Black Static #27 Horror Magazine
By TTA Press
()
About this ebook
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. So its replacement was retitled Black Static and now its contents are original horror/dark fantasy fiction and illustrations plus 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.
A unique fiction magazine requires unique presentation and Black Static delivers on this front too, 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, and every issue gives away lots of free stuff.
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.
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.
Read more from Tta Press
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Black Static #27 Horror Magazine - TTA Press
BLACK STATIC
#27
A magazine of horror and dark fantasy.
Cover:
Cropped from Mark Pexton's illustration for 'Cuckoo Spit'
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Black Static
Issue 27 (FEB 2012–MAR 2012)
Print edition ISSN 1753-0709 © 20122 Black Static and its contributors
Published bimonthly by TTA Press
TTA Press, 5 Martins Lane Witcham, Ely, Cambs CB6 2LB, United Kingdom
Website: ttapress.com
Email: blackstatic@ttapress.com
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TTA Press on Smashwords ISBN: 9781476187990
First draft v3 Roy Gray
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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
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Retail Distribution: Pineapple Media, pineapple-media.com; Central Books, centralbooks.com
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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
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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/1240/black-static-27/0/5/
Unsolicited submissions of short stories are always welcome. Please follow the contributors’ guidelines on the website.
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CONTENTS
NEWS
EDITORIAL NOTES
WHITE NOISE - compiled by Peter Tennant
COMMENT/COLUMNS
COFFINMAKER'S BLUES - by Stephen Volk
INTERFERENCE - by Christopher Fowler
NIGHT’S PLUTONIAN SHORE - by Mike O’Driscoll
FICTION
EMPTY OF WORDS, THE PAGE by Gord Sellar
illustrated by David Gentry - sixshards.co.uk
THE LITTLE THINGS by Jacob Ruby
illustrated by George Cotronis - ravenkult.com
CUCKOO SPIT by Stephen Bacon
illustrated by Mark Pexton - markofthedead.deviantart.com
THE CHURN by Simon Bestwick
illustrated by Dave Senecal - senecal.deviantart.com
FAMILY TREE by V.H. Leslie
illustrated by Rik Rawling - rikrawling.co.uk
REVIEWS
CASE NOTES - book reviews by Peter Tennant (and guest Stephen Theaker)
books: by Alison Littlewood (with author interview), Mark Morris, Ilsa J. Bick, Dayna Ingram, Nina Allan, Gemma Files, Michael G. Preston, Gary Fry, Cate Gardner, Ellen Datlow
BLOOD SPECTRUM - DVD/Blu-ray reviews by Tony Lee
discs: Dark Star, Shark Night, Beyond, Four Flies on Grey Velvet, Tyrannosaur, Perfect Sense, Rolling Thunder, Gantz 2: Perfect Answer, Tekken: Blood Vengeance, Fright Night, Real Steel, Vanishing on 7th Street, Dellamorte Dellamore, Paranormal Activity 3, Dracula: Prince of Darkness, Urban Explorers, Evidence, The Awakening
ENDNOTES – links etc.
BACK PAGE
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EDITORIAL NOTES –
READERS’ POLL & best of Black Static Anthology Please visit the TTA forum and join in discussions about the possibility of a readers’ poll to find favourite content of 2012, and a ‘best of’ anthology to cover issues 1–26. E book versions of the early issues can be found via the live links in the Notes to the Reader.
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TTA novellas: We will soon be launching a series of novellas which will be available to buy separately and on a much-reduced subscription. Already signed up are Mike O’Driscoll and Nina Allan. Watch the website and forum for announcements.
Congratulations to Simon Bestwick and Alison Littlewood whose Black Static stories ‘Dermot’ and ‘Black Feathers’ were selected by Ellen Datlow for Best Horror of the Year Volume 4.
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Submissions of short stories are always welcome, but please follow the guidelines on the website.
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E-Edition (An Apology): Normally an E book version of each new issue of Black Static (and sister magazine Interzone) could be downloaded from Smashwords. Unfortunately we failed to keep this process up to date and are still in arrears. If this has affected you please accept our apologies and reassurances that we are trying to fix the problem. Keep checking Fictionwise, or Smashwords, for new issues. Thanks for your patience!
The April issue, Black Static 28, is out as this issue is prepared for uploading and has new stories by Carole Johnstone, Jon Ingold, Priya Sharma, Daniel Kaysen & Joel Lane.
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WHITE NOISE #27
SPRINGTIME WITH CORVUS
The good people at Corvus Books have some treats lined up for us. In March fans of Tim Powers can expect to see his new novel Hide Me Among the Graves, a sequel of sorts to 1989’s The Stress of Her Regard, which is reissued in paperback for those who missed it the first time. Also in March, there’s The Raising by Laura Kasischke and Lord Oda’s Revenge, Nick Lake’s new novel about vampires in feudal Japan. Phil Rickman gives us the latest adventures of exorcist come detective Merrily Watkins, with The Prayer of the Night Shepherd out in February, and two months later The Smile of a Ghost. June sees The Ward, the second novel by S. L. Grey, along with a paperback edition of its predecessor The Mall.
