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 have you travelling to the stars — yet won't take hours to read.
Please spend a few moments to read this month's stories.
Hitch a ride into your own imagination!
Nuke.
The Truth Bomb
By JT Velikovsky
The Technological Singularity, when it happened, took everyone by surprise.
Even all the gearheads, who knew that it was expected, at some time or other…
Even so. You can’t prepare for the unexpected.
All you can do, is: expect, expectations…
So the first thing that happened was: the entire internet crashed.
The Dream Report
By Chris Kelso
It’s always fascinating to see dream and memory mating in the primal waters of imagination. It will be an honour to witness Dechaume’s union.
At the summit we see a great waste of desert. I’m surprised because this seems like such an obvious dream-metaphor for writer’s block. Almost too obvious a metaphor for such a visionary writer like Dechaume — after all, it’s a privilege being granted access to his inner creative kingdom. And Dechaume’s historic contempt for journalists has not gone undocumented. We’re certainly grateful. We just expected something a bit more original.
Anyway, we can’t complain.
Out of Africa
By Ishmael A. Soledad
He came into the world when she was thirteen, alone and friendless, the midwife hurriedly turning her back on the mud-walled hut. She held him scared and nervous as the last light filtered through the open plains of the delta, serenaded by the hyena’s call and thrashing legs through grass. She thought his face beautiful, handsome.
“You are loved Tsabo.”
Origins Unknown
By Jacob Edwards
I first met Alfonse at the petrol station. There he was, cool as a cucumber and looking quite like one, too, feet planted next to pump number one and filling up the tank of a spaceship the size of a campervan. His skin was dark green and he stood at about six/five, neckless, with long, hairless limbs and a knobbly bit on top of his head. He gave me a nod as I unhitched the bowser next to his. Who’d’ve thunk it? First contact, and it’s with a dude whose flying saucer runs on premium unleaded.
I thought I was playing it pretty cool, kind of taking it in my stride that he’s wearing khaki shorts and a blue and white Hawaiian shirt.
Mallcity 14: Child's Play
By Shaun A. Saunders
(For Nick, the best brother in any world, who gave me the idea.)
Somewhere past tomorrow, where private thoughts are dangerous,
and prisons don't have bars,
is Mallcity 14
John Greer, thirty-eight years of age, a nondescript employee of the civil-services sector for twenty-one years, married to Mrs Joan Greer for three years, and a resident of Mallcity 14 for life, cursed when the animated graphic on the living room viewscreen rejected his most recent purchase.
“Insufficient credit,” it had said with a smile upside down.
“Frack!” was Greer's first response.
Kindling for the Fire
By JD Campbell
I stepped from the car without waiting for the chauffeur to open my door. I thanked him cordially, and didn’t offer a handshake to the Ambassador, nor did I see one offered. The air was cold, but the bright yellow sunlight warmed the front of Trades Hall as I alighted the granite steps.
A fantastic example of late Colonial architecture designed by Thomas Clarence Pallittore in 1882 and completed with union labour in 1886, the double doors, engraved by Michel Laffont during the rebuild in 1922, are always open.
Fortune Telling for Beginners
By Col Hellmuth
I was at a country fair, somewhere in south-west Western Australia — one of those towns suffixed in '-up', commonly misconstrued as meaning 'water' in the European interpretation of traditional Noongar language, a fact I had recently learned and found amusingly appropriate, being an Aquarius — eating a Dagwood Dog and loitering by the ubiquitous shooting gallery that always seems to accompany these affairs. It was well after sunset. The meagre and unimpressive fireworks display had just finished and the small crowd — presumably mostly local farmers and their families, or itinerant backpackers, keen to get home to check on their cows/chickens/wheat/dope crops — was rapidly dispersing.
Dear Santa
By S.A. McKenzie
Lilith was arranging sandwich ingredients on the counter when the Devil appeared in the kitchen. The resulting cloud of smoke set the smoke alarm screeching. The Devil gave it a red-eyed glare and it promptly stopped. He loomed over Lilith, his horns brushing against the copper shaded pendant lights.
