Antipodean SF, #146 (August 2010) (magazine, free): Annotated table of contents & review

I've only read the 7 science fiction stories from this issue; none particularly remarkable, nor totally crappy.
Caution: The link above is not permanent, & will be overwritten when next month's issue is posted. AntiSF's new issues get a permanent URL at their archive several days after the issue is posted - there is none at present. Individual story links below will, I think, continue working.

Note this is a flash fiction magazine - 10 pieces of flash fiction every month. Includes some fantasy or horror too that I've not read.

I personally found stories early in the list below better reads than ones that come later.

Links on authors fetch more fiction by authors.

1. Jamie Richter's "Switch"; download: Description of a specific debugging session of computer programmer, with an ethnic joke about Frenchmen thrown in near end.
2. David Kernot's "Starry Eyed Trio: Herschel"; download: A galactic-scale intelligence has discovered another intelligent species.
3. Pavelle Wesser's "Second Hand"; download; humor: A man is having an extra-marital relationship.
4. Wes Parish's "The Previously Unknown Kingdom Of The North Saxons"; download: A previously unknown kingdom in British history was very short lived because...
5. Robert N Stephenson's "iWorld"; download: A parody of Apple's habit of putting "i" before their products: a whole society that puts "i" before common words!
6. Shaun A Saunders' "Right Of Way"; download; dystopia: A city where crossing the road on foot is a criminal offense because it can lead to "unlawful interruption of the progression of a motor vehicle, driver of which was engaged in promotion of commerce"!
7. Susan Partridge's "A Civil Servant's Diary"; download: A society where those long dead can be brought back alive, & regularly are.

Susan Partridge's "Refugees" (flash fiction, non-genre, free)

A group of tsunami devastated Australians is headed west - towards Indian Ocean, to rebuild lost lives. Very well told story, though not exactly original.

Thing that hit me was: "Gone was my three bedroom unit, and the car. No petrol. Gone: all my books, CDs, DVDs, my plastic-bought identity."

Fact sheet.

First published: Antipodean SF, #120 (May/June 2008).
Rating: A
Download full text.

END.

Susan Partridge's "The Rape Of Io" (flash fiction, science fiction, free)

Story of colonization & annexation of others' territory retold - symbolically.

Jupiter's moon Io is inhabited with natives used to hot & volcanic local environment. Until earthmen decide they want to sell to natives & exploit their mines. Eventually, Io is annexed as a new state of US "to protect newly developed areas from indiscriminate exploitation".

A while later, tinkering with environment is so severe - everyone needed evacuation to earth. Now "Ionians" also live on earth - their own world uninhabitable.

Fact sheet.

First published: AntipodeanSF, #109 (June/July 2007).
Rating: B
Download full text.

END.

* Susan Partridge's "The Oracle" (flash fiction, science fiction)

Nostalgic 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.

Fact sheet.

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

Note: Why is this post so short?

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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