Editorial
Where do I come from? by Stephen Thompson
Features
Irrealism and the Bizarro movement by Stephen Thompson
Ray-guns for Rocketeers by Jeff Harris
Up and Coming
Ford Street Makes Waves
The Wisdom of Water by John Archer
New Books from Gollancz for September–October 2008
New Books from Tor for September
People
Creating Memorable Characters: interview and discussion with Fiona McIntosh by Astrid Cooper
Writing and Publishing
Where do (writing) ideas come from? by Bill Youatt-Pine
Fiction
Hell Hath No Fury by David Such
Dolphin Dreaming by Ashley Hibbert
Chopped up Cut up by Damien Kane
Poetry
The Curse by Felix Calvino
Film Reviews
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, directed by Rob Cohen
Journey to the Center of the Earth, directed by Eric Brevig
The Happening, directed by M. Night Shyamalan
Hellboy II: The Golden Army, directed by Guillermo Del Toro
Book Reviews
The Wheel of Darkness by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Son et Lumiere by Ian Nichols
Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross
Phantom Pleasures by Julie Leto
Midnight Never Come by Marie Brennan
Black Ships by Jo Graham
Bewitched by Sandra Schwab
Incandescence by Greg Egan
Heart-shaped Box by Joe Hill
Swiftly by Adam Roberts
1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
TristesseCopyright (C) 2008 David C. Such
First published in AntipodeanSF (http://www.antisf.com/index.html), Issue 119, April 2008.
Bands of metal secured his hands and feet to what felt like a cold stone slab. Casey couldn't remember how he had ended up like this. One minute he had been taking his dogs for their nightly walk, and the next moment he was here, in the dark, lying naked on a slab.
Casey shivered. None of the scenarios that he could imagine ended well. They varied from horrific to, at best, embarrassing.
He stared vainly into the dark, trying to make out details, something, anything. All he saw were bright flashes of light. He had read somewhere that this was a phenomenon that had first been recorded by the Apollo 11 astronauts. It was thought to be caused by cosmic radiation, but that couldn't be what was happening to him, not unless he was no longer on Earth.
Casey sniffed and drew in the metallic tang of scrubbed stainless steel. While hot sweat pooled at his lower back he simultaneously shivered from the cold.
A dry disembodied voice spoke, "This will go quicker if you relax number 64."
Casey looked from side to side but couldn't make out anyone or anything, "Who the hell are you? What do you want from me?" Casey hated not being in control of a situation.
"You may have heard that we only use 10% of our brains. This is, of course, rubbish, but there is an awful lot of redundancy. We are rewiring your synapses to remove this redundancy."
This was not one of the scenarios that Casey had imagined. "You need to stop this right now! I'm warning you — " Casey's voice tapered off as he fell into a dark well of unconsciousness.
***
Casey woke. He felt strangely light.
"You need to listen to me carefully, number 64. There are some side effects from the surgery that you need to be aware of." It was the same dry voice that had spoken to him before, this time coming from a hidden speaker.
Casey said, "You can go to Hell."
The voice spoke urgently, "Listen, you must be very careful what you wish for. Within a limited distance you have the ability to manifest new realities. You have been isolated for the safety of us and others. We will teach you meditation techniques to help manage your new ability but we need you to co-operate."
Casey laughed. He concentrated and imagined himself out of the room and free...
***
The Controller swore as Casey disappeared from the video monitor. He slammed his fist into the console. "God Damn it, not again!" he said. He shook himself to regain his composure. Turning to his companion, he said, "Ready candidate 65 for surgery."
***
Casey's frozen body floated gently away from the International Space Station's isolation lab.
He was free.
ImmigrationCopyright (C) 2008 David C. Such
First published in AntipodeanSF (http://www.antisf.com/index.html), Issue 116, January 2008.
The straps of the detention chair bit into his arms and his work shift was drenched with sweat. He jumped as the door to the holding cell slammed open. Two immigration officers strode in and stood looking at him. They weren't smiling. Apolyon tried to speak but his throat was so dry that it came out as a croak.
