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, get you out there and invade your mind — yet won't take hours to read.
I'm as sure you are that I have an ulterior motive in presenting you with this month's stories!
Read on...
Nuke.
Mercury
By Brian Biswas
Because the surface of Mercury is as hot as molten lead, its inhabitants live underground. It has an atmosphere, though, and properly suited up one can live on the surface for brief periods of time.
The planet is heavily cratered, much like Earth's moon. It has cliffs the colour of ochre that extend as much as a mile into the sky. Evidence of ancient lava flows are everywhere. There are shallow basins and ringed craters. A good percentage of Mercury's surface is covered by plains.
Desk Chronicle
By Kaoru Sakasaki - Translated by Toshiya Kamei
Yeah, it’s been a while since somebody last showed interest in this line of work.
How far should I go back? When my old man was a young boy, folks argued over the old and new Japanese Industrial Standards. In a nutshell, it’s about tabletop measurements. With the new standards, the width and the depth of tabletops were a couple of inches longer. Of course, you could place your notebook and textbook more easily on a larger desk. But you couldn’t change the classroom size. Do you know when they came up with the old standards? In the Meiji era. Did you know that? Yeah, Meiji. The late nineteenth century, to be more precise.
A Ring in the Stars
By Callan J. Mulligan
Blades of grass flattened beneath Lizabeth’s fingers as she laid back on her hands and elbows, admiring the view. One month into her new life and she still couldn’t fathom the beauty of this place. Children laughed as they skipped down the walkway alongside her, leaving a harmony of joy ringing in her ears. A soft breeze left a cold stain on her cheeks, and it felt as real as the wind on Proxima B. She knew it wasn’t real, just a side effect of the artificial atmosphere, but sometimes it would be strong enough that her thick curly brown hair would be picked up, thrown over her head, and land in her face. The ring was a paradise, akin only to the once-fertile world they left behind.
Eternal Life (Almost)
By João Ventura
They were the ten richest men on the planet. Altogether, they owned over 95 percent of the Earth's wealth. They were responsible, through decisions made by their companies or by governments they controlled, for almost everything that happened to the inhabitants of the planet.
With a small portion of their immeasurable fortunes, they financed a Research Institute designed to study life extension.
Famous Last Words
By Chad Bolling
"This is the last job. Then we can be together," Damon said.
"Famous last words," said Agnes.
"I wish you could be more positive," he said. Then Damon picked up a weapon and attached it to his cybernetic shoulder.
"I'm sorry… It's just..." she gently touched a metal piece of his cybernetic arm. "I wish you could get the procedure done now. Then my father would let us get married."
Flash Ships Ltd
By Neil A. Hogan
Space twisted, shuddered, then ripped apart as Flash Ships Ltd.’s experimental craft tore back into reality. The triangular ship shot forward, momentum from its previous suborbital position above Earth throwing it further into the Kuiper Belt.
Inside, Captain Bruce Malper saved the target drone’s recording of their arrival, unhooked his belt and checked the oxygen levels. “AI. Record. 11:47am AEST. Saturday 12th April 2036. The first human test of the interplanetary flash drive is a success.” He straightened carefully in the confined space, brushing off cables that had gathered near him, and checked stats. “Pluto’s orbit confirmed. 7.5 billion kilometres in 7 seconds.”
Hope is a Dangerous Thing
By Laurie Bell
I’m pacing a groove in the floor. It’s been four months, with another six to go. I’m not going to last. Not at this rate. The sentence was a joke. They haven’t even found the merchandise — besides there’s no way to prove I was the one to take possession. No proof. No conviction.
At least that’s what I’d thought.
Apparently, proof is a more fluid construct these days. That bastard — my ex, the copper — the one who’d saved me from dying alone in a dead spaceship stuck in deep space didn’t believe me when I said I didn’t have it. He couldn’t find it in my crappy ship, but he took me in anyway. Arrested me. When they went back to grab my ship, well … it had disappeared. I should have been free and clear at that point.
Human Suit
By Nick Petrou
The extradimensional spaceship sat in the blue sky over Perth city, unfolding and refolding and echoing sunbeams like a prismatic disco ball, while Steve sat on his roof, flipping it off.
He sculled the rest of his Emu Export, crushed the can, and nodded to his best mate Po, who reached a gloved hand into their esky and passed him another beer. Fold-out camping chairs protected their asses from the sunbaked roof, and they sucked down cigarettes and played Frogstomp from Steve's iPhone speakers and looked out over their city, which, like a thousand other cities around the world, was welcoming the Visitors with open arms.
In the End
By Samuel Gachon
She couldn't even remember her own name. All she could remember was an explosion. Nothing else.
