Interzone

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Cover

Abductees 2 by 2018 cover artist Vince Haig

 

Contents

 

Fiction

The Fate of the World, Reduced to a Ten-Second Pissing Contest by Erica L. Satifka

The aliens like to break things, mostly. Bottles, noses, the pinball machine in the corner of Lucky’s Bar that never worked quite right in the first place. They roared into the parking lot on their Kawasaki bikes, bandannas tied around their mouths so we couldn’t tell they were aliens.

I knew they were aliens right away, for the rec­ord. I may be a lush, but I’m not stupid.

They set up a tab. Then all the stars went out.

 

Looking for Landau by Steven J. Dines
illustrated by Martin Hanford

1. The Silence Will Be Beautiful

Here we are again. On my knees in the dust. This time we are in the Sun Belt; this time it is Arizona dust. But the blood in my mouth always tastes the same.

I know he isn’t here, but they’ve seen him, I can tell. They’ve talked to him. It’s written all over their hate-filled faces. They have murder in their eyes. I have to hand it to Landau: he has a knack for getting people to do what he wants. For showing them the way.

 

The Mark by Abi Hynes

I am going to climb the mountain. I’ve taken off my clothes, because there’s no one here to see me, and I’ve torn them into strips. I’ve knotted them to make one long stretch of fabric. I’ve made a little bundle. I’ve tied it at the small of my back and wrapped it round my waist, crossing, left over right, where my hips can take the weight. The bundle against my chest, then crossed again, over my shoulders, knotted at the back of my neck. It feels secure enough. I’m afraid of being naked like this, out in the open, but I must take it with me and I will need my hands free.

 

The Purpose of the Dodo is to be Extinct by Malcolm Devlin
illustrated by Richard Wagner 

1. The Singular Death of Prentis O’Rourke

When Prentis O’Rourke was ten years old, he read a book about the last words spoken by the famous and historically significant, and wondered what he might say for himself when his own time came.

 

The Christ Loop by Leo Vladimirsky
illustrated by Dave Senecal

I’m sitting under my favorite olive tree, breeze blowing warm, like wine, from the deserts on the far side of the mountains near Jerusalem. I know what is going to happen because it’s happened millions of times before and will happen again until they get it right. No. Until we get it right. This was my idea, after all.

 

Black Static 63 Out Now

Black Static is published at the same time, and in the same format, as Interzone. Issue 63 contains new dark fiction by Steven J. Dines (novella), Kristi DeMeester, J.S. Breukelaar, Nicholas Kaufmann, and Matt Thompson. The cover art is by Richard Wagner, and interior illustrations by Ben Baldwin, Vincent Sammy, and Richard Wagner. Regular features include Notes From the Borderland by Lynda E. Rucker, Into the Woods by Ralph Robert Moore, Case Notes by Peter Tennant (book reviews plus an in-depth interview with Priya Sharma), Blood Spectrum by Gary Couzens (film reviews). To take out a discounted subscription to Black Static, or Black Static + Interzone combined, please visit this website's shop.

Winner of the 2017 This Is Horror Fiction Magazine of the Year Award.

Potential subscribers outside the UK should note that six issues of 12-issue subscriptions have absolutely no postage added: you'll pay exactly the same as a UK subscriber.

New subscribers can get this issue free by using "BS63 FREE" as your Shopper's Reference during checkout. The same offer applies to Interzone (use "IZ275 FREE") and a dual subscription to both magazines (use "IZ275 + BS63 FREE").

 

Interface

Guest Editorial
Steven J. Dines

My father was a ghost.

 

Future Interrupted: Grasping the Nettle
Andy Hedgecock

Over the last four years I’ve developed a ritual to mark the arrival of Interzone on my doormat. I liberate it from its shrink-wrap, then immediately read Jonathan McCalmont’s Future Interrupted and Nina Allan’s Time Pieces – columns about sf’s untold stories, submerged traditions, toxic habits and potential to change the world.

 

Time Pieces: Happy Birthday Dear Victor, Happy Birthday to You
Nina Allan

I’m sure everyone has particular memories of when they first encountered Frankenstein. Mary Shelley’s landmark work, which celebrates its two hundredth anniversary of publication this year, is of such iconic status that whether those memories pertain to the book, one of its many screen incarnations, or the often misnamed monster seems not to matter. My own first memories of Frankenstein are suitably weird, and all the more treasured for that. I’d be willing to wager there aren’t many people out there for whom the immortal tale of an over-ambitious medical student and his misbegotten creation is indelibly linked with images of…ABBA.

 

Ansible Link
David Langford

News, obituaries.

 

Reviews

Book Zone
Maureen Kincaid Speller, Andy Hedgecock, Duncan Lunan, Jack Deighton, Duncan Lawie, Ian Hunter, Elaine Gallagher, Stephen Theaker, Ian Sales

Books reviewed include Autonomous by Annalee Newitz, Moonrise: The Golden Age of Lunar Adventures edited By Mike Ashley, Lost Mars: The Golden Age of The Red Planet edited By Mike Ashley, Quietus by Tristan Palmgren, The Oddling Prince by Nancy Springer, Sisyphean by Dempow Torishima, Dreams Must Explain Themselves by Ursula K. Le Guin, The Map of Salt and Stars by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar, The Gloaming by Kirsty Logan, Fifty-One by Chris Barnham, The Great Chain of Unbeing by Andrew Crumey, Dreams of the Technarion by Sean McMullen

 

Mutant Popcorn
Nick Lowe

Films reviewed include Avengers: Infinity War, Ready Player One, I Kill Giants, Anon, Rampage, Pacific Rim: Uprising, Bigfish and Begonia, Mary and the Witch's Flower, A Wrinkle in Time, Every Day, Wildling, A Quiet Place, Isle of Dogs, The Titan, Native

 

How To Buy Interzone

Interzone is available in good shops in the UK and many other countries around the world, including the USA where it is stocked by Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million and elsewhere. If your local store (in any country) doesn't stock the magazine 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, etc.