“Tremble before me, mortal. You dared to summon me—” he boomed.
“I didn’t summon you,” Lilith said, unimpressed.
Dear Humans, Your Rent is Due
By Martin Lochman
Dear Humans,
We wish to inform you that your rent for the upcoming period of 100 Universal Temporal Cycles is due. Since your expenditure of the natural resources for the past period exceeded the allocated limit, you are hereby requested to pay additional 35% of the rent amount to compensate for the extra consumption.
Please note that as from now you are to execute all payments via remote transfer, using the brand new Interdimensional Transaction SystemTM. The system was designed to increase the efficiency and speed of the transactions on not only galactic, but also intergalactic level, and to minimise the gravitational footprint caused by the heavy traffic when utilising the conventional payments via direct harvesting.
COLN
By Derek Smith
"Good morning ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Galaxy Tower. My name is Peter and I will be your guide in the tower today. Galaxy Tower is currently the tallest building on the planet and we expect it will hold that position for a long time. If you would follow me into the lift we can begin your tour."
"The tower lift system is unique. COLN, the computer organised lift network, provides rapid movement in the tower."
"What's so unusual about that?"
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 257
A Tale of Tyl Feánn: In which loyalty is tested
by Steve Duffy
Couples Therapy
By Roger Ley
Crocs are Incorruptible
By Wes Parish
Cryogenic Heartbreak
By Terry Persun
Fruitricide
By Michael T. Schaper
Hole
By BG Hilton
Mallcity Endgame: The Great Velocity
By Shaun A. Saunders
RXPV
By Geraldine Borella
The Longest Journey
By George Nikolopoulos
The Sea Will Have
By Deborah Sheldon
The Washing Machine Ate the Socks
By Sayo Onada
The Contributors
JT Velikovsky is an Aussie transmedia writer, cartoonist, musician, inventor, actor, director, firefighter, academic, and rabid A.I. enthusiast(!)
His short stories have appeared in 365 Tomorrows, the anthology Shadows of Life, and Opus magazine. His screenwriting credits include the videogame Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal, the movie Caught Inside, and the TV show The Comedy Sale! His satirical sci-fi novel A Meaningless Sequence of Arbitrary Symbols (2011) is on Amazon. JT received his Ph.D (on: Movie Creativity) in 2016, and is currently reading several books as fast as he can write them.
Transmedia Writing website: <https://on-writering.blogspot.com/>
PhD blog: <https://storyality.wordpress.com/>
YouTube: <https://www.youtube.com/joeteevee>
James Walton was a librarian, a farm labourer, and mostly a public sector union official.
He is published in many anthologies, journals, and newspapers.
He has been shortlisted for the ACU National Literature Prize, the MPU International Prize, The William Wantling Prize, the James Tate Prize, and is a winner of the Raw Art Review Chapbook Competition.
His poetry collections include The Leviathan’s Apprentice 2015, Walking Through Fences 2018, Unstill Mosaics 2019, and ‘Abandoned Soliloquies’, 2019.
Terry Persun’s poems and stories have appeared in many magazines including Wisconsin Review, Kansas Quarterly, Riverrun, Rattle, Hiram Poetry Review, Bluestem, NEBO, Cirque, Eclipse, Bacopa, and many others.
His poems have appeared in six, chapbooks and five collections.
He was recently included in the 2019 Rhysling Anthology for sicnce fiction and fantasy poetry. He is also a novelist and has recently won first place in the Book Excellence Awards for science fiction.
Terry speaks at writers’ conferences and universities across the country. <www.TerryPersun.com>.
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>.
JD Campbell has been creating alternate realities and transforming factical realities for several decades.
A self-taught writer, musician and artist and unfortunate member of the 21st Century precariat, they live in Melbourne with two rats named Being and Nothingness.
Jacob Edwards hails from Brisbane and spends much of his time either writing or indulging his love of 80s synthpop.
