When was your first? That is always what we ask one another. When and what? When in your life was that moment, the time that revealed the world to you and sent you scurrying under the bed sheets? When I think back, the thing I always remember is the house. Not the inside, where the shadows gathered and hid. Those memories came later. I remember the front, the black and white Tudor facade with roses growing around the door, and the crunch of a gravel driveway under car tyres. God only knows how my father afforded such a place, although I suspect the Devil might have a better idea. Not a grand house, but beautiful and caught in my memory in a moment of eternal summer. Memory can be an ironic little bastard when it wants to be.
Author Archives: kraxon
The Glass-Eyed Girl
* Winner of the 2018 Story of the Year Award *
When was your first? That is always what we ask one another. When and what? When in your life was that moment, the time that revealed the world to you and sent you scurrying under the bed sheets? When I think back, the thing I always remember is the house. Not the inside, where the shadows gathered and hid. Those memories came later. I remember the front, the black and white Tudor facade with roses growing around the door, and the crunch of a gravel driveway under car tyres. God only knows how my father afforded such a place, although I suspect the Devil might have a better idea. Not a grand house, but beautiful and caught in my memory in a moment of eternal summer. Memory can be an ironic little bastard when it wants to be.
We moved there when I was about eight. I don’t remember much before that, which is odd as eight is old enough. I know some people who claim to have memories of their time as babies, of flashes of food upon their tongue, the smile of a mother’s face. I don’t have any of that. Mother never really smiled much in any case; she never seemed up to the challenge. Father laughed all the time, a laugh which echoed around that house and bounced from basement to rafter. The days there were full of laughter, though I didn’t join in.
My room overlooked the garden, such as it was, fenced in on all sides by the encroaching houses of modernity. I liked to watch the moon shining on that small patch of grass. But soon I couldn’t see out the window. There were too many handprints on it. Father got very angry about those. He said I was being naughty, that I shouldn’t make such a mess, and didn’t I know how much it cost to clean windows? Then he would laugh and raise his fist. I said nothing, through the tears. I hadn’t touched the glass. The hands had just appeared.
The Purple Demon Episode 11
Ba Renzhong took a fresh horse from the military district and set out for Spotted Turtle Valley alone. A short distance into his journey he spotted a cloud of dust behind him. The Purple Demon tied his horse to a tree, unsheathed his sword and hid up the road, ready to ambush whoever was tailing him.
Read The Purple Demon – The Demon’s wrath is terrible and Ba confronts General Gao
The Purple Demon – The Demon’s wrath is terrible and Ba confronts General Gao
Ba Renzhong took a fresh horse from the military district and set out for Spotted Turtle Valley alone. A short distance into his journey he spotted a cloud of dust behind him. The Purple Demon tied his horse to a tree, unsheathed his sword and hid up the road, ready to ambush whoever was tailing him.
He kept his eyes fixed on the road, gazing like a hawk focused on its prey. But when the approaching horsemen drew near, instead of Colonel Ho, Ba saw men who had fought alongside him at White Wood Fortress.
“What are you doing here?” Ba called, emerging from the rocky wayside and sheathing his sword.
The soldiers, perhaps fifty in all, turned to face him. “Colonel Ba! We received a message from Major Cho to come and reinforce you, to help you recover your brother’s body.”
Ba mounted his own horse and beckoned for them to follow. “Good. But stay behind me if it comes to fighting. I’m going to get Ba Jiang’s corpse even if I have to carve my way through a thousand men.”
Diagnostic Report by L. P. Melling
Breaking down her body, I can tell her parts are different from anything else in my collection. I remove her carbotanium panelling and unscrew the protective plate. Resting it on the oil-smeared workbench, I open up the wire-meshed housing unit and connect to her sternum slot.
Diagnostic Report
Breaking down her body, I can tell her parts are different from anything else in my collection. I remove her carbotanium panelling and unscrew the protective plate. Resting it on the oil-smeared workbench, I open up the wire-meshed housing unit and connect to her sternum slot.
Data streams up to the console, and the monitor flashes the tell-tale codes of sentience. A whirring builds from her chest cavity. Lights slice blue from side panelling and the power unit spills poisonous-red brilliance across the landlocked shipping container. Shimmering metal reflects in the glittered stars of Advika’s school painting. The bot’s voice unit thrums. I calibrate it, and she speaks clear: “I sense you’re in distress.”
#
My head burns. An hour since activated, she’s ceaseless with her probing.
“What would you know about how I feel? You were just a fitbot. All the MR-Series were.” Probably her emotional response matrix is damaged. A known issue. “But I’ll soon fix you up good after a road test! Ain’t much I can’t repair or improve.”
“My previous user already modified me. I’ve not been utilized as a fitbot for seven years.” She lets that hang in the arid air.
