Ionospherics 244
Hi folks, Issue 250 is nigh in May-June 2019, and by the time it’s published, AntipodeanSF will be into its 21st year online. Celebration time, I reckon!
To that end, I now invite all antipodes-resident previous contributors to send me a story for that special coming-of-age issue, and I’m especially looking for those of you that may not have contributed for a while. I’d love to see your work in this very special collection.
I’m seeking flash fiction of course, but I am willing to look at longer stories. The days of dodgy computer screens is past. I still like ‘em short, though — so 3000 words is an absolute maximum.
Don’t forget, you must be a previous contributor, you must reside on the southern side of this great star-circling globe, and the deadline for inclusion is March 31 2019.
Speculative Flash Fiction
G'day flash loving folks, you're about to launch into an adventure at AntipodeanSF, the online magazine that's devoted to the regular monthly publication of fabulous and original science-fiction, fantasy, or horror mini-stories of about 500–1000 words each, with occasional feature stories of 2000 words and beyond.
AntipodeanSF will entertain you, and get you out there, perhaps even over the moon, yet won't take hours to read.
Please spend a few moments to read this month's stories. Alternatively, listen to all of them on the AntipodeanSF Radio Show, weekly, as per the schedule.
Nuke.
A Necessary Intervention
By Zebuline Carter
The old man was resting comfortably on a wooden deck chair in his back yard, eyes closed, enjoying the sunshine, snapshots of old memories, and the buzz of the bees, when a knock on the side gate and a loud voice roused him to full awareness:
“Hello, is that you, Mr Decker?”
Decker blinked twice, took a moment to focus his eyes, found the young face framed with short blond curls peering over the top of the gate. “Oh, hello. Who might you be?” he answered amiably.
Darkstar
By Ishmael Soledad
It was a typical departure lounge, exceedingly cold, bare, entirely antiseptic. Two chairs, two doors, two beings. An appropriate point to leave one life for another. He looked up.
“Even so we must go through the formalities. You are aware of the choice?”
“Yes. Pain, misunderstanding, isolation and struggle for the chance of genius, creativity, shortened life one on hand.
Fairies At The Bottom Of The Garden
By Louise Burch
“Mummy?” asked Holly, “Could we make some fairy bread for the fairies?”
“Please,” corrected her mother as she smiled down at her daughter.
“Please, Mummy?”
“Well, you’re a big five-year-old now; you can make it. But I’ll help you cut off the crusts.
Hollywood Product
By J. H. Malone
"The greatest invention in history and you want me to keep it a secret?"
"You said it's easy to make. What if you let it out and everybody makes one? What if the government outlaws it and then weaponises it somehow?"
"Never mind all that. We need money. You're not making enough and I'm not making any."
Jerry Cornelius (The English Assassin)
By Roger Ley
Jerry Cornelius knelt by the side of his Norton motorcycle, laid his Lee-Enfield over the saddle, and sighted at the airship as it chuffed past, half a mile away. The musket was a new design with a rifled barrel, its accuracy unbelievably improved. His shot hit the airship’s boiler and a jet of steam and water began to gush out. The rear propeller slowed and stopped almost at once. The ship was at the mercy of the wind. Its pilot, Telford Stephenson, would have to land and make repairs if he wanted to deliver the stolen ironclad warship plans to the rebel government. Cornelius, being an agent of the British Government in London, had no intention of letting Stephenson deliver the plans to York, the Northern Alliance’s capital city.
Stephenson evidently hadn’t heard the shot over the sound of the steam engine.
Miscalculations
By Imogen Cassidy
The find was good, he was certain of it. If he was lucky it would be enough to cover the repayments to Bernadette, and even get some of those more urgent repairs done.
The only problem was the other ship that was already there.
They hadn’t seen him yet, and he hadn’t changed course, frozen into indecision by the hopes he’d been harboring being dashed.
Old City
By Trent Jamieson
Once there was an old city that an old man visited. He came into the city on a donkey.
‘I don’t like this place,’ Donkey said.
‘You were made not to like anything.’
