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Black Static #22 Horror Magazine
Black Static #22 Horror Magazine
Black Static #22 Horror Magazine
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Black Static #22 Horror Magazine

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A unique fiction magazine requires unique presentation and Black Static delivers on this front thanks to the extraordinary original artwork of artist like David Gentry and Ben Baldwin along with a design that delights in breaking rules.
Every issue contains a striking news feature called White Noise, compiled by Peter Tennant. Pete also supplies all the magazine's book reviews in his Case Notes column which runs to at least fourteen pages and includes interviews, sidebars and factoids. Tony Lee reviews the latest DVD/Blu-ray releases in his Blood Spectrum Column. Christopher Fowler, Stephen Volk and Mike O'Driscoll supply thought-provoking comment columns.

Black Static is published bimonthly, in alternate months to Interzone (we offer a discounted joint subscription to both print magazines). You can subscribe to the print version using the TTA Press website's shop.

Black Static is the successor to The Third Alternative magazine, which was founded in 1994. When TTA Press acquired Interzone in 2005 it was no longer necessary to publish science fiction and fantasy in The Third Alternative. Its replacement, Black Static, also contains original fiction and illustrations plus horror/dark fantasy related news and reviews of books, movies and DVDs. It is not celebrity oriented. This edition has the text of the print edition but some illustrations, graphics and advertisements are not present.

The title and strapline reference 'electronic voice phenomenon' (EVP), the noise found on recordings which some people interpret as the voices of ghosts. The film White Noise, starring Michael Keaton, could more accurately be called Black Static. What makes the title even more suitable is that 'Black Static' is also Paul Meloy's British Fantasy Award winning story from The Third Alternative.

The Third Alternative was never afraid to push the envelope, and nothing has changed in that regard. Black Static has earned much praise for its style, bravery, editorial and fiction content. Its stories are innovative and daring, never afraid to shock or disturb, yet always entertain.

The magazine publishes some of the finest Horror writers working today: Christopher Fowler, Afterlife creator/writer Stephen Volk, Lisa Tuttle, Nicholas Royle, Conrad Williams, Tony Richards, Scott Nicholson, Steve Rasnic Tem, Cody Goodfellow, Mélanie Fazi, Matthew Holness (creator and star of TV’s Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace), Michael Marshall Smith, Simon Clark, Graham Joyce, Gary McMahon, Alexander Glass, Joel Lane, to name just a few. Alongside these is a dazzling array of new talent such as Aliette de Bodard, Daniel Kaysen, Shannon Page, Roz Clarke, Ray Cluley, Sarah Totton, James Cooper, Nina Allan, Eric Gregory and many more.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherTTA Press
Release dateNov 23, 2011
ISBN9781465830029
Black Static #22 Horror Magazine
Author

TTA Press

TTA Press is the publisher of the magazines Interzone (science fiction/fantasy) and Black Static (horror/dark fantasy), the Crimewave anthology series, TTA Novellas, plus the occasional story collection and novel.

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    Book preview

    Black Static #22 Horror Magazine - TTA Press

    BLACK STATIC

    #22

    A magazine of horror and dark fantasy.

    Cover stills: From left to right:

    ‘I Saw the Devil’, ‘Wake Wood’, ‘Sweatshop’

    Black Static

    Issue 22 (APR–MAY 2011)

    Print edition ISSN 1753-0709 © 2011 Black Static and its contributors

    * * * * *

    Publisher:

    TTA Press on Smashwords EPUB ISBN 978-1-4658-3002-9

    First draft v1 Roy Gray

    * * * * *

    Website: ttapress.com

    Email: blackstatic@ttapress.com

    TTA Press. 5 Martins Lane, Witcham, Ely, Cambs CB6 2LB, United Kingdom

    * * * * *

    Editor: Andy Cox

    Contributing Editors: Peter Tennant, Tony Lee, Christopher Fowler, Stephen Volk, Mike O’Driscoll