She lay there. She had no idea where she was. She tried to remember. Nada. Void. She stayed immobile for what seemed to be an eternity.
Eventually, she recovered some strength and stood. She looked around. What she saw frightened her. Everything — destroyed. Corpses lay scattered on the ground, but there was no sign of violence. They were like...frozen.
Pyramid Scheme
By Louis Evans
Oh my god. Girl. How has it been TEN YEARS since I last saw you? I’m so glad I found you on Instagram! How have you been?
Listen. That’s amazing and I’m so so so sorry about your son Caden BUT I actually wanted to talk to you about something. How would you like to start working, making some real money, and being your own girl-boss—or girl-PHARAOH?!
The Fermi Solution
By Kevin J. Phyland
Carrington often met me for drinks on a Friday. We would catch up on our respective lives — his as an astrophysicist at Melbourne Uni, mine as a child psychologist with a well-known quango — and our wives had become fast friends as well. We'd known each other since high school and despite our disparate career paths we had maintained our association. More due to geographical convenience than anything else, I often speculated.
When he sat down opposite me this Friday however, his brow was furrowed and there was a distinct air of dejection about him that was uncharacteristic.
The Last Time I Saw Douglas Adams
By Edwina Harvey
The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy appeared as a radio play (broadcast in Australia by the ABC) around the time I was becoming a fledgling adult. Uniting two of my passions: science fiction and humour, I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. When I discovered the novelisation I devoured it then passed it around to friends with the zeal of a religious convert, desperate for people to speak the language of towels, hoopy froods and Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters.
The word “stalker” hadn’t entered the general vernacular, but I was a fan, and courtesy of co-operative work colleagues and flexi-time, I was able to get to a number of Australian book signings by Douglas Adams. In 1985 I even managed to get to one of his book signings at Forbidden Planet in London prior to attending a Hitch Hikers Guide convention in Birmingham run by the international fanclub, ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha.
The Zip
By Harris Tobias
You have to feel sorry for the Zips. Since losing the war and their home world to our victorious armada and superior technology, they have been a sad and demoralised people, living as an underclass among us. How that must hurt. It’s not like they don’t deserve it. They’d have annihilated us had things worked out differently. Their numbers reduced to a few tens of thousands from the billions of them that challenged us. Now they live in abject poverty and appalling conditions in their ghettos and on the streets of our great cities. Hated and despised, they are a pitiful lot.
UFO
By Steven Fritz
LT Karen "Buster" Reynolds turned her F/A-18H inbound toward the carrier and flew at low cruise airspeed into an empty sky filled with stars. The Moon was new, not even above the horizon at the moment. It was always beautiful to see so many stars in the sky this far from land. She moved her head to see whether a blur was a smudge on the canopy or a distant nebula. Not a smudge. Combat Air Patrol could be tense, but what could go wrong on a night like this?
"Alpha Romeo 46, this is Alpha Romeo 35," Dave ‘Reef’ Black called over the CAP frequency, "I've got a bogie on my heads-up display!"
AntiSF & The ASFF
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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.
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In The Next Issue...
Coming In Issue 272
Buchstabensuppe
By Tony Owens
Content
By Ashley Cracknell
Drowning
By Chris Karageorge
Fodd Prints
By AE Reiff
For More Options Press 9
By Myna Chang
Hotel de Mort
By Emma Louise Gill
The Hot Equations
By Simon Petrie
The Smeg
By Harris Tobias
The Walls Have Tongues
By S. A. Mckenzie
Tribunal on the Misuse of Swords and Knives
By Len Baglow
AntipodeanSF April 2021
ISSUE 271
Speculative Fiction
Downside-Up
ISSN 1442-0686
Online Since Feb 1998
Download AntiSF E-Book
AntiSF's Narration Team
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.
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.
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>.
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)
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>
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.
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>.
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.
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
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SF Quote
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
The Contributors
Chad has a B.S. in Biochemistry from California State University Dominguez Hills and an Associates degree in Culinary Arts from Le Cordon Bleu, Pasadena.
His fiction has been published in Larks Fiction Magazine, 365 Tomorrows, Farther Stars Than These and Verdad among others.
He has made a few short films the most recent of which was an official selection of Dances with Films.
Link to Chad's Vimeo: <https://vimeo.com/cbcinema>.
Nick works as a freelance writer out of Perth, Western Australia, where he likes to read unsettling fiction and complain about the sun.
His short fiction is forthcoming in two anthologies by Black Hare Press.
You can find out everything there is to know about him (and more) at <nspetrou.com>.
Callan J. Mulligan was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1988.
Writing poems and fiction from a young age, his imagination took him through several creative careers including Marketing, Music, and Film & Television.