‘We can’t stay long.’
‘I am here to see my grandchild,’ he said.
Silver Lining
By Rex Caleval
“All right, let’s get started. I’m Dr. Robert Hirsch. For those of you just being brought in on this, here are the basics,” said the man at the head of the conference table. “Some time ago, astronomers observed what appeared to be a large extrasolar asteroid approaching our system. When we calculated its trajectory, we found that it would pass quite close to some of the new moons of Saturn discovered by the Cassini project years ago. Doctor Susan Lassiter, here,” he continued, gesturing to a woman sitting to his left, “came up with a plan to divert another mission we’d been about to launch. We could get data on several objects in the asteroid belt on the outward leg, then try to land a probe on this object, like the Huygens lander in the Cassini mission did on Titan. The landing would be difficult, but if we could pull it off we’d get valuable information on the extrasolar object, and our probe could hitch a ride on it and provide data on these new moons as it went past. We decided to try it.”
Silverware
By Simon Petrie
Tommy lifted his head from the pillow. “You’re not really here,” he said to the pale apparition in the darkness at the foot of his bed.
“If you say so,” replied the unicorn, its voice deep and smooth. Tommy wasn’t sure its lips had moved when it spoke. It started to fade.
“Wait!” Tommy blurted out, urgency warring within him with confusion, with unease, with the need not to wake his parents and older brothers.
Star Dream
By Theodore Irvin Silar
Bobby was tired of his village. Mockery was a local specialty. Bobby was an easy target: he limped. Climbing Giant’s Rock, forget falling off it, had been a feat unmatched in recent memory. A feat nobody remembered while gleefully appraising his ball-playing. Moreover, he was deaf in the right ear from a childhood illness. Then, his screams had aroused pity. A pity nobody remembered when sidling up to his bad ear and whispering obscenities. That trick never seemed to pall.
Self-defense, he knew, was called for. But he could never rubbish them back. Their ways baffled, tongue-tied him.
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AntiSF's Production Crew
Ion Newcombe is the editor and publisher of AntipodeanSF, Australia’s longest running online speculative fiction magazine, regularly issued since January 1998, and conceived back around November 2007. He has been a zealous reader and occasional writer of SF since his childhood in the 1960s, and even sold a few stories here and there back in the '90s.
“Nuke”, who it turns out loves editing more than writing, lives in the New South Wales North Coast holiday destination of Nambucca Heads, where he is self-employed in IT training, computer support, desktop publishing, editing, writing, and website implementation. He is also the resident tech-head, skeptic, and board member of community radio station 2NVR, where he produces a number of shows including The AntipodeanSF Radio Show.
Mark Webb's midlife crisis came in the form of attempting to write speculative fiction at a very slow pace. His wife maintains this is a good outcome considering the more expensive and cliched alternatives. Evidence of Mark's attempts to procrastinate in his writing, including general musings and reviews of books he has been reading, can be found at www.markwebb.name.
One of Mark’s very best forms of writing procrastination is to produce the eBook series for AntipodeanSF, which he has been doing since issue 175.
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In The Next Issue...
Coming In Issue 245
Coffee With God
by Col Hellmuth
Crossing Mercury
by Kevin J. Phyland
Hugh's Friend
by Mark Towse
Jackie
by Natalie JE Potts
Much Needed Boost
by David Scholes
Painting The Future
by Robin Hillard
The Final Squeeze
by Zena Shapter
The Fire
by Chris Gladstone
The Prince Scamp — His Wrath
by Wes Parish
Trajectory
by Roger Ley
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Most Read Stories
AntipodeanSF November 2018
ISSUE 244
Speculative Fiction
Downside-Up
ISSN 1442-0686
Online Since Feb 1998
AntiSF's Narration Team
Pixie is a voice actor, cabaret performer & slam poet From the Blue Mountains in NSW.
She enjoys writing short fiction, plays for radio and stage as well as her own brand of weird poetry.
She hosts the 'Off-Beet Poetry Slam' held bi-monthly in Katoomba,
And is a theatre reviewer for 2SER FM in Sydney.
