Ionospherics 241
For a rather more than a while after its birth, AntipodeanSF issued forth onto the intertubes from a rather isolated spot called Whip Mountain, thus proving isolation is not necessarily a barrier to involvement.
Or did it? What about conventions, and awards, and other spec-fic gatherings? At the time I didn’t see the need to do that.
It took some persuading on the part of others for me to go to my first social SF event in Brisbane, the Aurealis Awards in early 2009. Well, that was an experience both positive and negative for this ionic substance, dressed in thongs and t-shirt to a full-on frocking thing. Okay. Nevertheless. From little seeds…
Speculative Flash Fiction
G'day flash loving folks, you're about to launch into an adventure at AntipodeanSF, the online magazine that's devoted to the regular monthly publication of fabulous and original science-fiction, fantasy, or horror mini-stories of about 500–1000 words each, with occasional feature stories of 2000 words and beyond.
AntipodeanSF will entertain you, and get you out there, perhaps even over the moon, yet won't take hours to read.
Please spend a few moments to read this month's stories. Alternatively, listen to all of them on the AntipodeanSF Radio Show, weekly, as per the schedule.
Nuke.
A Fairy Tale
By Susan Cornford
The memory came again: of tears running down her face that she’d wiped neatly off her chin by bending each soft, filmy wing till both were wet. Nearby, the human had laughed and waved at sunbeams from his cradle. Little had he known the doom awaiting him, for every warding spell she knew had failed.
That scene in the prince’s nursery still replayed in Daisy Yellow-Wing’s head almost every day. After having been the trusted royal fairy godmother for years, she’d publically lost everything in a matter of hours when the infant died of obvious black magic.
Fat Of The Land
By Bob Carlton
From the observation deck the planet appeared a bluish-green sphere with swirls of white flowing and knotting across its face. The report from the company's geologists concerning its composition had exceeded the expectations of even the most optimistic members of management.
"Beautiful," whispered Dr. Jewes.
"It certainly is," said Mr. Heker, his apparent concurrence with the doctor depending on the two men seeing beauty from thoroughly incompatible perspectives.
Freckle Face
By Kris Ashton
He is drawing off a glass of water at the kitchen sink when the pot plant waves at him.
It is a small bromeliad, commonly known as ‘freckle face’ because of its spotted leaves. It sits on window sill above the sink in a sculpted stone pot, where for most of the day it gets sunlight filtered through the patio roof. He and his wife bought the house a decade earlier and Freckle Face has been part of the furniture since then. It gives them no trouble, beyond dropping the occasional leaf and needing a weekly drink.
Getting To Know You
By George Nikolopoulos
Joseph rested his head on the younger man's butt, one hand absently caressing his spine.
The younger man sighed with pleasure. "It's funny," he said, "I hardly know you but I think I love you. It's like... you know everything I want. Everything that pleases me. Sex has never been like that."
"It's one of the few advantages of old age. You get to know things."
Poem For Fa And Jed Who Sailed The Ocean Red
By Chris Kelso
Fa gazes from the bow. He sees a group of artisan fishermen standing on steel-coil stilts by the shore, poised to spear the ocean. He smiles, salutes the native men, and turns to Jed who is repairing a minor leak on the trawler’s aft with palm-fulls of swamp paste. It is dangerous to smile in this land, so Old Jed is one to toil in quiet contentment.
“We should head northward soon. The Blood is ready to come through the glaze…” Fa says, fixing his expression, remembering Jed’s superstitious fear of smiling while adrift on the Bjørnstadfeltek Blood-Sea.
Salvage Rights
By Kevin J. Phyland
The small tele-operated crawler nicknamed Dampier slowly made its way back and forth across the relative smoothness of Mare Tranquillitatis. Its forward camera captured the late-afternoon view from near the old Apollo XI landing site with binary precision, not only because of its digital nature but because the actual colour contrast of the knife-like boundaries between actinic light and stygian shadow precluded any real need for colour vision.
Dampier was making a methodical search of the iconic site using a time-honoured method known as sweep-and-clear.