The best thing though is to follow any of the Shop/Buy Now/Subscribe links on this website and buy this new issue (scroll down to the bottom of the Shop), or better still take out a subscription (at the top of the Shop), direct with us. You'll receive issues much cheaper and much quicker, and the magazine will receive a much higher percentage of the revenue.

Potential subscribers outside the UK should note that six issues of 12-issue subscriptions have absolutely no postage added: you'll pay exactly the same as a UK subscriber.

SPECIAL OFFER: New subscribers can get this issue free by using "IZ275 FREE" as their Shopper's Reference during checkout.

 

Please Help Spread the Word

Magazines like Interzone cannot survive without subscriptions, and we always need more. If you enjoy the magazine please blog about it, review it, or simply recommend it to your friends. Thank you!

 

The Teardrop Method by Simon Avery

Interzone readers will be interested to know that TTA Novella 4, The Teardrop Method by Simon Avery, is out now as a B-Format paperback with wraparound cover art by Richard Wagner and bonus connected short story. You can buy it now from this website's shop.

"The Teardrop Method is a story about stories; a beautiful novella about love and loss and the connections people make and then sometimes break. It's quiet, haunting, and ultimately moving" Gary McMahon

"Nightmare plotting infused with an aching mitteleuropäische sadness, Simon Avery’s tale of music and mortality could be the novelisation of a lost Argento movie" Nicholas Royle

"Without any prep or background, I started reading the novella The Teardrop Method by British author Simon Avery, and was immediately engaged by the moodiness, the bleakness, the desperation and creaky, world-weariness of the setting and characters. These appealing elements perfectly coalesced into a tragic and fervent eulogy to the creative process - to Art with a capital A - as a means of salvation and transcendence and doom, and to love itself in all its complex iterations, exploring the concept of loving, dying, and even killing, in order to achieve the proper reception code from the eternal Muse while the roaring Danube drowns out the rest of the world. This is a very European story, in all its faded baroque finery and cafe claustrophobia. The snow is heavier here, the dawn ever more surprising. The supernatural and the natural are not so far removed in places like this. The old and the new forever caught in a twirling waltz. I highly recommend this novella, and cannot wait to see what melody Mr Avery pens next. I'll be listening" T.E. Grau

"A monumentally haunting novella" Des Lewis

“Simon Avery’s descriptions of Krysztina’s music makes me want to hear it. It’s a subtle and beautifully told tale with echoes of European film-makers like Haneke and Kieslowski, as well as their predecessors like Franju and Polanski. It conjures a powerful sense of foreboding that reminds me of Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, and shares with that film a sense of being haunted. It has moments of profound sadness and yet still managed to surprise me with its uplifting ending. One of the novellas of the year” Mike O'Driscoll

“Majestic and compelling throughout, The Teardrop Method is an exemplary specimen of a standout novella. It’s beautifully written, excellently produced, and a sign of publisher TTA Press at the top of their game” Gareth Jones, Dread Central

"I can honestly say that Simon Avery's The Teardrop Method is one of the finest and most fascinating novellas I've ever had the pleasure of reading. I highly recommend this novella to speculative fiction readers, because it's a beautiful and subtly complex exploration of death, love, loss and how to recover from a tragedy. Its darkly beautiful atmosphere and delicate story will captivate everyone who appreciates quiet horror" Rising Shadow

"The Teardrop Method is a complex, intricately structured piece of dark fiction, or perhaps quite horror. It is a story about the weaving of stories, about the transmutation of the darkest personal grief into art, and about the coming to terms with the inevitability of death. As a key line puts it – Art leads you back to the person you were after the world took you away from yourself" Gary Dalkin, Amazing Stories

"Simon Avery’s prose is spare and masterly, and certainly the equal of any Booker Prize nominee I’ve ever read. As much goes on between the lines as on them. The interstitial dark spaces are filled with horrors and a creeping unease that drags the reader in and won’t let go. The characterisation and storytelling, too, are brilliant" John Dodds, Amazing Stories

"This highly original piece is written with the sad, chilly atmosphere of much central European fiction but it has a very British rejection of miserabilism for its own sake. The desire for even the most fantastical stories to make sense and to make progress keeps breaking through and the result is a charming, and charmingly odd, novella which stays in the mind like an overheard song" Mat Coward, Morning Star

"Avery's story is a dark and tense thriller, set against a cold Hungarian back drop. The reconnection between father and daughter gives The Teardrop Method melancholy in light of the father's declining health, and the handling of the supernatural element is done so latently it feels authentic and hence, genuinely spooky. The prose here is compulsively readable and even the stranger members of the cast pop off the page" Nick Cato, The Horror Fiction Review

 

Crimewave 13: Bad Light

Interzone readers might also like to know that a new volume of Crimewave is out now. This 240-page American Royal paperback contains groundbreaking and often genre-bending new stories by Simon Bestwick, Gerri Brightwell, Georgina Bruce, Ray Cluley, Mat Coward, Catherine Donnelly, Stephen Hargadon, Andrew Hook, Linda Mannheim, Ralph Robert Moore, Mike O'Driscoll, Steve Rasnic Tem and others, with wraparound cover art by Ben Baldwin. It's only £10 and available from the Shop now.

"Crimewave goes further, and the quality is higher" The Times

"It just keeps on getting better, maintaining its capacity to both please and surprise" Crime Time

"A must-have collection of the hottest crime stories around" Ian Rankin