Black Static

Cover

The cover art is by Ben Baldwin, for Stephen Volk's 'Sicko'

 

Fiction

Sicko by Stephen Volk
illustrated by Ben Baldwin 

The moment Marion stepped into the shower the world changed forever. She felt the water hit her forehead and run over her closed eyelids. It had been icy on her fingers when she’d first turned it on. Now it was lukewarm. Good. Cooler was best, to wash away the Phoenix heat. The heat of a long drive. Perspiration the young man may have noticed, but she hoped he hadn’t. Not very lady like. But did it matter, really, what the young man thought? She’d never see him again. Apart from checking out the next morning.

 

You Are My Sunshine by Keith Rosson
illustrated by Richard Wagner 

We play a ska version of ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’, and of the sixty-three kids sitting cross-legged before us, only a few of them yawn. Across the bay, Seattle shudders, wreathed in flame and ruin.

 

Cleaver, Meat, and Block by Maria Haskins
illustrated by Vincent Sammy 

The first thing Hannah learned when she came to live with her grandparents after the Plague, was how to wield the meat cleaver. Grandma taught her, guiding her hands in the backroom of the old butcher shop on Main Street. Showing her how to wrap her fingers around the handle, how to put her thumb on the spine of the handle for extra power and precision, how to let her wrist pivot when she cuts. 

 

We Didn't Always Live in the Woods by Jack Westlake 

Or maybe it’d be more accurate to say that the woods weren’t al­ways in the place where we live.

I remember when there was light in this house. When you could look through a window and see the sky. When you could open the door, go out and walk freely through the garden or around the house – when you could do those things without having to pick your way over thick, gnarled roots, when you didn’t need to press yourself through the narrow gaps between trunks. When you didn’t need to look over your shoulder. When you could go outside and not be afraid of what you might find out there, what you might see and what might stare back.

 

The Hearts of All by Gregory Norman Bossert 

It was only after the horse had turned that they saw that it was still on fire. A rim of thin blue flame outlined the patch where the skin had burned away, from flank to jaw. A tendon in its neck quivered like a plucked string, shockingly white against the blackened flesh.

 

Columns

Notes From the Borderland by Lynda E. Rucker

THE FICTION OF RIGHT NOW

In 1971, writer J.G. Ballard penned a polemic in which he argued that science fiction was the only relevant contemporary literature, and that as we hurtle into an increasingly technological future, it would just become more so. I found myself thinking of this essay the other day – specifically, what I thought is that if science fiction is the genre that tells us where we’re going, horror is the genre that will tell us what it feels like on the way.

 

Into the Woods by Ralph Robert Moore

UNFAIR APOCALYPSE

John Updike reviewed Walter Abish’s 1974 novel, Alphabetical Africa, in The New Yorker. The book is an example of what is usually referred to as ‘constrained writing’, which is writing that has to follow certain self-imposed rules (much of classic poetry is constrained writing, in that it has to conform, for example, to meter and rhyme).

 

Reviews

Case Notes: Book Reviews

Andrew Hook: And Cannot Come Again by Simon Bestwick • David Surface, One Good Story: The Judas Tree by Denton Welch • Laura Mauro: Doe Lea by M. John Harrison, so this is it by Paul Griffiths, Halloween by Nicolas Freeman, Le Détective by H.P. Tinker • Daniel Carpenter: Nowhereville edited by Scott Gable & C. Dombrowski • Andy Hedgecock: Ghostland by Edward Parnell • Georgina Bruce: Ormeshadow by Priya Sharma, plus author interview

 

Blood Spectrum: Film Reviews by Gary Couzens

Hammer Volume Four: Faces of Fear • Secret Ceremony • The Dead Don't Die • Der Golem • I Lost My Body • The Nightingale • The Fall • Hitch Hike to Hell • Cut • Annabelle Comes Home • Werewolf (Wilkolak) • The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil • Prey

 

Where To Buy Black Static

Black Static is available in good shops in the UK and many other countries, including the USA where it can be found in Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million and elsewhere. If your local store (in any country) doesn't stock it they should easily be able to order it 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 Books, Amazon, Apple, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, etc.

The best thing though is to click on Shop above or the link below and buy the new issue, or better still take out a subscription, direct with us. You'll receive issues much cheaper and much quicker, and the magazine will receive a much higher percentage of the revenue. No postage charge is added to UK orders, and we send overseas copies by airmail for just £1 per item.

 

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Coming Soon

Black Static 74 is out in March. Magazines like this cannot survive without subscriptions, so thank you for your continued support.