He served two tours of duty stacking deckchairs for Andromeda Spaceways and has contributed a chic 60s-era Doctor Who monograph (#32: The Romans) to Obverse Book’s Black Archive range.
Jacob can be found online at <www.jacobedwards.id.au> or very occasionally tweeting <@ToastyVogon>.
Michael Connolly lives in Bowraville NSW, Australia. He has worked as an art teacher, music teacher, printer and illustrator among other things (such as chicken de-beaker), and has a keen interest in science-fiction and the natural sciences. He has illustrated for the magazine Tabula Rasa, which specialises in the horror genre, and is a regular contributor to AntipodeanSF.
I am an emerging author from the Czech Republic, currently living and working as a University librarian in Malta.
I first started writing and publishing in Czech but as time went by and my affinity for English language grew, I switched to English.
Some of my flash fiction and short stories appeared (or are forthcoming) in Theme of Absence, Asymmetry Fiction, Aphelion, Aurora Wolf, AntipodeanSF, 101Words, The Weird and Whatnot, and 365tomorrows.
You can find me at: <https://martinlochmanauthor.wordpress.com/> or twitter: < @MartinLochman>.
Chris Kelso is an award-winning genre writer, editor, and illustrator from Scotland. His short stories and articles have appeared in magazines and journals across the UK, US, and Canada, including: SF Signal, Lovecraft ezine, Daily Science Fiction, AntipodeanSF, Dark Discoveries, Pantheon, Evergreen Review, Sensitive Skin, Shoreline of Infinity, The Airgonaut, New Coin, Verbicide and many more.
His work has been translated into French and he is the two-time winner of the Ginger Nuts of Horror Novel of the Year (in 2016 for 'Unger House Radicals’ and in 2017 for its sequel 'Shrapnel Apartments'). 'The Black Dog Eats the City' made Weird Fiction Review's Best of 2014 list. ‘Shrapnel Apartments’ was endorsed by Dennis Cooper on his blog — “4 Books I read and Loved”.
This story is a linking piece to two stories previously published in Antipodean SF, Coffee With God (Issue 245) and Frank's Best Friend (Issue 250) both first drafted whilst living in Western Australia, where I spent the best part of two decades. This piece (ironically written whilst sitting on the bank of Emmagen creek in FNQ) is an attempt, not just to further develop some recycled characters beyond the limitations of the short short story format, but also to give these stories a sense of place, a nod to the multitude of unique landscapes (and people) to be found in WA. The huge distances and wide open spaces between locations are also riddled with untold stories, so many that I find myself still writing them years after moving back to North Queensland.
Col Hellmuth lives a quiet (excepting weekly jam nights,) uncomplicated life, off-grid in the Daintree rainforest of Far North Queensland.
His day jobs over the years have found him contracted to do various work around the country in such exotic locations as mine-sites, SAS barracks, a Collins-class submarine, prisons, operating-theatres, swanky restaurants and wineries, chicken sheds, the Great Barrier Reef and the open road. He does not have any fancy letters after his name, or a pet cat, but does read a lot.
When he is not enslaved at work he is usually found bumming around his local beach dodging crocs in his kayak or jamming on the blues-harp with his fellow bandmates, the Excruders.
I've read and watched sci-fi all my life I think it's time to give back instead of just taking. My stories have appeared in Aphelion, AntipodeanSF, Far Cry Magazine, Planet Web Zine, Schlock! Webzine, Short-story.me and Unrealpoloitik!. I have one short story collection - Hawking Radiation - published and am currently working on my first novel, due for release in 2020. You can connect with me on Twitter (@Ishmael_Soledad) or my blog at: <https://ishmael-a-soledad.com/>
Eugen Bacon has sold many stories and articles, together with anthologies. Her stories have won, been shortlisted and commended in international awards, including the Bridport Prize, L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest and Copyright Agency Prize. Literary speculative novel — Meerkat Press (2019). Creative nonfiction book — Macmillan (2019)
I am a writer and published author with many short fiction stories published in online and print magazines. My first books were SF including an anthology of all my published and unpublished short fiction. My last book, The Boarding House, was a very long term project a story based on my early time in Oz. I am a baby boomer born in England but migrated to Australia in 1966 when I was eighteen. I live in Canberra now with my family and am all but retired from writing. My current author page is here: <https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8277328.Derek_Smith>.