    Podcast: Pete Bullock, transmissionsfrombeyond.com

    Twitter + Facebook: Marc-Anthony Taylor, facebook.com/TTAPress

    Events/Publicity/E editions: Roy Gray

    * * * * *

    Retail Distribution: Pineapple Media, pineapple-media.com; Central Books, centralbooks.com

    * * * * *

    Smashwords Edition License Notes

    This emagazine is licensed for your personal use/enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this magazine with others please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this magazine and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please go to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the contributors and editors

    * * * * *

    Published bimonthly by TTA Press

    To obtain the print edition of Black Static in Europe or North America where your retailer may not stock it please ask them to order it for you, or buy it from one of several online mail order distributors...or better yet subscribe direct with us!

    Subscriptions: Print edition subscriptions available online at ttapress.com/shop

    Note we have some illustrations in this edition and you can see these in colour at http://ttapress.com/1059/black-static-22-out-any-day-now/0/5/

    Unsolicited submissions of short stories are always welcome. Please follow the contributors’ guidelines on the website.

    * * * * *

    CONTENTS

    NEWS

    EDITORIAL NOTES -

    WHITE NOISE - compiled by Peter Tennant

    COMMENT/COLUMNS

    INTERFERENCE - by Christopher Fowler

    COFFINMAKER'S BLUES - by Stephen Volk

    FICTION

    THE SALT OF ELIZA - by Alan Wall

    ...illustrated by Ben Baldwin - benbaldwin.co.uk

    DURGEN'S PARTY - by Tim Lees

    ...illustrated by Mark Pexton - markofthedead.deviantart.com

    BLACK FEATHERS - by Alison J. Littlewood

    ...illustrated by Rik Rawling - rikrawling.wordpress. com

    THIS IS MARY'S MOON - by Steven Pirie

    ...illustrated by Dave Senecal - senecal.deviantart.com

    CHILD - by Simon Kurt Unsworth

    REVIEWS

    CASE NOTES - book reviews by Peter Tennant

    books: Burying Brian by Steven Pirie (with interview), The Render of the Veils by Ramsey Campbell, Christmas with the Dead by Joe R. Lansdale, Field by Tom Fletcher, Lexicon by Christopher Burns, What They Hear in the Dark by Gary McMahon, Dark Minds ed by Ross Warren, The End of the Line ed Jonathan Oliver, Haunted Legends ed by Ellen Datlow & Nick Mamatas, Blind Swimmer by Eibonvale Press authors, Sylvow by Douglas Thompson, Unpleasant Tales by Brendan Connell, Frankenstein's Prescription by Tim Lees (with interview), Transparent Lovers by Scott Nicholson, Pain by Harry Shannon, Old Order by Jonathan Janz

    BLOOD SPECTRUM - DVD/Blu-ray reviews by Tony Lee

    discs: And Soon the Darkness, Bathory, Death Notice – Ikigami, Marchlands, Phenomena, Saw: The Final Chapter, The Beyond, Savage, Age of the Dragons, Husk, Island of Death, Primevil, Demon Empire, Wake Wood, Blooded, Caged, The Last Lovecraft, Prowl, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets's Nest, Monsters, Rubber, Tekken, Chain Letter, The Door

    ENDNOTES – links etc.

    * * * * *

    EDITORIAL NOTES –

    Return to Contents

    Steve Volk’s Electric Darkness, a title inherited from Chris Fowler who wrote the column in The Third Alternative days, has been renamed Coffinmaker’s Blues.

    Congratulations to Ray Cluley (‘At Night, When the Demons Come’) and Nicholas Royle (‘The Obscure Bird’), selected by Ellen Datlow for Best Horror of the Year Volume 3, and to Lynda Rucker whose ‘The Moon Will Look Strange’ has been selected by Paula Guran for her Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2011.

    Crimewave 11: Ghosts is picking up some rave reviews and ‘best of’ anthology reprints. If you enjoyed this please continue to help spread the word. It’d be nice to sell more copies! This link leads to the latest issue, #11 at the moment, http://ttapress.com/crimewave/currentissue/

    Submissions of short stories are always welcome, but please follow the guidelines on the website.