The male officer made a small gesture. The female nodded and snapped open a portable console. The male dragged a wooden chair across the bare fermcrete floor to the scarred table across from Apolyon. The wood on fermcrete screeched and made Apolyon wince.
"My name is Officer Dempsey. You have applied to become a citizen of the Australian territory of Synus V and as part of this process we need to ensure that you understand the Australian values of courage, endurance, mateship, and sacrifice. You will be asked a series of questions and your answers will be monitored by Officer Hynes," he nodded towards the female immigration officer. "We will know if you lie," he added.
"It is our policy not to detain females and offspring, consequently your family is being held in temporary accommodation modules within the DMZ. Should your application be unsuccessful you and your family will be returned to your territory of origin. Do you understand the situation?"
Apolyon looked Dempsey in the eye, trying to form a connection. "I just want to ensure the safety of my family. All native Synian's are being culled and I will do anything to keep them safe. I beg you to help me."
"True," said Hynes.
Dempsey looked away, "I am not responsible for setting foreign policy. If you answer the questions correctly you will become a citizen, if not you go back. I need you to confirm that you understand this."
"I understand."
"True," said Hynes.
"To earn the right of citizenship you will need to work in the Roentgenium Mines for a period of five standard years. Due to its remote location you will not be able to see your family for this period. Do you accept this condition?" Dempsey asked.
Apolyon bowed his head and whispered, "Country is not blood."
"What's that? You need to speak up."
"I understand."
"True," said Hynes.
"Good," said Dempsey. "One final question. Have you ever been involved in the Synian Resistance Movement?"
Apolyon frowned and replied, "No, I've never heard of such a group."
"False," said Hynes.
"What?? No there must be some mistake! The machine is mistaken!"
"The machine is never mistaken. This session is terminated at 14:52. Your questioning will be continued by Homeland Security."
Dempsey and Hynes left the room. The door remained inadvertently ajar. Apolyon stared at the fermcrete floor in disbelief, and strained his ears to listen.
"Bad luck for him that he arrived in an election year," said Hynes.
"What else are we going to do? If we don't fill our quota of rebels we become part of the problem."
Apolyon screamed as Dempsey returned to slam the door — no doubt to move on to the cell of the next unlucky immigration candidate.
*
| Written by Stephen Cavanagh & David Such | |
| First published in The Specusphere (www.specusphere.com) Friday, 09 November 2007 | |
| |
'Door goes swit!' cried the creature in delight.
'Must be alien-wearing-a-hat week,' muttered Jimbo as he gazed at the scene before him. Aloud he said, 'Give me my bloody security key back, you crazy space monkey.'
'Not a space monkey, am a snortler, you well know, Jimbo.'
'Well, snortler, you're killing me. I may feed you to the Death Slime.'
'Snort feels angry person coming,' whispered snortler, looking dolefully at his feet and swaying slightly.
Jones made the mental translation from angry-person to dock-manager-who-wears-his-pants-too-high — uh oh. 'OK, snort, out of sight, quick as you can, leave the key on the desk, and this is for you.' He tossed a fruity bun towards the creature.
The Snortler whirled in the doorway to the hidden room that formed the secret section of Jimbo's office area, grabbed the treat out of the air with a grin, and vanished into darkness inside. Jimbo thought he could just hear the snortler squeal, 'door goes swit!' as the secret door slid shut.
'Jones!' shouted the dock manager, Harold Hilton, as he stormed down the corridor outside the office waving a sheaf of Jimbo's reports around, and fairly frothing at the mouth.
Time for a coffee, thought Jimbo as he grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair and made a break for the maze of attractively stained and dirty partitions that made up the office area outside his cluttered office. Too late!
'Not so fast, matey. I want to know what the blinking heck you think this rubbish is? You put three customs officers inside an alien creature last night, and all you can do is fill in reports?'
'Two officers, boss. Dawson managed it all by himself, the damn fool. Now I've stored the death slime in sub-basement 9, where it will quickly and safely perish, regurgitating our friends hopefully no worse for wear, if a little angry, possibly even very angry. Ah, perhaps much like you and your high pants.'
The dock manager's face flashed through the full visual spectrum of colours. It reminded Jones of the Andelucian cuttlefish found on Sirius V — currently a popular nightclub decoration. Harold was very sensitive about his high waist.
