Speculative Flash Fiction
Salutations, greetings and howdy. You are 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 allow you to travel to the stars and distant planets — yet won't take hours to read.
Please read all of this month's stories, and then you can listen to them again in audio a few months later on the AntiSF Radio Show...
...Nuke.
The Witch of Borshevo
By Kyosuke Higuchi - Translated by Toshiya Kamei
When I visited Siberia, some of the locals told me about the Witch of Borshevo. Her story was well known throughout much of Russia.
Once there lived a girl whose body was immortal. She was born in Borshevo in 1971. Situated in Eastern Siberia, Borshevo was a remote mountain village. It was believed to have had a population of around 300. Yet the accurate record had been lost to history.
The PM's Horns
By Len Baglow
The Prime Minister looked in the mirror. He had grown horns: two little bone horns with sharp ends sprouted from either side of his broad temple. He leaned into the mirror to take a closer look and gingerly touched their hard exterior.
“Henrietta!” he called. “I’ve grown horns.”
Henrietta entered the dressing room.
The Paragon Abyss
By William Kerr
I remember snippets of my trial. Dealing with hundreds of cases during a single sitting, the courts churned through their daily list at a frightening pace. I recall being whisked to the bar at the front of an intimidating room by two black-clad guards. I nodded meekly when my name and serial number were read out, and scarcely heard the charges laid against me — something to do with questionable allegiance to the State.
The Mouse
By Natalie J E Potts
“Good morning, listeners. As part of our series, Behind Every Great Man, I’m here with Mrs Mouse, wife of our own home-grown superhero, The Mouse. Welcome.”
“Good morning, Jason.”
“It must be quite thrilling, being married to a superhero?”
The Gods in Their Galleries (Part One)
By Rick Kennett
PART ONE
“Spiders? What spiders?”
Naomi Napaltjarri, a twenty-something wearing high-viz work clothes, stared wide-eyed at the younger woman in the seat beside her.
The truck had growled down the hill from the landing pad and onto a flat, yellow plain, and was now passing in among an array of steamships lying like so much scattered scrap — freighters, tankers, liners. Some were upright and some were on their sides and some were so collapsed into themselves it was hard to tell what they'd been. Scaffolding adorned a few and figures wearing bright safety vests moved about their decks.
The Boy who Cried Woof!
By Col Hellmuth
“How's about that young-un, Gertrude?”
I munched thoughtfully awhile, before answering: “What young-un 's that then, Daisy?”
“Young Billy, the Farmer's boy.”
Mavis
By Chris Karageorge
Let me ask you something, have you ever seen a baby crow? Of course you haven’t, no one has. By no one, I mean no living person, but Satan though...he is not a living person, he is the un-living among us. Crows are born and grown in Hell, they come up from the ground, but not just anywhere. If a child loses a tooth, take the tooth and keep it in your shoe for a day. Crush the tooth with a hammer and poke a hole in the dirt with your thumb. Crows love ground up teeth and can smell it all the way from their growing sacks down below.
Lucky Bastards
By Kim Rose
“I have cancer.”
“Oh, my God.”
“I know.”
“Dude, you’re so lucky! What kind is it?”
Fiction to Fact Technology Inc.
By P. V. Andrews
The party planner had warned Caroline during the booking process that the ‘Favourite Real Fairy Tale Characters’ was not really a child-friendly package. She suggested one of their other options, a package that used actors rather than the ‘real’ characters created by the recently developed replica technology, but Caroline waved away the recommendation replying, “They’re people from fairy stories, children love reading fairy stories and my daughter never stops reading fairy stories. So, I don’t see the problem.”
Best Laid Plans
By Kevin J. Phyland
“Three wishes?”
The ifrit tilted his head at me and nodded. His eyes held a mischievous sparkle however, that gave me at least momentary pause.
The Erlenmeyer flask that I had been drying in the school chemical laboratory still sat on the flame-proof bench. There was just a hint of sulfur in the air from when I'd unstoppered it and a small pill-shape — the magnetic stirrer — sat in a small drop of liquid. The glass stopper still rocked lazily back and forth.
A Quindecillion of Cain
By Dan McNeil
Evolution on the planet followed a typical path.