    * * * * *

    WHITE NOISE #22

    Return to Contents

    THE DAMNATION OF FAUST

    Based on the classic tale of a man who sells his soul to the Devil, this opera by Berlioz is being staged by English National Opera at the London Coliseum under the direction of Terry Gilliam. There’ll be ten performances between the 6th of May and the 7th of June, and you can find out more, and even watch a video of the director talking about the opera, by visiting gilliamfaust.com. Now this is the sort of news item you won’t find in the pages of Gorywatchmacallit or Horrorweekly. We are so classier than those guys.

    * * * * *

    SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK

    It might seem a bit hard to believe now, but there was a time when Dennis Wheatley was the face of Brit horror. And if you’re in the least bit curious about his work, then you may be interested to know that Prion Books Ltd will shortly be releasing The Best of Dennis Wheatley. Published in hardback in May, this omnibus volume will contain three novels, The Devil Rides Out, To the Devil a Daughter and Gateway to Hell. And if that whets your appetite to the point that you want to know more about the man behind these manifestations of the occult, at the end of September Dedalus will be bringing out a paperback edition of Phil Baker’s acclaimed biography, The Devil is a Gentleman: The Life and Times of Dennis Wheatley.

    * * * * *

    ANOTHER WEEK, ANOTHER RELEASE FROM CHOMU

    New kid on the block Chomu Press continue to come on like gangbusters, with three more new releases in the offing since we told you about their last batch of new releases. Leading the stampede is The Great Lover by Michael Cisco, and that debuts on the 14th of April, with a back cover blurb which has all the sort of buzz words we like to hear, such as ‘undead hero’, ‘uproarious cartoon demon’ and ‘witch-doctor of feculent enchantment’. A week later there’s Dying to Read by John Elliott, which is a detective novel with a difference, including an agency run by somebody answering to the name of Norma Bones. Skipping forward a month, on the 18th of May there’s the latest collection by Rhys Hughes, Link Arms With Toads!, which allegedly contains a story that is the key to understanding Hughes’ planned cycle of one thousand stories. For more information on all these and other Chomu titles go to chomupress.com

    * * * * *

    GLOAMING IN BRIGHTON

    Not only does Brighton have a festival but there’s also the Brighton Festival Fringe, which runs from the 7th to the 30th of May. There are plenty of good things going on, but for horror aficionados the cherry is probably going to be a live performance by Nathaniel Tapley and the award winning podcasters of In the Gloaming fame. The show is described as ‘a creepy and hilarious crawl through Brighton’s Underbelly’, and it takes place, appropriately enough, on Friday the 13th of May, between the hours of 9.00 and 10.00 p.m. at a bar called Laughing Horse @ The Hobgoblin, which can be found at 31 York Place. You can find out more at brightonfestivalfringe.org.uk

    * * * * *

    HOUSE OF FEAR

    Somewhere further on in this magazine you’ll find a review of End of the Line, an anthology edited by Jonathan Oliver and published by Solaris. For his next trick editor Oliver plans an anthology of haunted house stories. House of Fear will be released by Solaris in October, just in time for Halloween, and contributors include Joe R. Lansdale, Sarah Pinborough, Lisa Tuttle, Christopher Priest, Adam L. G. Nevill, Nicholas Royle, Chaz Brenchley, Christopher Fowler, Gary Kilworth, Weston Ochse, Eric Brown, Tim Lebbon, Nina Allan, Stephen Volk and Paul Meloy. In other Solaris news, Gary McMahon’s latest novel The Concrete Grove will be out in July, and in September we can expect to see The Regicide by Nicholas Royle. More info and nifty cover illustrations at solarisbooks.com

