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, 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.
AntipodeanSF is also made available in e-book format for reading on your i-phone, i-pod, other mobile phone, or PDA device. Read AntipodeanSF anywhere!
AntiSF will be at Conflux! Elizabeth and I will see you all there. Get ready to learn how to fold a dragon.
This month, though, as you can see we're all rugged up and ready for the annual Winter Solstice Beach Party...
Nuke.
War On Terror Just Blows Me Away
By Wes Parish
"You again! Lieutenant Tracy Fraser!" growled the US Marine leading the squad I was assigned to. "If it wasn't for you damn liaison types we'd have got the last terrorist we saw."
That had happened because I doubted rummaging through rubbish bins at the Darwin Racecourse was in fact terrorism.
"At least he ran."
Touch
By Robert David
Down at the foot of the hill below Sven, scattered workers return from their shifts. It has been a long day. Now, neither light nor dark claims to master the oil wells on the nearby fields, and a fine yet distant music arises from the folds of the surrounding hills.
It seems to Sven that has seen this twilight amethyst shine before — or perhaps it is only an illusion, a sensation, a reflection of moon — the air thin, silence echoing in a stream of notes like the fall of low tonalities escaping from the vocal cords of a selfish master.
The Circus Act
By Ferne Merrylees
“I’m running away.” Nero slumped against the wall, hands braced against his thighs as he shook his head, droplets of sweat flicking from his cheekbones.
“Run away from the circus? Isn’t that what they used to do back on Dirt?” Helios, who’s offstage name was Arthur — call me Art —, handed him a bottle of water. Nero took a mouthful, swirled the sour tasting swill around his teeth before spitting into a potted shrub.
“They had the right idea.” Nero poured the rest of the water over his head. It streaked his makeup, but it needed to be redone anyway.
The Centaur
By Salvatore Difalco
Left rear malfunction. Hoof frog cracked, fetlock detached. Took it to the FixTube for repair. Botmech said I needed a new left quarter. None in stock — on order. Botmech detached my damaged quarter and issued a chit. I took it.
“Return in 72 hours.”
“How will I exercise?”
“You still have three.”
Stupid Robot
By Col Hellmuth
The only sounds to be heard were the low, muffled drone from a distant and well-silenced generator that could be more felt than heard, and the intake and exhalation of air — slightly less rich in oxygen — from a single pair of lungs, a sound normally buried below the general noise level of life. In the confined area it seemed almost deafening.
Two figures could just be made out in silhouette by the dim orange glow from the thickly laminated, leaded-glass portal they were standing by — had there been anyone else left to see them. Neither moved perceptibly.
Leading The Swan
By Hari Navarro
I sit naked and shivering against a wall in the old milk factory and inhale the gagging scent of his semen. It sticks, drying and contracting my skin in the heavy twilight as a single blood-flecked feather lays at the curl of my toes.
They arrived in a wedge that blocked out the sun. Tracked from the very edge of the solar system, a mass so immense that it had us resolved to extinction, wiped out like the great lizards beneath the crush of some nameless and errant celestial rock.
History Comes Alive
By Ken Schweda
Professor Timmons never thought he’d end up like this. Graduating college at age sixteen, PhD in computer science and AI at nineteen. Then straight to the best AI company in the world. Unfortunately, the founder of AITech was also a prodigy in her day and believed that everyone, without exception, started at the bottom.
His office, if one could call it that, consisted of two partitions arranged in the back of the company’s large spare parts warehouse. No matter how many times he complained about the fumes from the trucks that regularly entered and exited the area, the response was always the same — our robots don’t have functioning noses.
Gathering At The Bubble
By Robert W. Caldwell
“It will hurt the Inuit economy.”
The mousy-haired girl had been lecturing us for at least ten minutes, half-empty wine glass sloshing its contents with each emphatic pronouncement of doom.
“And the growing ice cap will close off the Northwest Passage,” Claire continued.
I watched the sun set over the ocean. At least with the onset of darkness I wouldn’t be able to see the water three hundred feet below through the concave floor of the clear bubble.
Critters
By Kevin J. Phyland
Once I used to slap mosquitoes and flies, and occasionally I killed some.
I came to learn that they are just critters. They have tiny lives of their own. They do what they need to survive and in turn they must defend themselves against bigger predators.
I used to hate spiders. Arachnophobia.
Alea Iacta Est
By Chris Cole
In hindsight, the opponents of the Reykjavik laws never really had much of a chance. What began as a suggestion, a “What if…?” in Iceland in the late twenty-teens had, predictably, stirred up a hornet’s nest of social and tabloid media vitriol. But the first bills allowing and protecting the active screening of all pregnancies, not just those proceeding from in vitro fertilisation, for all known genetic defects and diseases slipped almost unnoticed through the legislature of several countries, and states.
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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 240
Hit Parade
by Kevin J. Phyland
Infiltration
by Estelle Owen
Mars Hence
by Ishmael Soledad
Prison
by Botond Teklesz
Screams Mean Fear Or Pain
by Kyra Thomsen
Serum 66
by Laurie Bell
Star Sign
by Roger Ley
Terminating Train
by D.A. Cairns
The Outsiders
by Ed Errington
Tinker's Curse
by Garry Dean
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Most Read Stories
AntipodeanSF June 2018
ISSUE 239
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>.
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>
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>
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>
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.
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.
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
Lillicat Releases "A Betrayal and Other Stories" by Brian Biswas
Lillicat Publications has relased AntiSF contributor Brian Biswas's new story collection "A Betrayal And Other Stories", now available at Smashwords and Amazon. <Find Out More>
Meerkat To Publish Eugen M. Bacon's "A Woman's Choice"
Meerkat Press has acquired AntiSF contributor Eugen M. Bacon's literary speculative novel "A Woman's Choice" for publication in 2019. Go Eugen! <Read More>
Aussie Awards News
2018 Aurealis Awards Open
2018 Aurealis Awards overseers the Continuum Foundation (ConFound) announces that the 2018 Aurealis Awards are now open for entries.
The Aurealis Awards, Australia’s premier awards for speculative fiction, are for works created by an Australian citizen or permanent resident, and published for the first time between 1 January 2018 and 31 December 2018.
Full guidelines and FAQ can be found on the Aurealis Awards website: <https://aurealisawards.org/rules/>
Upcoming Aussie Cons
Continuum XIV: Conjugation. Melbourne’s SF Convention. 8th – 11th June, 2018. More information: <http://www.continuum.org.au/>.
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!
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/>
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
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