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FEEDING AMBITION
It’s the title of the new novella by Black Static contributor Lawrence Conquest, and it’s published by Blood Bound Books in both paperback and e-format. According to their website, ‘Over the top action meets reality show satire - as aliens, mummies, time travel, ghost trains, re-animated dinosaurs, zombie babies, giant brains, super-sweat, a kick-ass schoolgirl and one giant undead squid collide in this wild novella from Lawrence Conquest.’ For more go to bloodboundbooks.net.
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SCOTT SIGLER’S NOCTURNAL
Older readers may recall that Scott Sigler was our Case Notes featured author back in #6. His new novel is called Nocturnal and it’s released by Crown in early April. The blurb on Amazon reckons that ‘in his most ambitious, sweeping novel to date, he works his magic on the paranormal thriller, taking us inside a terrifying underworld of subterranean predators that only his twisted mind could invent.’
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SPECTRAL VISIONS
Chapbook publisher Spectral Press is branching out with Spectral Visions, a new line of signed, limited edition novellas. Visions will launch in April with The Respectable Face of Tyranny by Black Static contributor Gary Fry, and by way of bonus material the book will also contain an extensively revised version of his Lovecraft homage World Wide Web, which previously appeared in his 2007 collection with the same name from Humdrumming. Spectral have also announced plans to publish a Spectral Christmas Ghost Story Annual for 2012 and are open to submissions up until the 30th of June. For more details of both projects go to spectralpress.wordpress.com.
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HAMMER PUBLISHING
The publishing arm of Hammer Films has plenty of treats in store for horror aficionados in 2012 and they’ve even persuaded some of the literati to raise their game to cater for genre readers. Just released is The Greatcoat, a ghost story set in 1952 in Yorkshire and written by Helen Dunmore. Later in the year there’ll be Coldbrook, a zombie novel by Tim Lebbon, Mark Morris’ adaptation of Hammer’s classic film Vampire Circus, and Daylight Gate, Jeanette Winterson’s novel based on the infamous Pendle witch trials held at Lancaster castle in 1612.
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FUR-LINED GHETTOS
Black Static contributor and former Elastic Press publisher Andrew Hook will be co-editing a new magazine with Sophie Essex. Fur-Lined Ghettos won’t be genre-specific, but according to the editors ‘We enjoy the surreal, the absurd, the nonsensical, the complicated, the simple, the truth, the lies, the complexity of words, the ecstasy of genius, the delightful power we find in the spaces between and dancing at the discothèque.' So, that’ll be horror then (the last item is the giveaway). More information can be found at fur-linedghettos.weebly.com.
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BLOOD AND GRIT 21
Twenty one years ago Simon Clark published a collection of short stories called Blood and Grit, which you can now pick up on Amazon Marketplace and elsewhere for between £75 and £300+. Twenty one years on, Simon and the original publisher, Chris Reed of BBR Solutions, have released that seminal collection as an eBook for Kindle. Blood and Grit 21 contains the original set of six stories, plus a new introduction by Andrew Darlington, new fiction, photos and the story behind the stories. You can obtain a copy from Amazon’s Kindle store.
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ATOMIC FEZ – 2012 AND BEYOND
The good folk at Atomic Fez having been letting cats out of bags with regard to their plans for the coming year. In Autumn, just in time to coincide with FantasyCon 2012 in Brighton (September 27 – 30), they bring back a couple of old friends. John Llewellyn Probert will be chronicling the further adventures Mr Massene Henderson and Miss Samantha Jephcott in his very first novel, which is provisionally titled The House of a Thousand Screams, while The Designated Coconut is John Travis’ follow-up to his Machen inspired The Terror and The Tortoiseshell. And the Winter months are to be made more tolerable by the release of I, Death by Mark Leslie Lefebvre, which the publisher describes as a ‘terrifying story of a young man coming to terms with a death curse,’ though the further comment ‘hilarity ensues’ would suggest that possibly there’s a bit more to it than that. Lastly, in Spring 2013, Atomic Fez will be publishing Sleepless Knights by Mark H. Williams, the ‘true’ story of King Arthur’s butler. Information on all those and more can be found at atomicfez.com.
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STEPHEN KING LATEST
Stephen King’s next novel will see him return to the world of his Dark Tower series. The Wind Through the Keyhole: A Dark Tower Novel will be out in hardback on the 24th of April, and for those who like their collectables, publisher Hodder & Stoughton will also be releasing a special edition limited to 700 numbered copies, which will feature facsimile signature, head and tail bands, ribbon marker and slipcase, with a cover price of £100.
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TALES OF THE WEAK & THE WOUNDED
With a title lifted from the film Session 9, and published by award winning Dark Regions Press, Tales of the Weak & The Wounded is the new collection from Gary McMahon, and will contain ‘terrifying accounts of love, hate, death and madness…’ It’s available to order at darkregions.com.
