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Black Static

New Horror Fiction BLACK STATIC 82/83 OUT NOW

BLACK STATIC 42

2nd Sep, 2014

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Cover:

Item image: Black Static 42

The cover art is by Dave Senecal

 

Fiction:

Be Light. Be Pure. Be Close to Heaven by Sara Saab
illustrated by Vincent Sammy

Item image: Be Light. Be Pure. Be Close to Heaven

Tanta had two jobs.

During the day she sold train tickets to glazed commuters coming and going through Nunsin Street Station. The tickets were pink rectangles, sharp enough that their papercuts collected on her fingers, crisscrossing, subway maps in miniature.

At night she was the officiant for the icebox. 

 

Scarecrow by Alyssa Wong
illustrated by Richard Wagner

Item image: Scarecrow

On the morning of his funeral, you wake screaming from nightmares of Jonathan Chin, your mouth crammed full of feathers. A craving for sky sKY SKY electrifies you from pounding heart to fingertips. Your hands are empty and twisted like claws, the body of a ghost boy slipping from your grasp.

 

What Happened to Marly and Lanna by Noah Wareness
illustrated by Ben Baldwin 

Item image: What Happened to Marly and Lanna

The real Salvation Army set up behind Sam Long Park last night, on a bunch of nappy flannel blankets spread out on the grass. Dry glue sticks, unwound pieces of chainlink, broken wineglass stems. They have everything, really everything, so almost none of it has any point. I start crying sometimes when I notice signs for the ordinary Salvation Army stores, or even the sign over the shelter. Even stop signs look like their red badges, and I have to remind myself we’re all volunteers too. Nobody knows what they’re doing.

 

Patrimony by Matthew Cheney
illustrated by Richard Wagner 

Item image: Patrimony

 For most of my life, I worked in the gravel pit as an overseer. There had been gravel there for a long time, but there wasn’t much left. Mostly, we spent our days trying to decide where to set off dynamite. We didn’t have a lot of dynamite, so we wanted to be precise. We would go for weeks and even months without lighting a single stick. I spent my days – ten-, eleven-hour days – telling the workers to try over here, to look over there, to dig here, to prod there. We sought the best rock, the least sand.

 

Goat Eyes by David D. Levine 

Item image: Goat Eyes

You slam the door behind yourself and lean heavily against it, panting hard.

This is your home – your own, familiar apartment – with all your stuff. Your art on the walls, your piles of books, your comfy chair with its quilts and blankets. Your bra hanging on a doorknob. And yet it does not reassure.

Nothing is different. Everything has changed.

 

December Skin by Kristi DeMeester

Item image: December Skin

They’d found the motel just before dark. Big drips of sky painting the pines black and jagged, and the cold palpable and worming. They had not thought to bring jackets. 

Rory crammed her meager body onto the floor of Aaron’s old F100 while he fed lies to the rheumy-eyed manager. His Pop was dying, and Aaron hadn’t seen him in years. Divorce, you know? He was headed up there now, to pay his respects, get some things off of his chest before the old sonofabitch finally bit the big one. Couldn’t he overlook that he was only seventeen and rent him a room, just for the night?

 

The Bury Line by Stephen Hargadon

Item image: The Bury Line

Remember George? No? It was George who got me into this, showed me the way. Tall bloke – I mean really tall, six five, something like that. A real character. Everyone liked George. George Crease. Started in Quality Assurance, when Sheila Fisher was the boss. You couldn’t miss George, not at six five or whatever it was. Always wore a waistcoat, never a tie. Short hair, cropped not shaven, feet as big as skateboards, brown suede shoes shaped like Cornish pasties. Doesn’t ring a bell? That’s a shame: you would’ve liked him. Almost everyone did.


Comment:

Coffinmaker's Blues by Stephen Volk

It was with an uncharitably heavy heart I read the announcement of Pan Macmillan’s new James Herbert Award for Horror Writing. Having tried in vain to adapt two of his books for television, I’ve wrestled with plots that don’t make sense and characters who don’t begin to convince. Yes, Herbert dragged horror into the mainstream on the shirt-tails of Stephen King, but he dragged slugs and crabs with him. Sorry, but to me it’s like giving a comedy award in the name of Jim Davidson.

 

Blood Pudding by Lynda E. Rucker

It’s a question nearly every horror fan and writer has grappled with at one time or another. Is there any such thing as going too far, and if there is, where do we draw that line?

 

Reviews:

Case Notes: Book Reviews by Peter Tennant

FRIENDS AND FAMILY: The Universal and Other Terrors by Tony Richards, The Lord Came at Twilight by Daniel Mills, News From Unknown Countries by Tim Lees, Severed + Savage by Gary Fry, Reaping the Dark + Where You Live by Gary McMahon, The Bright Day is Done by Carole Johnstone, Monsters in the Heart by Stephen Volk, The Moon Will Look Strange by Lynda E. Rucker, Born With Teeth by Conrad Williams, Where Furnaces Burn by Joel Lane DEATH AND THE HUMAN CONDITION: Extensive interview with Carole Johnstone

 

Blood Spectrum: DVD/Blu-ray/Download Reviews by Tony Lee

The Raid 2, Bound, Faust, Lizzie Borden Took An Axe, A New York Winter's Tale, Killers, Painless, Blue Ruin, Wolf Creek 2, From Dusk Till Dawn Season One, Penny Dreadful, The Werner Herzog Collection, Miss Violence, Elsewhere, The Battery, The Unleashed, Cheap Thrills, Wasteland, Almost Human, The Cabin, The Quiet Ones, Varsity Blood, The Captive, The Mirror, Attack on Titan, Werewolf Rising

 

How To Buy Black Static:

Black Static is available in good shops in the UK, USA – where it is now supplied to stores by Ingram Periodicals – and many other countries. If your local shop (in any country) doesn't stock it they should easily be able to order it in for you so please don't hesitate to ask them. You can also buy the magazine from a variety of online retailers, or a version for e-readers from places like Weightless, Amazon, iTunes, Smashwords, etc.

The best thing though – for you and for us – is to follow any of the Shop/Buy Now/Subscribe links on this page and take out a subscription direct with us. You'll receive issues much cheaper and faster that way, and the magazine will receive a much higher percentage of the revenue.

 

Lifetime Subscriptions:

The amount you pay is equivalent to ten years’ subscription at the previous rate (eg £240 in the UK), and a lifetime is defined as one which lasts either the lifetime of the subscriber or the lifetime of the magazine. This also applies to Black Static's sister magazine Interzone, and there is an option to take out a more discounted joint lifetime subscription to both.

These lifetime subscriptions can be found on the order form inside both magazines, and on this website's shop. Such long term subscriptions are of great benefit and support to the magazines, so many thanks to those of you who are taking up the offer.

 

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