Duffy's "Of Pairs And Straights" (C); download; non-genre: Description of a game of playing cards somewhere. I didn't follow all the nuances of the game, but I don't see what is worth reading here.

Related: All AntiSF stories.

AntipodeanSF magazine, #113 (October/November 2007): Annotated table of contents & review

10 tiny stories. See opening remarks of #116 for any non-obvious conventions in the listing below. Full issue #113 is available here.

Story list (best first).

1. Mark McAuliffe's "Ad Nauseum" (B); download; non-genre: Very well written, very relevant, & somewhat dark. Relentless all-pervading advertising & spam are driving a man crazy.
2. Martin Livings' "An Evil Twin" (B); download; non-genre: A political story: why is the petty criminal punished when the President of a powerful country can order the killing of thousands by military & no one thinks he is a criminal?
3. Craig Miles' "Interrogation" (B); download; non-genre: Very well written, not implausible, & politically relevant - but rather dark. Law makers & enforcers make a mockery of fairness & decency in a world afraid of terrorists & willing to give enormous powers to government.
4. David Such's "Dockland" (B); download; science fiction, humor: An expert at culling alien vermin that often escape at an interstellar dockyard in human space has an unconventional solution to get rid of the alien "Death Slime".
5. Susan Partridge's "The Oracle" (C); download; science fiction: Nostaligic story from a future dystopia of times "when water fell out of the sky — a time when Earth had many trees... before the seas' oxygen- producing plankton were destroyed by nuclear-waste dumping in the Northern hemisphere". In this dystopia, humans no longer look like us - as a result of long crossing of human genome with animals.
6. Shaun A Saunders' "Flash" (C); download; non-genre: An argument about why leading a life of poverty writing flash fiction is better than being prosperous! Living in India, I've heard the argument for so long, it sounds tiring now.
7. Joe McNamara's "Social Work" (C); download; fantasy: A murderer justifies killing an innocent!
8. J P Overton's "Lumps" (C); download; non-genre: A man terribly sick with a fast-spreading strange sickness doesn't want to go to a doctor! Leaves house when his wife discovers he is so sick & faints - afraid that she will insist he go see a doctor immediately!
9. Stephen L Thompson's "Of Course" (C); download; science fiction: Apparently a well written story, but I cannot figure out the punchline. Aliens in a spaceship are in serious trouble. There is an unfamiliar quadrupedal creature in a corner of the room. Aliens don't quite recall what they did that has so disturbed them, & where this creature has come from.
10. Paul Sheringham's "Venom" (C); download; fantasy: I didn't really get this story. A victim & her torturer. An attempt at her escape is foiled. She eventually surprises him with a vicious attack, but there is hint this attempt is also futile.

Related: All AntiSF stories.
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