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Hub
Jan 7, 2008 22:28:06 GMT
Post by dem bones on Jan 7, 2008 22:28:06 GMT
It only seems like a few months tops since the launch number but Lee Harris's weekly science fiction, fantasy and horror ezine, Hub, is now up to an astonishing issue 40! The latest is a 'flash fiction special', eight short-shorts from Tony Ballantyne, Steve Cooper, Ellen Phillips, Martin Nike, R.J. Smith, Steve Stanton, Anthony Leigh and Alasdair Stuart. Download it for free from: www.hub-mag.co.uk/ And take out a free sub while you're there. Those of you who are attending the BFS Open Night on Jan. 26th can meet Lee and friends at the event.
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Hub
Jan 7, 2008 23:44:19 GMT
Post by Calenture on Jan 7, 2008 23:44:19 GMT
...Lee Harris's weekly science fiction, fantasy and horror ezine, Hub, is now up to an astonishing issue 40! The latest is a 'flash fiction special', eight short-shorts... Download it for free from: www.hub-mag.co.uk/ A flash fiction special sounds like a very good idea. It's obvious that a lot of work and dedication goes into Hub. If we have to read off the screen, flash fiction makes the process seem less daunting.
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Hub
Jan 14, 2008 9:40:18 GMT
Post by troo on Jan 14, 2008 9:40:18 GMT
It's obvious that a lot of work and dedication goes into Hub. Seriously. The more we chip away at the slush pile, the bigger it gets
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Hub
Jan 19, 2008 13:56:30 GMT
Post by Calenture on Jan 19, 2008 13:56:30 GMT
Hub issue 40 January 2008
Few of these eight pieces of flash fiction are more than one or two pages long, which makes them ideal for reading off a screen in my opinion. All of the stories are good and some are brilliant. Some of the SF here is if the calibre that persuaded me that I should turn to writing horror as I simply don’t have the kind of mind to write this sort of fiction this well. But as well as SF, there is a ghost story, a very gory piece of black comic horror and some very good dark fantasy.
Why Are Rocks? by Tony Ballantyne: “Was there a big rock and they all broke off from it?” Bernie McEwan’s daughter asks him.
“Well, yes, Emma. Usually little rocks have broken off from bigger rocks.”
“Daddy, why are big rocks?”
Emma is a Baynes-Leutz child and she’s not like other children. Her mind locks on to an idea sequence and explores it thoroughly. Emma is a genius and she’s three years old.
Bernie is put through an exhausting and amusing interrogation by his daughter until finally she comes to a devastating conclusion.
An entertaining, funny and fascinating story by an author nominated for the Philip K Dick Award.
Brainfish by Steve Cooper: “If there’s one thing they really drum into you in medical school, it is this: do not stick an eight-inch lumbar-puncture syringe in your own eyeball whilst having a seizure.”
Brainfish are machines the size of a cell, silvery and squid-like under the microscope. They are “puncture repair kits for the brain.” The scientist is studying the latest developments on Cagney the lab rat, when disaster strikes...
No More Angels by Ellen Phillips: Emma is jealous because her friend has spent the night fucking an angel.
“’Five times! You slut! I don’t believe any man could get it up five times in one night’
“I shrugged. ‘He wasn’t a man.’
“Don’t tell me you bought that crap about him being an angel?’
“’He had me singing Hosannas.’”
Wickedly funny.
Ring Road Surfers by Martin Nike: Dick and Kevin are speeding around the ring road when the Jaguar pulls up alongside them. The driver looks angry; but the next time they see him, he’s worse. Soon they realise they’re following the road to hell and before they get off it the god of the ring road will demand a sacrifice.
Bereavement by R J Smith: It’s Valentine’s Day, but Ella is dead, and Martin can’t bear passing she shops full of cards and flowers. Ella is dead and he has shut the door on life. He’s angered when he sees the rose on his keyboard at work. It’s insensitive, the work of a sick mind.
Then he gets home and he’s greeted by the smell.
Roses again. Timestealer by Steve Stanton: “I activated my system and began visually scanning the bystanders. I was looking for a particular emotive base, that horrid bloodlust feeling you sometimes find in a death audience – “
The narrator is a professional timestealer, slipping in and out of others’ consciousness to snatch brief, crucial moments of their existence to exploit on a market hungry for vicarious thrills. Moments of danger, thrills, sex. But where’s it all going to end?
The Chamber by Anthony Leigh: Gen is a bodybuilder held captive in a cell by unseen warders. His meals are sporadic, and he has given up holding conversations with them or attempting to apologise for eating them. It’s usually much easier to take them by surprise and kill them.
Then he sees the woman sitting on the chair.
This is the first time he’s known one of his meals to bring furniture.
Gory, but never gratuitous, this one’s a small black comic gem.
Scar Tissue by Alasdair Stuart: “’Stalin airbrushed party officials he no longer favoured from photographs. One of the earliest TV stations erased decades of tape simply for economic reasons.’”
Matt is performing vital maintenance aboard a spaceship when Captain Bara Jensen, ‘The Hammer of Jupiter’, finds him. Her reaction to his work surprises him.
There is also the first column by Mur Lafferty, SciFi Subscribed. Passing quickly over the regrettable “SciFi” title, this is an interesting article about speculative fiction podcasting with a number of links to podcasting sites – obviously another alternative for those of us who dislike reading off screen.
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Hub
Apr 4, 2008 12:15:58 GMT
Post by allysonbird on Apr 4, 2008 12:15:58 GMT
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Hub
Apr 4, 2008 14:47:30 GMT
Post by troo on Apr 4, 2008 14:47:30 GMT
Yep. I believe we're past 7,000 now
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Hub
Apr 4, 2008 19:50:54 GMT
Post by allysonbird on Apr 4, 2008 19:50:54 GMT
So cool Troo - so cool. Really pleased about the 7k marker.
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Hub
Apr 10, 2008 12:36:54 GMT
Post by troo on Apr 10, 2008 12:36:54 GMT
Now if only we could persuade those 7,000 people to read Pantechnicon, too
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