'I'm having an overwhelming urge to throttle you!' shouted Harold, 'but instead, I'm just going to suspend your arse. Report to the brig immediately!'
#
The Rock Dog gave a low growl at the three customs officers as they slowly backed away from what looked like a boulder on short legs.
'This place is a zoo,' said Stoikalizky. He, Dawson and Blake had just been decanted from the Death Slime and were on their way to find a good hot shower.
Blake looked over the destruction caused by the beast and decided to call it in. 'Chief? We have a problem here.'
Hilton's strident tones rang over the comm-unit, 'Can't you vapour-brains handle anything without me?'
'There is a thing that looks like a rock eating its way through the server room, sir.' The lights started to flicker and then went out. Blake continued. 'I think it just ate the environmental system controls. The life support systems are located in the next bay. If it eats those we are going to be sucking vacuum. Have you seen Jimbo Jones? This looks right up his alley. I would also like to have a few words with him about pushing me into that Death Slime!'
#
'Where the hell do you think you are going, Jones?' shouted Hilton to Jimbo's retreating back as he headed down the darkened corridor.
'Just reporting to the Brig Chief, as ordered.'
'Get your arse down to the server room. We'll talk about this later.'
It was hard to see the Chief's expression by the dim light of the emergency lights but he didn't sound happy. He probably needed more fibre in his diet, thought Jones.
#
When Jones arrived at the server room, the three officers had their Desert Eagle Mk VII rail guns roughly pointed at the creature that was contentedly chewing on a motherboard. It was hard for them to bring their guns to bear due to the fact that they were all crowded into a utility closet.
'A rail gun won't stop one of those,' Jones observed.
'Jones, I have a bone to pick with you!' said a muffled voice from the back of the closet.
'Don't tell me that you are still upset over the Death Slime incident? Human flesh is the only way to kill it. You guys just happened to be handy.'
'Maybe we could settle this at another time,' suggested Dawson. 'It looks like Rock Face is starting on dessert.'
There was a sudden whine followed by an eerie silence as the circulating fans wound down. The space station was never silent; the ever present hum of machinery was the beating heart of Dockland.
'That doesn't sound good,' said Blake. 'What do we do now?'
'Well, what we have here is a species of Rock Dog,' Jones said. 'They are very rare; I've only ever seen one before. As they are a silicon-based life form, they are almost indestructible and obviously have an appetite for computer chips. Rock Dogs are pack animals, so it is probably lonely.'
'You idiot! It's lonely? Lonely! It's eating the life support computer. We are all going to die! How do we get it out of there?' spluttered Stoikalizky.
'Is it conscious? I mean, can it think?' asked Blake.
'I think it can think. And what I think it's thinking is "I'm lonely".'
'Man, you are obsessed.'
There was an uncomfortable pause.
'I think I'll call him Pookie,' Jones finally said.
An alert tone began to sound, overlayed by the dulcet tones of the station's main computer. 'There is an emergency on the station due to falling oxygen levels. Could all oxygen breathing entities please proceed calmly to your evacuation station? Have a nice day.'
'Jones, we need to do something now!' said Dawson.
'Right you are.'
Jones pursed his lips and let out a piercing whistle. Suddenly an access panel in the roof flopped open and a hairy shape dropped onto Jones's shoulder. Stoikalizky screamed and tried to climb over Blake to get to the back of the closet.
'Relax,' Jones said, 'he's with me.' Patting the space monkey fondly, he continued. 'Snort, I need you to go and get me your litter tray. Can you do that for me?'
'Snort thinks Jimbo's a banana short of a bunch.'
'There's a fruity bun with your name on it if you are back in less than a minute.'
Jones had barely finished his sentence before the space monkey had disappeared back up the access panel.
Blake said, 'I'm with the monkey. How is a litter tray going to help?'
'Watch and learn chaps,' Jones said as Snort returned with his litter tray. He handed Dawson some monkey poo. 'Here, hang onto this.' Dawson looked down at the mess in his hand and frowned. Jones continued. 'Sand as you know is mostly silicon dioxide and is considered a delicacy by Rock Dogs. It is much better eating than computer chips.' Jones held the tray out in front of him and began to move slowly towards the rock dog. 'Here, boy, get your nice sand. Good dog.'