    * * * * *

    NEWS FROM THE EDGE

    From the 28th of April through to the 1st of May, the annual jamboree that is The World Horror Convention will be pitching its tent in Austin, Texas, and there may still be time to purchase a membership if you head on over to whc2011.org. As part of that, our good friends from Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing will be launching a couple of anthologies of particular interest to horror readers. The first in a new anthology series, Chilling Tales: Evil Did I Dwell; Lewd I Did Live is edited by Michael Kelly and, apart from a Les Edwards cover, is an all Canadian affair, including fiction from Nancy Kilpatrick, Claude Lalumiere, Barbara Roden, Simon Strantzas and Gemma Files. Edited by Justin Gustainis, Those Who Fight Monsters is a collection of occult detective stories, containing work from Tanya Huff, Simon R. Green and Rachel Caine, among others. If you’re in the vicinity of the Convention hospitality suite on the 29th of April between the hours of 2.00 and 4.00 p.m. then pop in and say hello, and if you can’t make that then Edge will also have a table in the dealer’s room for the weekend. In other Edge news, the fall will see the release of a third title in their ongoing Sherlock Holmes series. Edited by J. R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec, Gaslight Arcanum: Uncanny Tales of Sherlock Holmes will contain stories by Stephen Volk, Christopher Fowler, Simon Kurt Unsworth, Simon Clark, Tony Richards and others. And to further whet your appetite for that, cover artist Dave Elsey has just won a 2010 Best Make Up Oscar for his work with Rick Baker on The Wolfman. Plenty more information waiting for you at edgewebsite.com

    THE DEVIL’S ROCK AT CANNES

    The Devil’s Rock is a new horror film, scripted by Black Static contributor Paul Finch and directed by Paul Campion. If you happen to be holidaying on The Riviera, you can catch the world premiere on the 13th of May at the Cannes Film Festival.

    * * * * *

    THE YEAR’S BEST DARK FANTASY AND HORROR 2011

    Editor Paula Guran has announced the full Table of Contents for The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2011 and waving the flag for Black Static is Lynda E. Rucker with her story ‘The Moon Will Look Strange’ from #16. Other BS connected writers in the ToC include M. K. Hobson, John Shirley and Sarah Totton. Published by Prime Books, The Year’s Best DF&H will be released in August.

    * * * * *

    A BLAST FROM THE PAST

    Kimota (it’s ‘Atomik’ backwards, and from memory was the code word of some obscure super-hero, though it sounds more like something out of a Japanese monster movie) was one of the stalwarts of the ‘golden age’ of the UK small press, publishing sixteen issues between 1995 and 2002. The editor was Graeme Hurry and it was published under the auspices of the Preston Speculative Fiction Group, starting life as a publicity vehicle for them. Now editor Graeme Hurry plans to launch Kzine as an e-publication, and to test the water for that he’s issued The Kimota Anthology, a retrospective volume containing some of the best work from the magazine. The book has more than four hundred pages and a stellar line-up that includes stories from Mark Morris, Stephen Gallagher, Peter Crowther, Stephen Laws, Mark Chadbourn, Paul Finch and Peter Tennant, all of which can be yours for a measly £1.71 from the amazon Kindle store. And for the latest on Kzine’s development keep a beady eye on kzine.co.uk

    * * * * *

    NEWS FROM EIBONVALE AND GRAY FRIAR PRESS

    Further on in this very magazine there’s a feature on Eibonvale Press, with reviews of three of their titles, and in a few days time on the 16th of April they’ll be releasing a couple more, Automatic Safe Dog by Jet McDonald and Bloody War by Terry Grimwood. For more details pop over to eibonvalepress.co.uk. And then you might want to go visit grayfriarpress.com. We haven’t reviewed any of their titles this issue, but they’ve got new books out just the same, The Brothel Creeper, a collection of short stories by Rhys Hughes, and the paperback edition of the Paul Finch novella collection One Monster Is Not Enough. In other Gray Friar news their 2010 release The Castle of Los Angeles by Lisa Morton has been shortlisted for a Stoker Award in the Best First Novel category.