Garry Dean lives on the Mid Coast of New South Wales Australia, and has been a fan of SF for most of his natural life. Being vision impaired, he makes good use of voice recognition and text to speech in order to write. Many of his stories have appeared in AntipodeanSF over the years, and his love of all things audio led him to join the narration team in 2017.
You can read examples of Garry's fiction on his website <https://garrydean.wordpress.com>
Timothy Gwyn is a professional pilot in Canada, where he flies to remote communities. During a lull in his flying career, he was a radio announcer for three years, and he is also an author.
In addition to short stories at AntipodeanSF and NewMyths.com, his SF novel is available internationally in print and ebook formats. "Avians" draws on his love of alternative aviation to tell the tale of a girl who runs away from home to join a cadre of glider pilots on a world without metal or fossil fuels.
On Twitter, he is @timothygwyn, and his blogs are at <timothygwyn.com>.
Margaret lives the good life on a small piece of rural New South Wales Australia, with an amazing man, a couple of pets, and several rambunctious wombats.
She feels so lucky to be a part of the AntiSF team.
David Whitaker is originally from the UK though has travelled around a bit and now resides in India. He has a degree in Journalism, however decided that as he’s always preferred making things up it should ultimately become a resource rather than a profession.
His stories, covering everything from sci-fi to philosophy, have been published across the globe and links to each can be found at <wordsbydavid.com>
Laurie Bell lives in Melbourne, Australia. She was that girl you found with her nose always buried in a book. She has been writing ever since she was a little girl and first picked up a pen. From books to short stories, radio plays to snippets of ideas and reading them aloud to anyone who will listen.
She is the author of The Butterfly Stone (available now).
You can read more of her work on her blog Look for her on Facebook <www.facebook.com/WriterLaurieBell/> or Twitter: <@LaurienotLori>
Mark is an astrophysicist and space scientist who worked on the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn. Following this he worked in computer consultancy, engineering, and high energy research (with a stint at the JET Fusion Torus).
All this science hasn't damped his love of fantasy and science fiction. It has, however, ruined his enjoyment of rainbows, colourful flames on romantic log fires, and rings around the moon. He has previously been published in Stupefying Stories Showcase, Everyday Fiction, Escape Pod, Perihelion and also on AntipodeanSF where he is part of the narration team.
Carolyn's work spans devising, performance, theatre-in-education and a collaborative visual art practice.
She tours children's works to schools nationally with School Performance Tours, is a member of the Bathurst physical theatre ensemble Lingua Franca and one half of darkroom — a visual arts practice with videographer Sean O'Keeffe.
(Photo by Jeremy Belinfante)
SF News
Upcoming Cons
Supanova Adelaide 02/11/2018 till 04/11/2018, Adelaide Showground, John Barrowman & a calvacade of others. <https://www.supanova.com.au/>
Supanova Brisbane 09/11/2018 till 04/11/2018, John Barrowman & a calvacade of others. <https://www.supanova.com.au/>.
Monsterfest Horror Movie Festival 22-25 November, Cinema Nova Melbourne <https://www.monsterfest.com.au/>.
INDIE COMIC CON 2018 8 Dec Northcote Town Hall, Melbourne Free event. <http://www.indiecomiccon.com.au/>.
Nullus Anxietas VII: The Australian Discworld Convention — will be held in Melbourne on April 12-14, 2019, and is themed on Going Postal. More information: <https://ausdwcon.org/>.
Continuum 15 Other Worlds (Natcon 58): Continuum 15 is the Australian National SF Convention, to be held in Melbourne on June 7–10. More information and memberships <https://continuum.org.au>. AntipodeanSF will be at Continuum 15 and celebrating Issue 250 of AntiSF!
Worldcon Dublin 2019 — An Irish Worldcon 15/08/2019 till 19/08/2019, The Convention Centre Dublin (CCD). <More info here>
For more up-to-date Aussie SF info join the ASFF: <asff.org.au>.
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Listen to the latest episode now:
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SF Quote
Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.