At the age of 29 he wrote his first published work of fiction, a novella titled ‘A Mind of His Own’. The debut work received critical acclaim and scored amazon's Top 100 for thriller and suspense.
Callan predominantly writes science fiction, and his work often contains existential and philosophical themes. He has a deep, personal, love of science, especially astronomy and cosmology.
Callan lives with his wife on the Queensland Gold Coast and spends his time playing more video games than should be considered healthy, and not reading nearly as much as an author should.
Louis Evans is a sci-fi writer living in Brooklyn with his partner and two cats named after fictional European detectives, Hercule Poirot and Lord Peter Wimsey.
His fiction has appeared in Analog SF&F, Interzone, GigaNotoSaurus and more.
He would never get involved in a pyramid scheme, which is why you can have complete confidence that THIS business opportunity is the! real! deal! Let's do lunch . . .
His website is evanslouis.com and he tweets @louisevanswrite
Kaoru Sakasaki lives with his family in Yokohama, south of Tokyo.
He writes late at night after putting his children to bed.
In 2020, he won the Judges’ Special Prize in the first Kaguya SF Contest organized by Virtual Gorilla Plus.
Neil A. Hogan has been writing space fiction on and off since the '80s.
His next novel, The Robots of Atlantis, is due out in May 2021.
Find out more at <https://www.StellarFlash.com>.
João Ventura writes short fiction, which has appeared in several websites (AntipodeanSF and Bewildering Stories among them), and also in printed form: Somnium, in Brazil; Dragão Quântico, Hyperdrivezine, Phantastes (Portuguese fanzines); Universe Pathways (in both the English and the Greek versions).
He had short stories in several Portuguese and Brazilian antologies: A Sombra sobre Lisboa (2006), VaporPunk (2010), Antologia de Ficção Científica Fantasporto (2012), Lisboa no ano 2000 (2013), Lisboa Oculta - Guia Turístico (2018), O resto é paisagem (2018), Almanaque SteamPunk (2019), Winepunk (2019), Regiana Magna (2020).
In 2018, a collection of his short stories (in Portuguese) came to light, with the title Tudo Isto Existe.
He likes reading, writing (surprise!), has a blog and is a university professor (now retired).
He is married, with two children and he lives in Lisbon.
Those who read Portuguese can have a glance at some of his stuff in Das palavras o espaço.
Samuel Gachon is a student in creative writing at QUT, with a minor in media and entertainment.
He lives in Brisbane, and has published a few stories on Wattpad and Deviantart.
Links:WordPress: <https://wordpress.com/pages/samuelgachon.wordpress.com>.
Wattpad: <https://www.wattpad.com/user/SamuelGachon>.
An emerging writer, James Patrik enjoys exploring the existential themes.
A lifelong science fiction fan, he has a particular fondness for Japanese culture—especially Tokusatsu.
James is also passionate about psychology and is currently studying a Bachelor of Psychological Science.
You can read more of his work at: <www.jamespatrik.com>.
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.
Steven Fritz graduated from the University of Maryland, became a Naval Aviator and flew helicopters and maritime patrol aircraft in the US Navy.
After leaving active duty, he earned a Ph.D. in Radiation Biophysics at the University of Kansas and spent several years as a medical school faculty member and senior administrator.
After university he managed a seed stage venture fund and did a stint as an avionics entrepreneur. He’s been infatuated with science fiction since his youth and has been writing SF full time for three years. You can follow Steven on his website at <InigoPress.com> or on Twitter at @StevenLFritz1.
Brian has published over sixty short stories in the United States as well as internationally.
His short story "A Betrayal" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and anthologized in The Irreal Reader.
A collection, A Betrayal and Other Stories, was published by Rogue Star Press in 2018, and his novel, The Astronomer, will be published by Whiskey Tit Press later this year.
Brian is listed in the International Writers and Authors Who's Who, Marquis Who's Who, and the Internet Speculative Fiction Database.
You can read more of Brian's work at his website: <www.brianbiswas.com>.
Or follow him on Twitter: @brianbiswas
"Mercury" is an extract from Brian's upcoming novel The Astronomer.
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>
Pretty much a life-long fan of speculative fiction, Edwina Harvey is a writer, editor, silk painter and ceramic artist.
Her short stories and articles have appeared in a variety of publications including Aurealis, Antipodean SF, Grass Roots, Harbinger, Magpies, Strange Pleasures #3 and Worlds Next Door.
She has had three books, The Whale’s Tale, The Back of the Back of Beyond, and An Eclectic Collection of Stuff and Things and a novelette, Never Forget, published through Peggy Bright Books. <www.peggybrightbooks.com>.
Edwina received her editing qualifications in 2012 and now works as a freelance editor, specialising in speculative fiction.
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>
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.