The rock dock gave a cautious growl but then it starting sniffing and it bounded over to the tray of sand. As it excitedly ate, Jones scratched its lumpy hide. The Rock Dog wagged his little stump and squinted up at Jones with love.
Jimbo smiled back and said, 'You are one ugly dog.'
*
Illustration (c) 2007 Carl GoodmanCopyright (C) 2007 David C. Such
First published in AntipodeanSF (http://www.antisf.com/index.html), Issue 113, October 2007.
A huge green tentacle dripping with yellow slime emerged from behind the quarantine bay at Star Dock Four. Jimbo lifted his 20 mm Glock Discombobulator and sighted where he expected the head to emerge. Culling new species of space vermin was always tricky; you never knew where the vital organs would be located. Still, the Glock D solved most problems.
As a pulsating glob of green flesh followed the tentacle around the corner, Jimbo squeezed off a shot. An enormous whoosh displaced the air in the dock and Jimbo was pushed back a metre by the recoil.
In the next dock, Customs officers Blake and Stoikalizky were surprised when it began raining green ichor.
"Bloody Hell," Blake said, "This is a new uniform." He tried to wipe the slime away.
Stoikalizky, a newbie, gave a quizzical look and said, "Does this sort of thing happen a lot?"
Blake shrugged, "Depends. Jimbo is responsible for keeping the docks clear of any alien life that escapes from ships loading and unloading. Quite an exotic ecosystem has built up over the years."
"I thought ships were sterilised?"
"You mean that pathetic spray they use when they walk through the cabins? Useless! A couple of years ago we had a plague of mutant star crabs. It took Jimbo months to track them all down. We lost a few good officers before he got them all."
"They didn’t mention crabs in the corporate video."
***
Blake was showing Stoikalizky the outer Dock area when they pulled up short of what looked like a sea of black moss. Stoikalizky was about to step onto it when Blake grabbed his arm and said, "Whoa, boy, you don’t want to join that poor soul."
A Customs officer's cap sat in the middle of the alien moss.
"You don’t think …"
"Let’s not take the chance." Blake activated his com-unit and said, "Jimbo, this is Blake, Hanger 3, looks like we have a clean up. Possible officer down."
***
"What do you think?" Blake asked.
Jimbo fished out the cap with a long, rod-like contraption. "I think Dawson won’t need his hat," he said, "I saw this stuff back in '24, looks like some of the spores escaped."
"What is it?"
"Well — I don’t know its official name, but I call it Death Slime," Jimbo said in slow, country drawl.
"Death Slime! You've gotta be shitting me!" said Stoikalizky.
"I shit you not."
"So how do we kill it?"
Jimbo stroked his chin and twirled the hat of the late officer Dawson. "Hmmm. Tricky," he said.
"What do you mean, tricky?" said Blake "Just do whatever you did last time?"
"I guess that will work." As he said that, Jimbo pushed the two officers onto the Death Slime.
Apparently, human flesh was toxic to the slime in large doses.
Hopefully, three would do the trick — this time.
*
Entropy
Copyright (C) 2007 David Such
First published in Planet Magazine (http://planetmag.com/2007/09/30/entropy-by-david-such/#more-147), 30th September 2007.
I remember dying, but my earlier memories are beginning to go. Being a particle physicist gives one a unique perspective on death, particularly while participating in the greatest experiment ever.
My initial thesis was to attribute my memory loss to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Our universe resists order and works to always try to increase disorder. We physicists refer to this disorder as entropy. The portion of the electromagnetic wave encoded with my personality and memories was obviously degrading, and taking me with it.
I thought back to earlier in the morning….
* * *
“Jim, are you sure you want to do this?”
I looked up at my brother from the medical trolley. “Mike, you know I have to. There is no other way to prove my theory.”
“This won’t bring back Jessie,” said Mike.
“I know, and I’m not planning on joining her just yet. That’s why I’ve got the best doctor I know — my own brother — supervising the procedure.”