Stranded
By Martin Lochman
Captain’s Log, Entry 44, Location: Unknown
Three cycles have passed since we crash-landed on this strange world. For some of us it feels like it just happened — our ship exiting the subspace so suddenly after the engines malfunctioned, getting caught in powerful atmospheric turbulences and being violently thrown against an immense structure on the surface of the planet.
We have sustained grievous casualties and the vessel is heavily damaged. My first officer perished as a result of his injuries shortly after the crash, increasing the total number of deceased to eleven.
The Way Things Went
By A. Katherine Black
John rested his elbow on the peeling picket fence separating his property from Doug’s. Doug leaned against the other side. Streaks of reddish-gold painted the night sky beyond the mountains.
“Just like the fireworks they used to set off at the end of the county fair.” John sipped coffee from a chipped mug decorated with the words ‘I love kittens.’
“Exactly like that.” Doug said. “Except in reverse.”
Meteors fell in such numbers that it was as if a grand curtain hung from the heavens waiting to rise for the next act.
Whats App
By Edwina Harvey
“Luddite. Why don’t you just invest in a smartphone?”
“Because I’m a Luddite. Go on, show me the app that shows the constellations.”
I switched to the app and Harley was happy to study the stars shining above the cloud-filled sky.
“You’ve upgraded this?”
Zap!
By Matthew Harrison
Would you believe it, we’ve had a murder! A lightyear out, fourth roster, yours truly Steve Mack as captain, no help or advice from anywhere, and we’ve got ourselves a corpse.
Actually, the corpse is the least of the problems. Bill was a nasty piece of work — chief engineer but always scheming, and not much need for him anyway now that we’re just cruising through the old interstellar.
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Please visit the ASFF website and consider joining for up-to-date info about Australian SF cons, awards, competitions, and to receive the Foundation's newsletter, Instrumentality, and more.
AntiSF's Production Crew
Ion Newcombe is the editor and publisher of AntipodeanSF, Australia’s longest running online speculative fiction magazine, regularly issued since January 1998, and conceived back around November 2007. He has been a zealous reader and occasional writer of SF since his childhood in the 1960s, and even sold a few stories here and there back in the '90s.
“Nuke”, who it turns out loves editing more than writing, lives in the New South Wales North Coast holiday destination of Nambucca Heads, where he is self-employed in IT training, computer support, desktop publishing, editing, writing, and website implementation. He is also the resident tech-head, skeptic, and board member of community radio station 2NVR, where he produces a number of shows including The AntipodeanSF Radio Show.
Mark Webb's midlife crisis came in the form of attempting to write speculative fiction at a very slow pace. His wife maintains this is a good outcome considering the more expensive and cliched alternatives. Evidence of Mark's attempts to procrastinate in his writing, including general musings and reviews of books he has been reading, can be found at www.markwebb.name.
One of Mark’s very best forms of writing procrastination is to produce the eBook series for AntipodeanSF, which he has been doing since issue 175.
Main Menu
In The Next Issue...
Coming In Issue 242
A Tale Of Pod
by Kim Rose
Abduction.org
By Robert Caldwell
Acquisition
By Austine Osas
Bacon Butter Flash
By Ishmael A Soledad
Día de los Muertos
By Roger Ley
Global Warming
By Meghashri Dalvi
Knowledge Cube
By David Scholes
Poets In Pockets
By Jan Napier
The Mirror In The Bathroom
By George Nikolopoulos
The Skin
By Eugen Bacon
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AntipodeanSF August 2018
ISSUE 241
Speculative Fiction
Downside-Up
ISSN 1442-0686
Online Since Feb 1998
AntiSF's Narration Team
Timothy Gwyn is a professional pilot in Canada, where he flies to remote communities. During a lull in his flying career, he was a radio announcer for three years, and he is also an author.
In addition to short stories at AntipodeanSF and NewMyths.com, his SF novel is available internationally in print and ebook formats. "Avians" draws on his love of alternative aviation to tell the tale of a girl who runs away from home to join a cadre of glider pilots on a world without metal or fossil fuels.