Over several million years, the dominant biological life form had evolved to a point where, more or less in tandem, it had mastered artificial intelligence and nanotechnology.
AntiSF & The ASFF
AntipodeanSF supports the ASFF
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 275
Big Yellow Taxi
By Ishmael A. Soledad
Heart of Lightness
By Gary Griffith
Hunting in the Dark
By Marcelo Medone
Hydra
By R. E. Diaz
Lunch
By Jenny England
On the Brink
By Ed Errington
The Gods in Their Galleries (Part Two)
By Rick Kennett
Shadows of Icarus
By Stephen R. Brandt
The Letter
By Robin Hillard
The Story of the Match Between Areseth the Magnificent and Noj the Invincible
By William Kitcher
This Time, For Sure
By Rex Caleval
AntipodeanSF July 2021
ISSUE 274
Speculative Fiction
Downside-Up
ISSN 1442-0686
Online Since Feb 1998
Download AntiSF E-Book
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>.
Geraldine Borella writes adult short stories and stories for children and has been published in anthologies for both. In 2018, one of her children’s short stories placed second in The Buzz Words Short Story Prize and she won an ASA Emerging Writer’s Mentorship. She currently works part-time as a hospital pharmacist and as an online creative writing tutor.
She’s fascinated by stories that expand upon today’s technology, addressing the moral and ethical issues that might arise. Equally, she enjoys the creative freedom that writing for children allows. Right now, she’s writing a young adult novel, reworking a middle grade novel and writing adult short stories when inspiration strikes. She lives with her husband, Tim, in Yungaburra, Far North Queensland and dreams of one day taking a European gap year.
Although a writer of the baby boom persuasion, Ed has not boomed for quite a while.
He lives with his wife plus a menagerie of non-domesticated — native Australian animals intropical North Queensland.
His writing within the ‘real’ science fiction context of COVID-19 is intermingled by long night sky vigils — searching for pesky aliens intent on maintaining their social distance to the nth degree.
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>
Tim Borella has never lost his childhood passion for SF and writing in general and has been lucky enough to have worked most of his life as a pilot — in other words, he’s never properly grown up.
He lives in country Far North Queensland, has won awards for songwriting, and has had various other writing achievements, the most recent being an honourable mention in the 2018 international Literary Taxidermy Short Story Competition.
He also has bachelor degrees in science and teaching, and has completed a couple of as-yet unpublished SF novels. He’d dearly love to spend more time writing, but will have to continue juggling for another couple of years until the kids have fully left the nest.
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.
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.
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 and The Tiger's Eye (YA/Fantasy) White Fire (Sci-Fi) and The Good, the Bad and the Undecided (a unique collection of short stories set during the events of White Fire/Sci-Fi).
You can read more of her work on her blog <www.solothefirst.wordpress.com> Look for her on Facebook <www.facebook.com/WriterLaurieBell/> or Twitter: <@LaurienotLori>
Rambles, writing and amusing musings
Smile! laugh out loud! enjoy the following
<www.solothefirst.wordpress.com>
Sarah Pratt is an avid fiction writer and a Marketing Consultant.
She is currently working on her first novel but loves diving into short stories to bring a little lightness, intrigue or humour to the day.
Her work has appeared in Sponge Magazine and The Commuting Book.
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.
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
Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.
The Contributors
Dan McNeil's short fiction and reviews have appeared in a plethora of publications, including Alienist Manifesto, Antipodean SF, Bewildering Stories, Fantastic Metropolis, Fugitives & Futurists, Ink Magazine, Laura Hird’s Showcase, Mad Hatter’s Review, Outsider Ink, Redsine, Sein und Werden, The Short Review, Whispers of Wickedness and Word Riot.
Dan's website is at <www.dan-mcneil.com>; he can also be found on Twitter as @TheMcVariations, and Instagram as <@thedanmcneil>.
P.V. Andrews lives in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs with her husband, children, and cat.
Past jobs have included karaoke hostess, English teaching in Tokyo and assessing ethics applications for research projects.
She has a master’s degree in bioethics, loves travel and is currently fascinated by CRISPR.
