Black Static

New subscribers can get this issue free by using "BS57 FREE" as their Shopper Reference during checkout.

 

Cover:

The cover art is 'Lepidopterists' by Ben Baldwin

 

Contents:

 

Fiction:

Will You Accept These Flowers From Me? by Ralph Robert Moore
illustrated by Joachim Luetke

Michael, not really a handsome man, facial bones prevent, but wearing a nice suit, that helps, well groomed, dark hair combed back from his forehead, innocent grin, to where maybe being a handsome man isn’t quite as important, if at least you’re a presentable man, bouncing a white ping pong ball on his tabletop, catching it each time, cupping its small roundness.

 

Sunflower Junction by Simon Avery
illustrated by Ben Baldwin

That winter I started buying old vinyl records from the junkie who lived downstairs from me. He was selling all of his possessions in order to keep the lights burning, some food in his belly and his habit alive. His name was Colin. I couldn’t tell you how old he was but he must have been pushing sixty at least. He looked like he’d been drawn by Robert Crumb. Slow moving, heavy limbed, lugubrious. Long hair the colour of cigarette ash, brylcreamed into an unlikely, gravity defying wave that washed away from his forehead. It put me in mind of a painting that I had to Google to place: The Great Wave off Kanagawa. Seriously. Every time I set eyes on him – that painting. His eyes were quick but utterly unfocused, as if he were charting the movement of an invisible cartoon mouse around the room. But they were a strange piercing blue, those eyes. Paul Newman blue.

 

Shadows on Parade by Mike O'Driscoll
illustrated by Richard Wagner 

What Gillian was most afraid of was being afraid. It wasn’t pain or the thought of physical harm that scared her, so much as the possibility that there was nothing beyond fear except annihilation. In her mind, there was nothing worse than to never have been. She caught glimpses of this dreadful nonexistence in random visions that, despite her vigilance, disrupted her otherwise orderly life.

 

The Chambermaid by Aliya Whiteley

Bonnie hates the rainy days. Rain drives the tourists indoors, back to the hotels, where they sit in their damp rooms and play cards on beds rented from one Saturday to the next. But the good news is the sun has been out in force all this week and this morning she has the twenty-eight rooms and five floors of the Avalon to herself.

 

Columns:

Notes From the Borderland by Lynda E. Rucker

HORROR AND THE MADNESS OF ART

There are writers who would argue that what they do is all craft, that to talk about art is pretentious, just as there are readers and writers who see genres largely in terms of limits and comfortable boundaries. Give me what I expect. This month’s column is probably not for those writers and readers.

 

Into the Woods by Ralph Robert Moore

MISUNDERSTANDING EARS

When I was a child I had a bedtime when I was expected to fall asleep.

Except, I wouldn’t.

Once my parents left the blue and white striped walls of my bedroom, I’d lift my flashlight out from my night table’s drawer. Small thumb sliding up the black button, clicking the flashlight on. Grab the book I was reading from its resting place. Squirrel with it under the white sheets pulled over my head, creating a white cloth cave, shining the yellow circle of the flashlight against the book’s opened pages, black print, as if the pages were a drive-in screen.

 

Reviews:

Case Notes: Book Reviews by Peter Tennant

OUR GANG

Lynda E. Rucker: You’ll Know When You Get There
Gary Couzens: Out Stack and Other Places
Ralph Robert Moore: You Can Never Spit It All Out; Father Figure

WHO I AM AND WHAT I’M DOING HERE: ANDREW HOOK

Church of Wire; The Greens; Human Maps; Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel: A Personal Analysis
Plus Author Interview

FELLOW TRAVELLERS

Aliya Whiteley: Skein Island
Sarah Pinborough: Behind Her Eyes
Charles Wilkinson: A Twist in the Eye
Gary Fry: The Rage of Cthulhu

Blood Spectrum: DVD/Blu-ray/Digital Reviews by Gary Couzens

Fright Night, Under the Shadow, Raising Cain, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Train to Busan, The Wailing, Creepy, Nocturnal Animals, Blair Witch, Girl Asleep, To Make a Killing, Body Melt, We Are The Flesh, What We Become, Satanic, Beyond the Gates, Boo! A Madea Halloween, Sun Choke

 

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 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 Books, Amazon, Apple, Smashwords, etc.

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SPECIAL OFFER: New subscribers can get this issue free by using "BS57 FREE" as your Shopper Reference during checkout. The same offer applies to Interzone (use "IZ269 FREE") and a dual subscription to both magazines (use both codes).

 

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Coming Soon:

Black Static 58 – the hundredth issue if you include the 42 published as The Third Alternative – is out in May. Magazines like this cannot survive without subscriptions, so please subscribe now. Thanks!