All contributions by:

Douglas Hoffman

Hub Magazine, Issues #70-76

By Douglas Hoffman ⋅ March 5, 2009

In Hub #70, British Fantasy Award-nominated author Gary McMahon has an old Victorian he’d like to sell in “Under Offer.” To reveal much more would suck all the surprise from this nasty, hilarious gem. McMahon tips his hand to the joke early on, but the beauty of “Under Offer” is the way he deepens the [...]

An Interview with Paul Meloy

By Douglas Hoffman ⋅ March 1, 2009

Fantasist Paul Meloy, winner of the British Fantasy Society award for best short story in 2005 (for “Black Static,” which is included in his collection Islington Crocodiles, reviewed here, crafts stories that fuse realism with nightmares, tragedy with glass-etching humor. Here, he shares his thoughts on inspiration, criticism, dreams, and much more.

Talebones #37

By Douglas Hoffman ⋅ January 1, 2009

The latest issue of Talebones leads with James Van Pelt’s “Floaters,” in which a dysfunctional trio search the future for clues to an impending global disaster. Our protagonist is Rye, a 3-D gaming/virtual reality wonk with advanced HIV disease. At the beginning of “Floaters,” he joins the inexplicably hostile Gretta and the scientist-straight-from-central-casting Dr. Martin. [...]

Hub Magazine, Issues #63-69

By Douglas Hoffman ⋅ November 19, 2008

Featured in Hub #63, gun-for-hire Ivy Flowers travels back in time to recover a hijacked train in Alasdair Stuart’s “Ivy and the Pirate Queen.” It gets more colorful: the train is a time machine on a sightseeing trip on the Moon 4,000 years ago, and the hijacker is a holographic AI of Ivy’s notorious grandmother [...]

Islington Crocodiles by Paul Meloy

By Douglas Hoffman ⋅ November 10, 2008

My first glimpse of Paul Meloy’s fiction was a sparkler published in The Third Alternative—”Dying in the Arms of Jean Harlow,” a blue-collar urban horror-fantasy sharp as a crack on the back of the head with a bottle of lager. The story impressed me with its deliciously nasty sense of humor and its roller coaster [...]

Hub Magazine, Issues #59-62

By Douglas Hoffman ⋅ September 15, 2008

Hub #59 features Guy Haley’s “Man of Stone,” where a hardened veteran abandons a doomed battle. More than a soldier, he’s also the commander of his forces, so his flight in scene two is a pleasant surprise—that he doesn’t regard his act as cowardice makes him an even more provocative character.
Unfortunately, the story takes [...]

Hub Magazine, Issues #56-58

By Douglas Hoffman ⋅ July 28, 2008

Hub #56 leads with Stephen R. Smith’s “Runner,” a fast-paced tale of a fellow who kills a randy cyborg and flees to avoid its owner’s wrath. Hub’s “About the Author” section notes that Smith grew up reading Heinlein, Asimov, and Bradbury, among others. Smith’s nurturing influences show in the story’s Golden Age sensibilities and tight [...]

Hub Magazine, Issues #51-55

By Douglas Hoffman ⋅ June 23, 2008

The last five issues of Hub have included a few great reviews, several memorable short stories, and even a poem—one you won’t want to miss, even if the word “poem” makes you cringe.
D.K. Thompson’s “God-Shaped Box” in Hub #51 kicks off with one hell of a first-paragraph hook:
“I didn’t kill God; we should clear that [...]

Hub Magazine, Issues 47-50

By Douglas Hoffman ⋅ May 2, 2008

Hub issues 47-50 includes the conclusion of Neil Gardner’s series on Robert Rankin’s The Brightonomicon, an essay on the writer’s strike, reviews of Planet Terror, Jericho—Season 1, The Grin of The Dark, Doctor Who s4—Episode 1: “Partners in Crime,” Needful Things, A Clockwork Orange, Doctor Who s4—Episode 2: “The Fires of Pompei,” editorials, and more.
What [...]

Hub Magazine, Issues 43-46

By Douglas Hoffman ⋅ March 3, 2008

In Issue 43 of Hub, Ian Whates’s “Coffee Break” introduces us to the unflappable Bud, a coffee shop customer who won’t be kept from his beverage. Even an alien invasion force can’t stop Bud from enjoying a cup of coffee on his day off. There’s more to Bud than your average joe-drinking Joe, but not [...]

Hub #39-42

By Douglas Hoffman ⋅ January 29, 2008

Hub is a “free weekly science fiction, fantasy and horror magazine delivered direct to your inbox every week.” Each issue features at least one work of fiction along with reviews or other features. Subscribers can receive Hub as a pdf file or as a download for the Mobi Pocket Reader.
In Issue 39, the last issue [...]

shortshortshort.com, Nov/Dec 2007

By Douglas Hoffman ⋅ January 2, 2008

Pushcart and Nebula Award-winning author Bruce Holland Rogers gives subscribers a good deal: for ten dollars a year, they receive (by email) three stories a month. As Rogers says, “Thirty-six stories for ten dollars. That’s about twenty-eight cents a story.” They’re short stories, rarely longer than 2000 words, but in today’s nanosecond attention span [...]

Shortshortshort.com, Sept/Oct 2007

By Douglas Hoffman ⋅ December 31, 2007

Bruce Holland Rogers, the creative force behind shortshortshort.com, served up a mixed sextet of ultrashort stories for September and October, 2007. Here you’ll find some of Rogers’s best work, as well as some less-than-stellar tales.
“Stoppage” is not one of Rogers’s clearer stories. A cat sitting on sheet music provides the inspiration for a metaphysical digression [...]