Shoreline of Infinity, Issue 1, Summer 2015

Shoreline of Infinity Science Fiction Magazine #1

by Noel Chidwick (Editor), Steve Green (Contributor), Paul F Cockburn (Contributor)

Shoreline of Infinity is a science fiction magazine including fiction, reviews, interviews and more. Issue 1 Contents Editorial: Pull up a Log Fiction The Three Stages of Atsushi, Larry Ivkovich The Spiral Moon, Alex Barr Symbiosis, Colleen Anderson See You Later, M Luke McDonell The Brat and the Burly Qs, David Perlmutter Approaching 43,000 Candles, Guy T Martland Broken Glass, Joseph L Kellogg TimeMachineStory, Richmond A Clements Cleanup on Deck 7, Claire Simpson Space, John Buchan Non-Fiction Story Competition Interview: Charles Stross Border Crossings SF Caledonia Reviews Meet the Artists Friends of Shoreline Become a Friend of Shoreline Coming up in Issue 2 Published in Scotland

Genres: Science Fiction

104 pages, Paperback

First published June 21, 2015

About the author

I'm Editor-in-Chief of Science Fiction magazine, Shoreline of Infinity (www.shorelineofinfinity.com), published in Scotland.

I've been a reader for as long as I can remember, my tastes tending towards the fantastical rather than the realistic. After all, isn't that the point of a story, to be taken to a different place?

Science Fiction and fantasy is where I have lived and dreamed since I first read Grimm's Stories. My teenage years were spent absorbing every word I could find by the likes of Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Wyndham, Bradbury, McCaffrey, LeGuin, Moorcock, Ballard, Priest.

I loved the early stuff from the 30s and 40s with writers such as E E Smith, Olaf Stapledon and the many other writers who earned their keeping bashing away at typewriters in dark, dust attics.

And my enjoyment in SF continues unabated with the writings of Stephen Baxter, Charles Stross, Ken MacLeod, Eric Brown, Peter Hamilton.

And many more. Many, many more.

I've written on and off over the years, dabbling in SF as a teenager when I had some stories published in fanzines. I have recently returned to the words with greater relish, and have released a couple of small collection of tales based on my adopted home town of Edinburgh.

I was shortlisted for a short crime story competition for Bloody Scotland, and the story is available, along with its fellow shortlistees, as an ebook published by Blasted Heath.

Reviews

[Iain · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent new journal - not every story a hit but that's the joy of journals, the variety. I particularly enjoyed the inclusion of the John Buchan story. Looking forward to issue 2.

[Jack Deighton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Apart from the fiction , in this first issue of a new venture there is an interview with Charles Stross, Steve Green’s column Border Crossings discusses two SF films made mostly in Glasgow over twenty years apart, Bertrand Tavernier’s Death Watch adapted from D G Compton’s The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe and Jonathan Glazer’s adaptation of Michel Faber’s Under the Skin, in SF Caledonia – John Buchan SF writer, Paul Cockburn examines that writer’s SF credentials. Reviews discusses five books.

The fiction is varied in scope. Each story has its own one-page art work and a title page to itself. Internal illustrations accompany some others.
More fantasy than SF, The Three Stages of Atsushi by Larry Ivkovich is set in Japan in 1531. A woman whose son, Omasu, was swept away in a flood the year before petitions the God Amaterasu to bring him back to life. A strange man in odd armour appears with an entourage of samurai and helps her (in stages,) for Omasu has a destiny.
In Alex Barr’s very well written The Spiral Moon a woman astronaut whose mission has suffered a catastrophic failure sets out to circumnavigate the small planetoid she is on, eventually hallucinating as she succumbs to oxygen starvation.
Symbiosis by Colleen Anderson has another member of a doomed space mission, on a planet this time, trying to survive by going native. The story’s ending is fantastical rather than SF.
The protagonist of See You Later by M Luke McDonnell gets herself a set of AR lenses to match the ones her husband needed for work and finds the settings he uses for his something of a surprise.
In what is intended to be a humorous piece but is far too over the top to be so David Perlmutter’s The Brat and the Burly Qs gives us an alien superhero who is part mechanical flying to Mars to apprehend a wrongdoer whom it has sent to jail once already.
Approaching 43,000 Candles by Guy T Martland. Controlled by the Moon, time is switched off once a year, and British Lighthouses go to attend a conference. At one of these, Voth, from the Isles of Scilly, overhears the Bishop Rock and two other Cornish Lighthouses planning a shut down so that the Bishop’s much needed maintenance will be expedited.
Broken Glass by Joseph L Kellogg. Slide Stations allow travel between five parallel worlds. RedBrian envies the other Brians who all have their Pats as lifetime companions.
In TimeMachineStory by Richmond A Clements a man goes back (and forward) in time but the effects aren’t what he expected.
The extremely short, almost throwaway Cleanup on Deck 7 by Claire Simpson features a new female crew member on a spaceship under attack seeking refuge in a cupboard with only solvents and bleach available to her weapons.
Space by John Buchan is one of Buchan’s Leithen stories where that gentleman relates to a companion on a deer shoot the tale of his acquaintance Hollond, who forms a theory that so-called empty space is full of “mathematical pandemonium” with “halls and alleys in Space shifting .. according to inexorable laws” and there are Presences within it.

[Mark Toner · Rating 4 out of 5]

A truly excellent contribution to the SF magazine shelves. The stories have a certain quirky nature and manage to avoid the the predictable space operas and killing one's grandfather paradoxes. If you need your SF sensibilities refreshed, this is a good place to start. Can't wait for the second one, due in November.

[pie · Rating 4 out of 5]

awesome collection of stories, including a great one by M. Luke McDonell