    * * * * *

    THE RANDOM ROUND UP

    All details correct at time of checking on Amazon. Available from mid-April we have The Dead Shall Feed by Jason Whittle (Panic Press) and The Zombie Autopsies: Secret Notebooks from the Apocalypse by Dr Steven C. Schlozman (Bantam). On the 21st Gollancz are coming to a bookstore near you with three big hitters, the third volume in David Moody’s popular zombie series, Autumn: Purification, the latest Joe Ledger adventure from Jonathan Maberry, The King of Plagues, and The Shadow of the Soul, the second volume in Sarah Pinborough’s Dog-Faced Gods trilogy. Snow Books have two titles from Thomas Emson scheduled for release, Pariah on the 1st of May and Pandemonium Road on the 1st of June. ChiZine Publications have the intriguingly titled Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism by David Nickle out on the 3rd of May and follow that up on the 31st with A Rope of Thorns, the second volume in Gemma Files’ Hexslinger series (check out the Case Notes blog entry of 22nd February for a fascinating interview with Gemma conducted by Maura McHugh). Shaun Hutson’s Epitaph makes it into paperback on the 5th courtesy of Orbit and the day after that Adam Nevill’s new title The Ritual is released by Pan. Irish Ghost Stories selected by Rosemary Gray is another doorstop volume at a price that won’t hurt anyone’s pocket from Wordsworth Editions, and it’s available for purchase from the 15th. The Dead Town, the fifth and final volume of Dean R. Koontz’s reinvention of the Frankenstein story is released by Bantam on the 24th, while another classical monster gets a makeover on the 27th with a Titan Books reissue of Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula. On the 26th, Severn House bring us the paperback edition of Blood Maidens, Barbara Hambly’s long awaited follow up to Travelling with the Dead. May closes with The Fly-By-Nights by Brian Lumley (Subterranean) and June opens with Richard T. Kelly’s Gothic fable The Possessions of Doctor Forrest from Faber and Faber.

    * * * * *

    STEPHEN KING LATEST

    Due for release on the 8th of November from Hodder & Stoughton, Stephen King’s next novel is titled 11.22.63 and is built around the premise of a man who goes back in time and can prevent Kennedy’s assassination. King has also announced the planned publication of a new volume in the Dark Tower series for 2012, The Wind Through the Keyhole. For the King scholars among us, University of Wales Press are releasing Stephen King’s Gothic by John Sears on the 30th of June as the latest in their Gothic Literary Studies series, while Hodder are repackaging their entire King back catalogue in attractive paperback editions, with the first of six titles out on the 12th of May and further batches to follow in August and November.

    * * * * *

    COMPILED BY AND © 2011 PETER TENNANT • SEND YOUR NEWS TO whitenoise@ttapress.com.

    * * * * *

    INTERFERENCE

    by Christopher Fowler

    Return to Contents

    WHY MEDIOCRITY RULES

    I think I am finally going mad.

    As I get older, everything that other people find enjoyable, I seem to find awful.

    No, beyond awful. Unwatchable, unreadable, uninvolving, stupid beyond belief.

    I’m talking largely about the mainstream here – popular TV, films and books. Talking animal movies, Will Ferrell, Michael McIntyre, Chris Moyles, Jeremy Clarkson, Cheryl and Martina Cole, Dan Brown, the sheer abundance of mediocrity is staggering. At the time of writing, last month’s number one movie in Britain was Jack Black’s stinking flop Gulliver’s Travels – have UK audiences had their taste buds surgically removed?

    And of course I realise how pompous this makes me sound just writing it. But I’ve always been more interested in the edges than the whole, and I realise that the taste of the majority is not my own. But I’ve just been putting the finishing touches to a double collection of twenty five new horror short stories, one for every year of my short story publishing life, and have seen a lot of changes in public taste, so I feel qualified to have an opinion.

    I realise now that I actually hate the mainstream, not because of who watches it – people will watch anything put in front of them – or who writes it – writers develop good ideas for years only to have them eviscerated or turned down outright because of passing fashions – but because of who decides what we watch and read.

    These are the readers and commissioning editors, or people who work in project development. They are not enthusiastic fans, but TV, film and publishing house staff

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