Black Static 18
The latest issue of Black Static comprises two non-fiction sections, bracketing the fictional core at the magazine's dark heart. Opening is ‘White Noise,’ news compiled by Peter Tennant, which is swiftly followed by Stephen Volk and Christopher Fowler’s columns. Both aim their ire at James Cameron's Avatar, one lamenting the need to leave one’s brain at the door, the other unhappy at the 125 licensed products linked to the blockbuster.
Fowler then neatly segues into 'The Campaign for Real Fear,' which Fowler ran with Maura McHugh. The second ten winning 500-word stories selected by McHugh and Fowler lead neatly into the fiction section proper.
Nina Allan
The fiction opens with Nina Allan's novelette 'Orinoco,' which is also illustrated by cover artist Ben Baldwin. Marie is grieving for her dead lover Rob while stayng with her brother.
Seeing fish in a plastic bag always made Marie nervous, even though she knew it was the normal way of transporting new specimens, even though her brother was an expert on every aspect of fish keeping.
But Marie is an unreliable narrator in classic Black Static mould, and the truth is as slippery as one of the angelfish --Marie is unable to distinguish between reality, and appropriates other stories as her own.
Carole Johnstone
Carole Johnstone's 'Between A Rock and A Hard Place,' is a welcome return for a writer who shows better than almost any other how fearful the night-time urban environment can be for women.
Actually no, bloody wanker was better. Bloody creepy wanker. Who did he think she was? Janis’s heels snapped a quick staccato as she headed down towards the town centre. The sound echoed pleasingly in the narrow silence. More to the point, who had Molly told him she was?
Bloody creep.
Like all the best horror stories, there seems to be no respite for Molly or the reader, right to the last line. Recommended.
Simon Kurt Unsworth
Carole Johnstone
'A Man of Ice and Sorrow' by Simon Kurt Unsworth beautifully evokes the deadening silence of a snow covered world, in which Mains silently grieves for his dead child and collapsed marriage.
If he walked later in the day [the snow] had softened, would cling to his legs and feet in heavy clumps. On days when the wind dropped to nothing, the falling snow damped the sound out of the world so that he walked in a featureless, oppressive silence.Illustrated by Dave Senecal, this is Unsworth's second outstanding story in Black Static, and clearly marks him out as a writer to watch. Highly Recommended.
Nicholas RoyleVeteran horror writer Nicholas Royle makes a long overdue debut with 'The Obscure Bird.'
“I won’t be long,” Andrew said... Gwen smiled. “Of course not,” she said. It was a ritual. She knew it would be at least an hour, probably two, maybe more, before he joined her. Outside, an owl hooted. Andrew’s eyes were dark behind the round lenses of his glasses, unfathomable.It's the shortest and perhaps the quietest story in the issue, but no less unsettling for that. Highly Recommended.
Mercurio D. Rivera
Another newcomer is I nterzone regular Mercurio D. Rivera whose 'Tu Sufrimiento Shall Protect Us' is the best story in the issue.
Edgar first hears the screams while he’s undressing and Mercedes is changing clothes in his baño. He doesn’t normally get involved in the shit that goes down in this vecindario – best to let the justice gangs handle it – so he ignores it, tries to shut it out.Set in a near future New York in a world of 'proxy wars' and nuclear-armed terroristas, Rivera neatly reworks the classic scapegoat theme while peppering his narrative with Spanish. Outstanding.
Case Notes by Peter Tennant
Tennant reviews Apartment 16 by Adam Nevill and includes an in-depth interview, as well as reviewing novels that include Tim Lees' debut The Gods of LA, and Decay Inevitable by Conrad A. Williams, plus Nina Allan's collection A Thread of Time, and Sarah Totton's Animythical Tales, and Ellen Datlow's latest anthology Lovecraft Unbound.
Blood Spectrum by Tony Lee
Lee reviews DVD/Blu-ray releases, including Solomon Kane, Bubba Ho-Tep, and Clash of the Titans.
Ben Baldwin.
Cover art is 'Chaining the Night Mare' by Ben Baldwin, the second issue running for this talented newcomer, as well as illustrating the Allan story.
Colin Harvey - Author six novels, and editor of four anthologies; professional reviewer since 2003, including six years at Strange Horizons. Member of ...
