Speculative Flash Fiction
G'day, greetings and bonjour. Welcome. 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 let you see to the outer reaches of the cosmos — yet won't take hours to read.
I finally made it to Siding Springs...perhaps you will too.
Read on...
Nuke.
Tribunal on the Misuse of Swords and Knives
By Len Baglow
“Biter, we have only one case to come before us today, but it is complicated.”
“Fictional or factional?”
“Both.”
The Walls Have Tongues
By S.A. McKenzie
“Welcome to the Flesh House, young madam and young sir,” Red Jack declaimed with a grand sweep of his hand. He hefted the organ transport container, green liquid sloshing, and ushered Serai and JimJim through the round doorway. They stopped just inside, waiting for their eyes to adjust to the red-tinted gloom. The doorway puckered shut behind them. From deep inside came a distant thudding, like a slow-beating heart.
The Smeg
By Harris Tobias
You didn’t have to be a Smeg hating racist or a xenophobe to hate them. Their condescending attitude and smugness were insufferable at the best of times, but the threat they posed to us and our planet made hating them a patriotic duty. They made us feel as ignorant and inadequate as those indigenous people our ancestors encountered and annihilated a few centuries ago.
The Hot Equations
By Simon Petrie
The wind, the smell of it.
The sky. Grey churned with orange.
Fire tonguing the estate’s trees. The roar, the heat.
Hotel De Mort
By Emma Louise Gill
Most folks say death on the premises is bad for business. For us, it’s life.
Forget the whole idea of passing quietly. We specialise in the spectacular, the stunning, the superb. Want to leave this mortal coil in a diamond coffin shot into the sun? We can fulfil your wish. Host a party for your friends — or enemies — so they can witness your final moments? No problem. With sixteen floors of customisable spaces, three thousand guest rooms, fifty medical professionals and twenty staff lawyers, we can handle anything you require.
For More Options, Press 9
By Myna Chang
> You have 1 new message, delivered today at 7:00 a.m. from Upward Cellular:
- We’re pleased to introduce a new service for managing your voice-mail inbox. AutoLangTM is a self-learning algorithm that automatically translates incoming voice messages into your preferred household language: “English.” Press 7 to choose an alternate language.
Food Prints
By AE Reiff
I wanted to write you millennials and Gen Zers here as Encephalitic verses burst before the microcatch. You don’t know this but you should go out, if it is permitted. Encephalite verse is called “Google gas,” the other aspects are the same. Brain words multiply in the cranium and breed more imprints of their own. This is the same process of imitation and mimesis of old. But amped.
Drowning
By Chris Karageorge
41 Traits You Display that Your Friends Don’t Understand. You’ll never guess what happened to me today. 19 Celeb Moments You Might Have Missed. Was it on your VWatch? 15 ways that puppies make lives better! No. I don’t have VWatch. Something weird happened on the train. 10 photos that prove cats are evil and cute at the same time. Ok. 21 Harrowing Food Crimes People Have Committed This Week. Are you listening to me? Just a 12 month subscription for $89.99. I am listening. Ryan and Justine’s new Royal Baby Photos. Really? What was the last thing I said? And the Baby Prince’s Nursery you’ll just Love. Something about your brother. There Are Over 5 Unified Countries! Do you know their capitals? No! 12 ways to Lose Weight! I might get a new wedding ring, I'm over this design. Charlie and Colin’s epic meltdown on Married to a Stranger, tonight! We’ve been married for less than a year...you’re joking right? This Mother’s day, give the gift of the QuadAscend Z90. I know, but we have the money to change it. It catches on things. Having a hard time choosing your next read? Take a quiz! Anyway, on the train, I looked out the window and saw Leon Alberti.
Content
By Ashley Cracknell
Heaney is a taskmaster: strict and unforgiving. No sooner have I written a line than it is struck through with suggestive green and corrective red. There is value in this kind of guidance, though some people might call it stricture. I prefer structure.
You asked me to write about the value of teamwork in our industry. I can tell you that since I began collaborating with Heaney around a year ago, my writing has flourished. My style and diction have changed almost beyond recognition. If you had asked me to present to you a year ago, you would have wondered at the stiltedness of my words, and their lack of clarity. Working with Heaney has made my writing unrecognisable, but it has made me a writer.
Buchstabensuppe
By Tony Owens
They sat around the table, hands held in a circle. Madame Heisenberg, the fortune teller in Hernandez’s Circus of Terror acted as medium. They were attempting to reach her cousin, Ernst ‘six by four’ Planck.
