Speculative Flash Fiction
Hey there. Thanks for the visit. 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.
We've been doing this now on the intertubes for 23 years — and on to meet the future.
AntipodeanSF will entertain you and allow you to travel to the stars and distant planets — yet won't take hours to read. You do have time!
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 Return of Rahab
By R.E. Diaz
“Cuneiform?” Air Marshall James Garrett of the Royal Australian Air Force bristled as his eyes swept through that roomful of alliance cryptologists. In the end, he just hung his head and muttered. “Why the hell would a technologically advanced civilisation, centuries ahead of our own, store their classified data in cuneiform?”
Lieutenant Santu, the Basque team leader, stepped forward. “Sir, with up to a thousand logo-syllabic combinations, it appears cuneiform was designed to accommodate multiple unrelated ancient languages from Sumerian to Hittite to Old Persian.” He nodded toward the old man in the dark cassock by the door. “Padre Bernal suggested it.”
The Life of a Computer
By Matthew McAyeal
My life has not been like that of a human. When I was born, I was considered a wonder. People were amazed by how much I could do. As I grew older, I could still do the same things, but people were less and less impressed by them.
My first owner was the bald man in the suit. For four years, I sat on his desk. He used me mainly for spreadsheets. My first ever task was to determine how much money the company could expect to lose as a result of the U.S. boycott of the Moscow Olympics.
Terrarium
By Chris Karageorge
1
I spend Friday nights in my basement, it helps me relax.
What if our lives were flashbacks? Imagine that what we live day to day has already happened and our gut feeling, that voice inside your head telling you not to do something is really you after you have died, commenting or trying to steer you the right way in life.
I don’t really go out a lot. I find it difficult to deal with a lot of people all at once — a lot of people find it difficult to deal with me. They are just white flies.
Once Again on the Beach
By Umiyuri Katsuyama - Translated by Toshiya Kamei
At dusk, I tread a grass-filled path. How did I get here? I tuck loose strands of hair behind my ears. The uneven earth under my high heels almost makes me lose my balance. The setting sun paints the western horizon fiery gold, as the rest of the ultramarine sky deepens its hue. Venus flickers, heralding the arrival of night. The last rays of the sun sink behind a white gabled-roofed house on a hill.
All of this looks familiar. I’ve been here before. That means the app has turned on. I head toward the house to have my last wish granted. I could choose not to go, but that wouldn’t delay my death. So I continue my trek.
Moral Module 6: Urashima Taro
By Jeana Jorgensen
Long, long ago there lived a fisherman named Urashima Taro, who came from a long line of fishermen and was as skilled as could be. He was known in his village both for his skill, and for his kind heart.
One day, passing through the marketplace, he saw a group of boys cavorting around a turtle grounded among them. Helpless on dry land, the turtle flapped its flippers and snapped at the air. The boys taunted and kicked it.
In the City of Swordfighting Robots
By Tara Campbell
The sounds of battle echo through the streets at all hours: the clank of metal on metal, the scrape of steel on stone, the thudding of robots marching on until they find one another, assume the stance, engarde, then one or the other makes the first advance, calculating probabilities, categorising risks, having already mapped out stimulus and response so many times that every thrust or parry is one of a series of predictable outcomes. The only variables now are tripping on a crack on the sidewalk, or crashing into another pair of duelling robots. Humans have long since been killed or fled the city, never able to outcalculate their robotic foes.
Essence
By Tim Borella
NOW
The gates of Hell weren’t covered in flames and the skewered bodies of the damned, as Mack had imagined, but were in their way just as profoundly shocking, a sheer forbidding bulk humming with energy, sucking away all possible hope. For three decades he’d wondered if this day would really come, but come it had. A rectangle of blinding light appeared in the dark surface and Mack was dragged in to meet his fate.
THEN
The mist rose in patches above the slow-moving river, the promise of a cold night to come. With the evening frog chorus in full song, Mack didn’t hear the vehicle until it was close. Not expecting anyone, he reeled in his line and went to investigate.
Claim Jumper
By D.M. Woolston
Firelight images dance on surrounding oak trees under a clear midnight sky. The campfire would've made for a rather pleasant meeting, but this is no party as Michael is about to be hanged by the neck until dead. He strains from atop his horse. The taught rope ticking with tension.
“I'm giving you one more chance to quit this province. You're not needed here, brother,” I say.
Adaptation: A Dialogue in 10 Parts
By Greg Beatty
I
"I'm thinking Thai. Does that sound good?"
"Sure. Do you want to check to see which restaurants are open, and what the conditions are?"
"I can, but I checked the community website."
00001001 Lives (Part One)
By Alistair Lloyd
Point Iceberg
I am dreaming. It’s so peaceful.
“Wake up, Hammer.”
“Mmm.”
“Wake up, Hammer.”