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DOG-FACED GODS TRILOGY
Sarah Pinborough’s new novel will be released in a trade paperback edition by Gollancz on the 16th of February. The Chosen Seed concludes the trilogy begun with A Matter of Blood and continued in The Shadow of the Soul, which was reviewed in last issue’s Case Notes section.
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MAGIC
Solaris have been releasing details of their next anthology project. Magic: An Anthology of the Esoteric and Arcane is scheduled for publication in November 2012 and contributors include Black Static irregulars Alison Littlewood, Christopher Fowler, Gemma Files and Paul Meloy. Also propping up the Table of Contents is Audrey Niffenegger, author of the worldwide bestseller The Time Traveller’s Wife, with a story about the Victorian Charles Altamont Doyle, father of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. More information at solarisbooks.com.
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THE BEST HORROR OF THE YEAR VOLUME 4
Editor Ellen Datlow has announced her Table of Contents for the latest volume in her prestigious Best Horror series, which is due out from Night Shade Books in May, and two Black Static stories have made the cut, Alison Littlewood’s ‘Black Feathers’ from #22 and Simon Bestwick’s ‘Dermot’ from #24, so congratulations to all the writers included, but especially to Alison and Simon. And, coincidentally, both writers have just released novels. Check out any good bookshop for A Cold Season by Alison Littlewood and The Faceless by Simon Bestwick.
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CHOMU PRESS
Having published more than a dozen titles in 2011, Chômu Press have slowed the pace slightly but are still going strong in 2012. Things to look forward to include I Am A Magical Teenage Princess, the debut collection from Luke Geddes, Celebrant, new work by Michael Cisco, and Dadaosim (An Anthology) edited by Quentin S. Crisp and Justin Isis, and containing work by Nina Allan, D. F. Lewis, Reggie Oliver, Rhys Hughes, Colin Insole, Daniel Mills and many others. More details at chomupress.com.
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RICHARD AND JUDY
Black Static contributor Alison Littlewood’s debut novel A Cold Season (reviewed in this issue) is to be featured on the Richard and Judy Book Club for two weeks beginning on the 29th of March. Go to richardandjudy.co.uk/home for a video interview with the author and a whole lot more, and be sure to watch out for the tie-in posters in W H Smiths.
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BUSY BLOOD
Coming soon from Exaggerated Press, Busy Blood, a collection of story collaborations by D. F. Lewis and Stuart Hughes, former editor of the British Fantasy Award winning horror magazine Peeping Tom. Watch exaggeratedpress.weebly.com for more information as and when it becomes available.
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COMPILED BY AND © 2012 PETER TENNANT • SEND YOUR NEWS TO whitenoise@ttapress.com.
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COFFINMAKER'S BLUES
by Stephen Volk
COCKING SEVERAL SNOOKS
With two key directors turning in their most formally boring films ever, Roman Polanski’s Carnage and David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, and a once-visionary British director (Terence Davies) turning in the turgidly uninteresting The Deep Blue Sea, not to mention the crushingly twee crowd-pleaser The Artist supposedly set for Oscar glory, it seems timely to look at a director who was the most unflinching and provocative of his era, but who in his twilight years descended into garage
film-making with friends and relatives, clearly unable to give up the art form he loved.
When Ken Russell passed away last November, one humour magazine printed a hoax that his funeral was to be banned. Tellingly, many people, with visions of bare breasts, nuns and Nazis, confidently believed it to be true. No director more pissed off the British, critics and establishment alike, and no director was so sorely affected by their disenchantment with his work.
Given that I wrote his first out-and-out horror film, Gothic, perhaps this is a good time, and place, to put my experience of the man on record.
I was still working as an advertising copywriter when I heard from Virgin Films, who had been sitting on the script for two years, that they had the director for my first produced screenplay. I hung up the phone and bluntly asked my art director, "If you were having a film made who would you least want to direct it? He said,
Michael Winner. I said,
Second guess. He said,
Ken Russell."
True to say, in the mid-80s Russell’s career was not in the ascendant, but not quite plummeting. He’d done Altered States in the States, adding (presumably) the trippy bits and by his own admission causing the death of its writer, Paddy Chayefsky, plus a seedy thriller, Crimes of Passion, featuring dildos to a Vivaldi soundtrack and Anthony Perkins as a deranged priest. Still, the producers thought on the strength of it he was the man for the job and I vacillated between quiet despair and delight that the man about the say action!
had made The Devils, one of my favourite films of all time, and Tommy, the visual soundtrack of my art school days.
The person I met was a cherubic mad professor, not at all fearsome, who told me at Sitting Ducks, his production company, that he thought our film "could be scarier than Alien". I kept to myself that I never saw it as a Ken Russell film at all.
Gothic, written burning the midnight oil while keeping down a day job at Ogivly Benson & Mather, was essentially inspired by David Pirie’s seminal book A Heritage of Horror, which traced Hammer Films back to the Romantic movement and the Romantic poets in particular: Byron and Shelley – and of course Mary Shelley. Notwithstanding that the screenplay was