Klinko the King of Klowns wondered how he’d been talked into this particular farrago. Then he remembered the parlous state of the circus finances.
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 273
A Farewell to the Best Friend
By Alexander Iurvetski
A Morning with Grey Clouds
By Swylmar S. Ferreira - Translated by Toshiya Kamei
A Winged Bug's Pain
By Sele Hanakusa - Translated by Toshiya Kamei
Christmas Cheer
By Stephanie Koorey
Microscopic Love
By João Ventura
Searcher
By Scott Steensma
Storm
By Tim Borella
The Author
By Chris Karageorge
The Heart
By Ovidiu Bufnilă
The Price of a Manospondylus Sandwich
By Wes Parish
AntipodeanSF May 2021
ISSUE 272
Speculative Fiction
Downside-Up
ISSN 1442-0686
Online Since Feb 1998
Download AntiSF E-Book
AntiSF's Narration 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>
Alistair Lloyd is a Melbourne based writer and narrator who has been consuming good quality science fiction and fantasy most of his life.
You may find him on Twitter as <@mr_al> and online at <alistairlloyd.com>.
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>
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>.
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.
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.
Carolyn's work spans devising, performance, theatre-in-education and a collaborative visual art practice.
She tours children's works to schools nationally with School Performance Tours, is a member of the Bathurst physical theatre ensemble Lingua Franca and one half of darkroom — a visual arts practice with videographer Sean O'Keeffe.
(Photo by Jeremy Belinfante)
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.
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
If you want to see the true measure of a man, watch how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.
The Contributors
Emma Louise Gill is a British-Australian spec-fic writer of flash fiction and short stories.
She writes most genres (except horror, since the real world is scary enough).
Currently querying her first novel, a space opera.
She likes cats, coffee, and computers that don’t break.
Emma lives in Perth, Western Australia, with her hubby and two kids.
You can read more stories on her blog at <www.emmalouisegill.com>.
Ashley Cracknell is an Irish-Australian writer who lives in Sydney.
His short fiction has featured in the Honest Ulsterman and two University of Sydney Student Anthologies.
He has also dabbled in editing, for ARNA.
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.
Myna Chang writes flash and short stories in a variety of genres.
Her speculative fiction has been featured in Best Indie Speculative Fiction 2020, Daily Science Fiction, Antipodean SF, Mad Scientist Journal, and Twist in Time, among others.
She is the winner of the Lascaux Prize in Creative Nonfiction for 2020.
Read more at <MynaChang.com> or find her on Twitter at <@MynaChang>.
S.A. McKenzie lives on one of the better-looking islands of New Zealand, in the earthquake-ravaged ruins of Christchurch.
After surviving more than 12,000 aftershocks she has become adept at estimating the exact magnitude of any quake based on the amount of coffee spilled.
She writes offbeat and blackly humorous science fiction and fantasy stories featuring time travelling rabbits, carnivorous unicorns and man-eating subway trains, because someone has to speak up for these misunderstood creatures.
Find her online at <www.hedgehogcircus.com>.
AE Reiff has two recent collections, The True Light That Lights @ Parousia Reads, and Recon @ Trainwreck Press.
Tony Owens is an ESL teacher living in Brisbane with his wife and son.
His short fiction has appeared in the anthologies In Fabula-Divino, Zombies Ain’t Funny,18, Darkest Depths and Andromeda Spaceways Magazine 2017’s Best Stories.
He is a proud member of the Vision Writers Group and his ultimate ambition is to find the literary sweet-spot between H.P. Lovecraft and P.G. Wodehouse.
Harris Tobias lives and writes in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is the author of two novels: The Greer Agency & A Felony of Birds. He has written dozens of short stories many of which are available on line at <quantummuse.com>. He is the author of many children’s books including At The Robot Zoo, MoonRivet Saves His Skin and An Alphabet Book of Bugs available in print from
CreateSpace and as ebooks for Nook & Kindle. You can find links to his writings here: <harristobias-fiction.blogspot.com>
Simon Petrie, born and educated in New Zealand, now lives in the Australian Capital Territory, where he is paid to be careful with words.
He's had a few stories published before, both in AntipodeanSF and elsewhere. He has been shortlisted several times for the Aurealis and Ditmar Awards, and is a three-time Sir Julius Vogel Award winner, most recently in 2018 for his SF/crime novella Matters Arising from the Identification of the Body.