The Purple Demon – Ba Renzhong visits Fort Silverheart and finds tragedy waiting in Ganyang
Ba Renzhong set out for Fort Silverheart the next day, accompanied by a hundred soldiers and mules carrying pay and supplies for the distant fortress. After many days of marching, he finally reached his destination, and was met by Wu Jin, also known as the One-Horned Goat, on the road.
“Colonel Ba, a pleasure to meet you. I trust there was no trouble on your journey?” Wu asked, bowing in the saddle.
Ba Renzhong shook his head and returned the bow. “You are to be commended, commandant. I saw neither hide nor hair of a brigand on the way here. If only Ganyang itself had such secure roads…”
The two men rode at the head of the column, winding down the road to Fort Silverheart.
“It used to be terrible around here. Fortunately, the emperor’s reflected virtue enabled me to apprehend the local bandit leader, a skilled and vile creature known as the Scarecrow King,” Wu explained, a smile on his face. “After his capture, mopping up his underlings was as easy as catching a one-legged tortoise.”
The Purple Demon Episode 10
Ba Renzhong set out for Fort Silverheart the next day, accompanied by a hundred soldiers and mules carrying pay and supplies for the distant fortress. After many days of marching, he finally reached his destination, and was met by Wu Jin, also known as the One-Horned Goat, on the road.
Read The Purple Demon – Ba Renzhong visits Fort Silverheart and finds tragedy waiting in Ganyang
Spotlight on Writing Horror with Gwendolyn Kiste and Scarlett R. Algee – Juliana S Mills
Horror narratives are an integral part of our human history. Folktales have dark tendrils that go back for centuries. The Ancient Greeks created gods out of fear and terror. Every culture has a bogeyman, a gashadokuro, a strigoi. From the oral storytelling of the past to the modern day campfire tale, scary stories are everywhere.
Even epic tales of glorious deeds would be nothing without that undercurrent of fear. Remove the ringwraiths from The Lord of the Rings and half the tension immediately falls away. Without a White Witch to face, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is just a tale of talking animals. And A Game of Thrones without the White Walkers is simply a rather bloody story of political intrigue.
In literature, horror fiction harks back to eighteenth century works such as The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, with nineteenth century gothic novels like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Bram Stoker’s Dracula cementing the genre. By the late 1800’s, horror had already hit the (silent) screen, and horror as a film and TV genre is still wildly popular today.
But what does it take to write a good horror tale? It’s not enough to just throw in a few monsters and things that go bump in the night and hope they’ll do the job. Crafting a good scary story – one that gets under your skin and keeps you awake at night – is an art. My two guests are experts in that creep factor, and they’re here to point your ghosts and ghouls in the right direction.
Gwendolyn Kiste is a speculative fiction author whose work has appeared in a wide range of publications. Her short story collection And Her Smile Untether The Universe was a finalist in the 2018 Bran Stoker awards. She is the author of Pretty Marys All In A Row, a dark fantasy novella (Broken Eye Books, 2017) and her upcoming novel debut, The Rust Maidens (JournalStone, 2018).
Scarlett R. Algee writes speculative fiction and designs steampunk jewelry. Her work has appeared in a number of publications, including Morpheus Tales, Sirens Call, and Zen of the Dead. She is currently a submissions reader and chapbook editor for Sanitarium Magazine. Her stories can be found in several anthologies such as The Haunting of Lake Manor Hotel (Woodbridge Press, 2016).
The Eye of the SF Inspiration Storm – Rosie Oliver
The eye of a storm produces calm for a brief few moments from the battering of the cyclone, hurricane, tornado, whatever form of storm happens to be passing by. It’s no different for those writers who just come up with one idea or inspiration after another. There is always that brief interlude of calm before the writer hurtles words onto their blank page.
So what do I mean by all this? Let me give you an example.
Last year I completed a short story, which was for the plot line too short. I had cut it off in its prime and I knew it. So sensibly I put it to one side, letting it wither in the ‘retired stories’ heap. Only it kept calling to me. It had that spark at the start that pointed to something better, much better. Still I ignored it until a few weeks ago, when I sat down to extend it.
First scene, minor edits, tick. Second scene, heavy editing, but plot stays the same. Third scene, completely written from scratch. The typing had taken on a life of its own, taking the story in a direction I had not anticipated. I suddenly found my protagonists had deeper motivations that were overtaking the ones I had written in the original version. The story was becoming richer and far more human. Worse, I was even improving the details. For example – I had the doctor wearing glasses for psychological reasons, but decided that glasses were also acting as life sign monitors of the patients he was talking to, which added a richness to the world building. But the writing for now has ground to a halt while I try to work out where the heck the story is heading. Its main plot line is no longer the same. Then original version’s main plot line has turned into a subplot! I know that while I sit back, this is the calm of the eye of the storm.