Chris Karageorge is a lover, brother, son, neighbour and a keen observer of all things in sight.
He reads, writes and cooks in his spare time and dreams of coffee darker than a moonless night.
He is from Melbourne, Victoria and can be found walking his pug Monty during the weekends.
Dreams of worlds that might be, and the clash that brings them into existence.
In past lives he was a policy advocate in Canberra and an environmental activist in Queensland.
In awe of such great Australian SF authors as Glenda Larke, Garth Nix, Trudi Canarvan and Kate Forsythe, he dares to dabble in the arcane art.
Kyosuke Higuchi writes science fiction, speculative fiction, and literary essays. His debut novel, Kōzōsōshi [Structure Elements], won the fifth Hayakawa SF Contest in 2017.
His short fiction has appeared in Syosetsu Subaru, S-F Magazine, and Bungei, among others.
His latest book is a collection of essays entitled Subete namonaki mirai (2020).
Kyosuke lives with his wife and young daughter in Nagoya, Japan. Find him on Twitter at <https://twitter.com/rrr_kgknk>.
William Kerr is a self-professed science fiction enthusiast. He was born and raised in Tasmania but now calls Canberra home.
His personal preference is hard science fiction and dystopian-style stories which definitely influenced his first published piece ‘The Burning’.
He is looking forward to publishing more flash fiction and is hoping to become a regular contributor.
Toshiya Kamei holds an MFA in Literary Translation from the University of Arkansas.
His translations have appeared in venues such as Clarkesworld, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and World Literature Today.
Col Hellmuth lives a quiet, uncomplicated life, off-grid in the Daintree rainforest of Far North Queensland.
He has scratched out a living in a variety of different jobs (and locations) over the years; these days he scratches out words in various sequences, and dreams of a day when he might be able to convert some of these ramblings into food.
When he is not writing or enslaved at work he is usually found bumming around his local beach dodging crocs in his kayak or jamming on the blues-harp.
He doesn't have any fancy letters after his name, or a pet cat, but does read a lot.
Kim Rose has been a professional ghost writer for five years, specialising in paranormal and sci fi romance. She has her own self-published romance series which is her answer to the restrictions of the current market, pushing the idea of what happily ever after really means.
Kim is also an accomplished photographer and model, creating a wide variety of digital art.
She lives in Central NSW on a large property where she runs Crescent Moon Lodge Animal Refuge, supporting the animal rescue effort.
You can follow Kimrg666 on these pages:
The New Recruit (Tales from the MadHouse Book 1) eBook: Rose, Kim: Amazon.com.au: Kindle Store
<https://www.deviantart.com/kalikapsychosis>
Kim Rose (@kimrg6_6_6) • Instagram photos and videos
Crescent Moon Lodge Animal Refuge - Home | Facebook
<https://www.facebook.com/Kimrg666-Artist-112433517156278>
<https://www.patreon.com/kimrg666>
Natalie has tried everything from Air Traffic Control to Zoology, but writing has been the one constant across all the years.
She had her first publication in Antipodean SF and can still remember the heady excitement of that first acceptance.
She is eternally grateful for that first flush of encouragement, and is proud to be one of the regular contributors.
Old enough to just remember the first manned Moon landing, Kevin was so impressed he made science his life.
Retired now from teaching he amuses himself by reading, writing, following his love of weather and correcting people on the internet.
He’s been writing since his teens and hopes he will one day get it right.
He can be found on twitter @KevinPhyland where he goes by the handle of CaptainZero and his work is around the place if you search using google or use the antisf.com.au archive.
I'm a life-long resident of Melbourne, Australia, where I work in the transport industry. I like to explore graveyards, an odd hobby I call necrotourism, although I believe the correct word is taphophile.
I've been writing since 1979 and have had SF and ghost stories in many magazines, anthologies and podcasts. In 2008 my story "The Dark and What It Said" won a Ditmar, and in 2013 my podcast stories "Now Cydonia" and "The Road to Utopia Plain" won two Parsec Awards. I'm presently the podcast reporter for the M.R. James journal Ghosts & Scholars.
"The Gods in their Galleries" is a sequel to my novel "Presumed Dead", available on Amazon.