Shaun Saunders lives at the beachside suburb of Merewether, in Newcastle, NSW. He particularly enjoys Asimov's Foundation universe, and stories from the 'golden age' of SF. He is a regular contributor to AntipodeanSF, and winner of 2003 & 2004 AntiSF awards, and the inaugural 2005 SFSSC. His novel Mallcity 14 has been favourably compared with both 1984 and Brave New World.
AntipodeanSF January 2020
ISSUE 256
Speculative Fiction
Downside-Up
ISSN 1442-0686
Online Since Feb 1998
Download AntiSF E-Book
Poetry
By James Walton
You can get your fingers burned
by Creation’s vanities
the way they hop skip and jump
into various unknowns
or can be motionless pretending
a confirmation beyond them yet
The energy of one of their minds
freed of hemispheric axis
would drive dimensional shift
get you transpired home
solve the linguistic paradox
generate new nebula storms
They like to shape and fix things
with artistry beyond lexicon
but their world is on broken stilts
what they could be teeters
between fronds of unfolding stamens
and the wreckage of diminishing returns
About the Author
James Walton
James Walton was a librarian, a farm labourer, and mostly a public sector union official.
He is published in many anthologies, journals, and newspapers.
He has been shortlisted for the ACU National Literature Prize, the MPU International Prize, The William Wantling Prize, the James Tate Prize, and is a winner of the Raw Art Review Chapbook Competition.
His poetry collections include The Leviathan’s Apprentice 2015, Walking Through Fences 2018, Unstill Mosaics 2019, and ‘Abandoned Soliloquies’, 2019.
By Terry Persun
Space Station Interlude
manual adjustments
connect, clamp
secure attachment
open hatch
join crew
complete experiments
log findings
eat, exercise
sleep, work
again…again
check systems
reenter rocket
set course
going home
can’t wait
About the Author
Terry Persun
Terry Persun’s poems and stories have appeared in many magazines including Wisconsin Review, Kansas Quarterly, Riverrun, Rattle, Hiram Poetry Review, Bluestem, NEBO, Cirque, Eclipse, Bacopa, and many others.
His poems have appeared in six, chapbooks and five collections.
He was recently included in the 2019 Rhysling Anthology for sicnce fiction and fantasy poetry. He is also a novelist and has recently won first place in the Book Excellence Awards for science fiction.
Terry speaks at writers’ conferences and universities across the country. <www.TerryPersun.com>.
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>
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.
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.
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>
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.
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>.
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)
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 (YA/ Fantasy — available now) and White Fire (Sci Fi — available now)
You can read more of her work on her blog Look for her on Facebook <www.facebook.com/WriterLaurieBell/> or Twitter: <@LaurienotLori>
SF News
Upcoming Cons
Swancon 45 - National Convention 2020. Swancon is Australia's longest-running science-fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction convention, and is the premiere event in Perth for fans of all forms of speculative media.More information: <https://swancon.com.au/>
WorldCon 78 2020 ConZealand, 29/07/2020 - 02/08/2020 Wellington, New Zealand Worldcon 78 in 2020 is to be held in Wellington, New Zealand, on 29 July – 02 August 2020. Antipodeans, mark it in your calendar now — and the rest of the world, well, it’s time for you mark it in your calendars too: to visit the other side in 2020. Facilities for the event include: TSB Arena and Shed 6, the Michael Fowler Centre and the Intercontinental Hotel. More information is on offer at the official website of ConZealand: <https://conzealand.nz/about-conzealand/>. AntipodeanSF's editor, Nuke, will be at ConZealand!
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
Most Read Stories
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