On Twitter, he is @timothygwyn, and his blogs are at <timothygwyn.com>.
Laurie Bell lives in Melbourne, Australia. She was that girl you found with her nose always buried in a book. She has been writing ever since she was a little girl and first picked up a pen. From books to short stories, radio plays to snippets of ideas and reading them aloud to anyone who will listen.
She is the author of The Butterfly Stone (available now).
You can read more of her work on her blog Look for her on Facebook <www.facebook.com/WriterLaurieBell/> or Twitter: <@LaurienotLori>
Mark is an astrophysicist and space scientist who worked on the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn. Following this he worked in computer consultancy, engineering, and high energy research (with a stint at the JET Fusion Torus).
All this science hasn't damped his love of fantasy and science fiction. It has, however, ruined his enjoyment of rainbows, colourful flames on romantic log fires, and rings around the moon. He has previously been published in Stupefying Stories Showcase, Everyday Fiction, Escape Pod, Perihelion and also on AntipodeanSF where he is part of the narration team.
Margaret lives the good life on a small piece of rural New South Wales Australia, with an amazing man, a couple of pets, and several rambunctious wombats.
She feels so lucky to be a part of the AntiSF team.
Garry Dean lives on the Mid Coast of New South Wales Australia, and has been a fan of SF for most of his natural life. Being vision impaired, he makes good use of voice recognition and text to speech in order to write. Many of his stories have appeared in AntipodeanSF over the years, and his love of all things audio led him to join the narration team in 2017.
You can read examples of Garry's fiction on his website <https://garrydean.wordpress.com>
David Whitaker is originally from the UK though has travelled around a bit and now resides in India. He has a degree in Journalism, however decided that as he’s always preferred making things up it should ultimately become a resource rather than a profession.
His stories, covering everything from sci-fi to philosophy, have been published across the globe and links to each can be found at <wordsbydavid.com>
Pixie is a voice actor, cabaret performer & slam poet From the Blue Mountains in NSW.
She enjoys writing short fiction, plays for radio and stage as well as her own brand of weird poetry.
She hosts the 'Off-Beet Poetry Slam' held bi-monthly in Katoomba,
And is a theatre reviewer for 2SER FM in Sydney.
SF News
SF News
At Corflu 35 in Toronto (2018) the Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Bruce R. Gillespie. Congratulations Bruce.
Read about the Corflu Fan Activity Achievement Awards (FAAns)Awards <http://corflu.org/history/faan.html>.
Upcoming Aussie Cons
Oz Comic-Con Brisbane — Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre, Merivale St and Glenelg St, South Brisbane, 22/09/2018 - 30/09/2018.
Conflux 14 - The Unconventional Hero — Vibe Hotel, 1 Rogan Street, Canberra Airport ACT 2609. 29/09/2018 - 01/10/2018. More Information: <https//conflux.org.au>. AntipodeanSF will be at Conflux 14.
Oz Comic-Con Sydney — ICC Sydney, 14 Darling Dr, Sydney NSW 2000, Australia, 29-30/09/2018.
Nullus Anxietas VII: The Australian Discworld Convention – will be held in Melbourne on April 12-14, 2019, and is themed on Going Postal. More information: <https://ausdwcon.org/>
Continuum 15 Other Worlds (Natcon 58): Continuum 15 is the Australian National SF Convention, to be held in Melbourne on June 7-10. More information and memberships <https://continuum.org.au>. AntipodeanSF will be at Continuum 15 and celebrating Issue 250 of AntiSF!
For more up-to-date Aussie SF info join the ASFF: <asff.org.au>
The AntipodeanSF Radio Show
AntiSF Radio Show
The AntipodeanSF Radio Show delivers audio from the pages of this magazine.
The weekly program features the stories from recently published issues, usually narrated by the authors themselves.
Listen to the latest episode now:
The AntipodeanSF Radio Show is also broadcast on community radio, 2NVR, 105.9FM every Saturday evening at 8:30pm.
You can find every broadcast episode online here: http://antisf.libsyn.com
SF Quote
When I die I’m going to leave my body to science fiction.