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 278
00001001 Lives (Part Two)
By Alistair Lloyd
Eat What You Kill
By Yukari Kousaka - Translated by Toshiya Kamei
Fallen
By Ben Herriot
Kipple Cube
By Chris Karageorge
PauseHusband.com
By Daniel McKay
Reunion
By Jack Mackay Stanhope
The Contract
By Bart Meehan
The Sniper
By Kevin J. Phyland
The Wish
By Bart Meehan
Worse Monsters
By R.E. Diaz
scifaiku
By PS Cottier
AntipodeanSF October 2021
ISSUE 277
Speculative Fiction
Downside-Up
ISSN 1442-0686
Online Since Feb 1998
Download AntiSF E-Book
AntiSF's Narration 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)
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>.
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.
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>.
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.
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.
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>
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.
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.
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.
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
Most Read Stories
SF Quote
The Three Laws Of Robotics
- A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
- A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
- A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
The Contributors
DM grew up in the wild west of Nevada, leaping across its flaming sands just for fun.
Beside other strange adventures, he enjoys running while not being chased, and writing in a variety of Genres.
What can he say... he’s got a fairly short attention span. Squirrel!
But you can always find him at <http://www.dmwoolston.com>
Matthew McAyeal is a writer from Portland, Oregon.
His short stories have been published by "Bards and Sages Quarterly," "Fantasia Divinity Magazine," "cc&d," "The Fear of Monkeys," "Danse Macabre," "The Metaworker," "Scarlet Leaf Magazine," "Bewildering Stories," "The Magazine of History & Fiction," "Tall Tale TV," "Fiction on the Web," and "Necro Magazine."
In 2008, two screenplays he wrote were semi-finalists in the Screenplay Festival.
Jeana Jorgensen earned her PhD in folklore from Indiana University (USA).
She researches gender and sexuality in fairy tales and fairy-tale retellings, folk narrative more generally, body art, dance, and feminist/queer theory.
Her poetry has appeared at Strange Horizons, Nevermore Journal, Liminality, Glittership, and other venues.
She spends entirely too much time on Twitter as @foxyfolklorist.
Greg Beatty writes poetry, short stories, children’s books, and a range of nonfiction. He’s published hundreds of works — everything from poems about stars to essays on cooking disasters.
When he’s not writing, he walks with his dog, dabbles in the martial arts, plays with his grandchildren, and teaches college.
For more information on Greg's writing, visit <https://beattytales.com/>
Greg recently assembled 50 of his speculative poems into a collection, Cosmic Voices for Human Ears. It and other stories are available on Amazon and Payhip.
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.
Umiyuri Katsuyama is a multiple-award-winning writer of fantasy and horror, often based on Asian folklore motifs.
A native of Iwate in the far north of Japan, she later moved to Tokyo and studied at Seisen University.
In 2011, she won the Japan Fantasy Novel Award with her novel Sazanami no kuni.
Her most recent novel, Chuushi, ayashii nabe to tabi wo suru, was published in 2018.
Her short fiction has appeared in numerous horror anthologies in Japan.
A Physicist in Engineer’s clothing, Rudy worked 20 years in the Defense Aerospace Industry, from performing Lightning Protection analysis on the Space Shuttle to the design of Radar Absorbing Materials. He then joined Academia as a Professor of Electrical Engineering, where for another 20 years he attempted to infect unsuspecting students with a love for Maxwell’s equations.
Since High School he has spent most of his free time either writing Science Fiction or trying to figure out how to make Science Fiction a reality. (His students' latest work has led to the realisation of efficient RF antennas that radiate using true magnetic (not electric) currents.)
His speculative fiction short stories have appeared in Residential Aliens, Ray Gun Revival, The Untold Podcast, and Antipodean SF. He blogs on the subjects of Science, Religion, and their intersection. The rest of his work is in the peer reviewed Physics and Engineering literature.
Rudy has also been involved in Jail Ministry for about 30 years. He and his wife Marcy live in Phoenix, Arizona.
Links: <https://rediazauthor.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.
Tara Campbell (www.taracampbell.com) is a writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, and fiction editor at Barrelhouse.
Prior publication credits include SmokeLong Quarterly, Masters Review, Jellyfish Review, Booth, Strange Horizons, and Escape Pod/Artemis Rising.
She's the author of a novel, "TreeVolution", and two collections, "Circe's Bicycle" and"Midnight at the Organporium".
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>.
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.
PS Cottier is a poet who lives in Canberra, with a particular interest in speculative poetry.
She has been published widely at home and in Canada, England, New Zealand and the USA.
Two of her horror poems were finalists in the Australian Shadows Awards for 2020. Her latest books are Monstrous, which is a volume of speculative poems, and Utterly, which is non-genre.
PS Cottier is the Poetry Editor at The Canberra Times and blogs at <https://pscottier.com>