“Jim, even if we bring you back there may be brain damage.”
“I know the dangers, and it is a risk I have to take. Otherwise, everything else has been for nothing. All the sacrifices and Jessie’s death will be meaningless. You have to do this, Mike, and if you won’t then I will find someone else who will. I trust you; please have faith in me.”
* * *
I had no way of estimating how quickly I was losing what defined that which was uniquely me. Being a wave of radiation, I must be moving at the speed of light, which meant that relative to everyone I used to know, time had stopped.
Did this explain reincarnation? Was I even now seeking out a new body to inhabit, or was I destined to drift in space forever? The one thing that really scared me was losing my mind before the Institute could bring me back.
* * *
Mike watched me die. Not once, but twice. First was clinical death when the heart and lungs stopped. Then there was brain death.
Mike was watching the monitors carefully. All electrical brain activity had flat-lined. “Nurse, what is the weight now?”
“It just dropped 20 grams,” she replied.
“OK, that is the signal. Commence resuscitation and start the clock. We have seven minutes to bring him back before the cerebral cortex dies.”
Anne Walker was the Institute’s in-house lawyer, and she was supervising the experiment in case it all went wrong. She was taking notes and gestured with her pen. “What is the significance of the weight loss?”
Mike replied absently as he supervised the medical team. “We lose approximately 21 grams in weight when we die, the so-called “weight of the soul”. Assuming that this is correct, and that the entire weight is converted to energy, my brother’s soul is now a wave of energy equivalent to almost half a megaton of TNT.”
Anne replied, “So that is your brother’s theory, but a wave going where?”
“That is the big question, Anne, and only one person can tell us. If we can bring him back, that is.”
There was a sudden flurry of activity around the supine form of the professor, and Mike rushed to assist. There were five minutes remaining on the clock.
* * *
I couldn’t feel anything, or see anything or sense anything. Maybe this was hell, drifting in limbo while my mind decayed. Dante described Limbo as the first circle of hell, populated by “neutralists” or “opportunists.” Thinking back on my life, that described me pretty well; however, I was hoping to prove something with my hopefully temporary death.
Memory was a funny thing. I loved Jessie but already my memories of her were dimming. It was the little things that went first, the smell of her hair, the feel of her skin. I always believed that you weren’t really dead until everyone had forgotten you.
I remember laughing when I read what Australian billionaire Kerry Packer allegedly said after his first heart attack: “I’ve been on the other side and let me tell you, son, there’s f—ing nothing there.” I wasn’t laughing now.
And if I remembered my catechism correctly, all I needed to do was hang around until Judgment Day; then I would be sent to either heaven or hell. Of course, suicide was a mortal sin, so there wasn’t much doubt where the Church thought I would be heading eventually. I think I had more chance of being extracted by the Institute.
There was one problem with my entropy theory. If time had stopped, then why were my memories disappearing? There must be some other mechanism at work.
So I turned all my attention inwards. I could feel something. I could sense an external influence alternately adding and subtracting from my essence. This ebb and flow seemed to be made up of million of voices. Concentrating, I could barely resolve fragments of sentences: “God, please help Becky…”, “…it will never work…”, “…love you,” “Jim, breathe, damn it….”
String theory claims that everything in the universe is made up of vibrating strings. Songs and prayers were adding to my energy, building the resonance and sustaining me. The negative thoughts and emotions were destructively interfering with the vibrations in the strings that defined me. I had to hope that the constructive influence would outweigh the destructive ones. I just needed to have faith.
* * *
Doctor Mike Andrews was working feverishly. “Charging….”
He glanced up at the clock, one minute to go. A tear rolled down his cheek. “Live, you bastard …clear!”
* * *
At that moment in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI sat down for a news conference. He adjusted his robes and began the address. “We have gathered you here today to announce that we have decided, after much analysis, interpretation, and prayer, that Limbo is only a theological hypothesis and is not a definitive truth of the Faith. From this moment, the International Theological Commission is abolishing the concept of Limbo.”
* * *
Jim Andrews looked up at the clock and started to sob. Mike was gone. So much for faith….
*
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