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.
The Skin
By Eugen M. Bacon
First it was insects, lizards, rats … Ivy chopped their heads with razor-sharp objects, then graduated to chicks fallen from their nests. Then it was mice. Cats. Dogs. After the first teenage girl, the exciting calm to extreme hate that made a teenage boy easy also, graduated Ivy to a grown woman. Legs folded, curled into something tragic, the woman’s dead eyes glittered like diamonds, blank as an ocean.
The hunt was foreplay.
The Mirror In The Bathroom
By George Nikolopoulos
Officer Jake Delonghi muttered angrily to himself, while shaving. "Another end-of-world prophecy; a mysterious invasion happening today and everyone's going to die. It's in the Potatonic Manuscripts or something.
Poets In Pockets
By Jan Napier
I keep poets in my pockets sometimes they shrill and argue
like an aggravation of lorikeets stretch and bulge the seams.
I am forced to issue reprimands or to correct their conduct
by example.
Knowledge Cube
By David Scholes
It was a lonely trip being the only flesh and blood entity among a ship of artificial intelligences.
***
Finally our target planet hove into view. Time for work.
Our job? The preservation of all the of this world’s knowledge before its transformation. We would forge a knowledge cube. Later, those more elevated in cosmic hierarchy would decide its fate.
Global Warming
By Meghashri Dalvi
"Show me your project." She pulled at him strongly.
He nervously showed it to his big sister.
"Yikes! What is this? Just a few wisps! Is that all you have got?" She smirked.
"I am still learning," he protested.
Día de los Muertos
By Roger Ley
It’s a Mexican thing. You have to be Mexican to understand the mixture of sadness, joy and resignation we associate with death. We don’t want to die, but we respect our relatives who have gone before us, we cherish them, they are not forgotten. The 2nd of November the Día de los Muertos. Not the Carnival, the colourful, exuberant, uninhibited celebration in February. Not Halloween, the childish western celebration. No, the Day of the Dead is older than that, thousands of years older, first celebrated by the pre-Columbians, and now in many Spanish-speaking countries. Here in Mexico it’s a big event and when did us Latins need an excuse for a fiesta? Unfortunately, somebody has to keep a watch on the festivities, and this year my number had come up.
The night-time streets were crowded with happy, slightly drunk people, perfect conditions for the predators, the pickpockets, con men; all sorts of criminal activity would be going on.
Bacon Butter Flash
By Ishmael A. Soledad
I got this thing for butter. Not the mass-produced stuff but boutique, Sorrell melt in your mouth handmade creamy delight. It’s expensive but I budget to the cent, autopay all my bills. All I see is my drinking and grocery money.
Well, truth is the one hundred forty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents drinking money’s exactly Uncle Owen’s fine for public disturbance. He’s a fair and reasonable public official even if he is on the bench. Got to the point last year I sent the fines straight through in advance. I’m a little calmer now, not much sense in using all my drinking money to fight.
But no matter what I always have my eight dollars ninety-five for my butter.
Acquisition
By Austine Osas
He shoves his left hand into my pocket and roughly removes a couple of tens instead of asking for them as he normally does. I glance at Uyi, a small smile masking my surprise at his atypical behaviour, but he doesn’t smile back. Rather he has a strange look in his eyes which I struggle to interpret. Is it anger? Discontent? I don’t know. My conscience pricks me to ask, but I can only speculate about his thoughts as he remains silent.
Five weeks ago I promised both of us I wasn’t going to do this to him. Five weeks ago I was firm in my resolve and fully committed to seeing it through, but here we are, five weeks later, ready to break my own promise and powerless to stop my capitulation. Self-preservation is a bitch.
Abduction.org
By Robert Caldwell
brief fly through
Author: Xperkto
Date 89-623 679:5342
I couldn’t sleep one millennium. So I got into my spaceship and jumped over the billions of light years to the seventh-degree species world. I looked for what appeared to be one of the scarcer inhabited areas and flew my ship through the atmosphere. I know that is no big deal to you abduction pros but it gave me a thrill.
Re: brief fly through
A Tale Of Pod
By Kim Rose
Pod was sad.
Sadness was not unknown on pod-world, but it was carefully managed. All the various pods working at various frequencies balanced the overall equation quite well. Sadness was okay. It was part of being alive. The sadness was necessary for a balanced overall equation.
But Pod was persistently sad. An oddity. All day Pod just moped. He did not want to participate in joint energy exchange. He did not want to feed on particles of cosmic light. He did not want to vent vacuum between the stars. Pod could find nowhere to be content.
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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 243
A Cat Amongst
by Louise Zedda-Sampson
A Perfect Plan
By Gary Estcourt
Breathing Space
By Tim Cadman
Date Night
By Kevin J. Phyland
Entombed
By Debroah Sheldon
Five-Second Button
By Eugen Bacon
Not Glaring, But Certainly Noticeable
By Loren Johnson & Douglas J. Ogurek
Pilgrimage
By Roger Ley
The Diner
By R.J. Sadler
The Last Supper
By Austine Osas
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Most Read Stories
AntipodeanSF September 2018
ISSUE 242
Speculative Fiction
Downside-Up
ISSN 1442-0686
Online Since Feb 1998
AntiSF's Narration Team
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.
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>
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)
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.
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.
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>.
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>
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
The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.