Black Static is Britain's premier magazine of dark fantasy. Its fiction section is now starting to take on a settled look, with a dozen or so of it's fifty contributors having made follow-up appearances. Daniel Kayzen, Will McIntosh and Al Robertson are starting to achieve the status of regulars, while two or three new names still appear each issue. Black Static 11 is no exception to this trend.
'De Profundis' by Al Robertson opens the issue, with one of the best stories of the year. Police diver Saul, haunted by dreams, finds the body of the twin brother he never knew he had, and from there seeks out his birth mother in her nursing home and learning the truth about himself. Time travel, evolution and loss mingle smoothly in an almost hallucinatory narrative that's wonderfully paced and leads toward a conclusion that feels as inevitable as the Thames tides that Saul knows so well. On the basis of his three TTA stories so far, Robertson is major find.
Will McIntosh
'None Had Sharp Teeth' by Will McIntosh is wonderfully creepy, from the disorienting opening paragraph; "They glided along in their steel track as if riding gentle waves: the purple rhino, the pistacchio-green crocodile, the ornage bear, the pink elephant. All had wide baby smiles, and none had sharp teeth.."
Isadore keeps a Merry-Go-Round and a paddling pool in her garden, together with a gumball machine and a teddy bear. All are child-killers - the Merry-Go-Round elephant killed Isadores's daughter. Isadore knows that there's a new kind of predator out there, but how to prove it? Many writers would have left the possibility of Isadore's madness ambiguous, but McIntosh goes for the jugular. Nasty, elegent and short. Highly Recommended.
Lawrence Conquest's 'The Likeness' is a gothic story of obsession and ownership centred around a alabaster-skinned beauty held captive in an eccentric old man's rooms in Krakow, and the young painter who dreams of 'freeing' her. The painter ignores the old man's warnings and attempts to flee with the woman, only for his rescue to go horribly wrong in the Wieliczka Salt Mine. Despite occasional missteps it's an accomplished, atmospheric debut. Recommended.
'Served Cold' by Gary Couzens tells of Felicity, returning from the grave --or rather the bottom of a lake-- to exact revenge on Dawn, Sharon and Kelly who killed her. It's competently told, and each stage of the increasingly unpleasant gross-fest will doubtless have the horror hard-core squirming in their seats, but ultimately it felt pointless. Which is perhaps the perfect summation of revenge fantasies, so it works after all...
Daniel Kaysen
Daniel Kaysen has appeared five times in Black Static's eleven issues, more than any other writer, and in 'Off With The Furies' it's easy to see why. Kaysen plays with point of view and identity in a way that's remiscent of Bester's classic 'Fondly Fahrenheit,' but Bester never wrote with such an Old Testament eye for sin and vengeance. Louise is a newly-wedded bride gifted with psychic abilities, but Kaysen keeps shining his authorial mirror in the reader's eyes, lurching reality one way then another. Highly Recommended.
'Red Ribbons' marks a welcome debut by Stephanie Burgis, here taking the reader to 1790s Revolutionary France, just after the height of The Terror. Burgis is adept at fusing genres, and in this lyrical tale of vampire lovers she skilfully blends eroticism with history and dark fantasy. Recommended.
Tony Lee reviews DVDs and Blu-rays as usual, while Peter Tennant profiles horror writers crossing over into crime and thriller territory, such as Conrad Williams and Jonathan Maberry. Christopher Fowler delights in the resurrection of the B-Movie, Stephen Volk dissects "the tsunami of paranoia" and Mike O'Driscoll pays tribute to JG Ballard..
Colin Harvey - Author six novels, and editor of four anthologies; professional reviewer since 2003, including six years at Strange Horizons. Member of ...
