Shoreline of Infinity, Issue 6, Winter 2016/17

Shoreline of Infinity Science Fiction Magazine #6

by Noel Chidwick, Steve Pickering (Illustrator), Michael F. Russell

We have a Christmas/Winter season feel to this issue. Throw another space* log on the fire, open a bottle of fine space* brandy, tuck into a juicy space* mince pie and enjoy a particularly cinammony issue of Shoreline of Infinity.

Stories by:

Michael F Russell, Bo Balder, Gregg Chamberlain, Florence Vincent, Hannah Lackoff, Victoria Zelvin, Dan Grace, Katy Lennon, Russell Jones

Interview by Gary Dalkin: Steven Palmer

Poetry: Grahaeme Barrasford Young, JS Watts

Column: Ruth EJ Booth

SF Caledonia by Monica Burns: Annals of the twenty-ninth century; or, The autobiography of the tenth president of the World by Andrew Blair

Book Reviews:

Empire Games by Charles Stross
The Augur's Gambit / The King's Justice by Stephen Donaldson
Thirty Years of Rain edited byNeil Williamson, Elaine Gallagher and Cameron Johnston
Heart of Granite by James Barclay
The Hatching by Ezekiel Boone
Savant by Nik Abnett



*space insert your favourite science fiction reference here.

Genres: Science Fiction

132 pages, Paperback

First published December 7, 2016

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

[Jack Deighton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Noel Chidwick’s Editorial ponders the 2016 US Presidential Election as a possible Jonbar Point for future fictions. SF Caledonia discusses Andrew Blair’s Annals of the Twenty-Ninth Century. Gary Dalkin interviews Stephen Palmer. In Noise and Sparks Ruth E J Booth ruminates on how illness steals time, and the year ending is full of both reflection and hope. In Reviews Chris Heyman looks at The Augur’s Gambit/The King’s Justice by Stephen Donaldson (though the book cover shown has the order of titles reversed,) Chris Kelso delights in Thirty Years of Rain the anthology celebrating the anniversary of the Glasgow Science Fiction Writers’ Circle and edited by Neil Williamson, Elaine Gallagher and Cameron Johnston, Ian Hunter enthuses over James Barclay’s Heart of Granite, Henry Northmore recognises some merit in The Hatching by Ezekiel Boone while acknowledging it’s not high art, Nik Abnett’s Savant is reviewed by Steve Ironside who found it unsatisfying and Noel Chidwick thoroughly welcomes Charles Stross’s Empire Games. Multiverse contains poems by Grahaeme Barrasford Young and J S Watts. Parabolic Puzzles has two parts both about variously encumbered musicians crossing a dangerous bridge.

In the fiction, Other Colours by Michael F Russell features the intrusion by a strange figure, a kind of interdimensional policeman into the laboratory of an over-dedicated nuclear physicist. It reads a bit like a mash-up between my own Closing Time (Interzone 89,) and Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.
In Shaker Loop by Bo Balder a family heirloom makes objects appear and disappear.
A Visit at Saint Nick’s by Gregg Chamberlain sees one of Santa’s elf helpers give comfort to a harassed woman.
In Spaceman by Florence Vincent the titular perennially inebriated alien is to be found alone and eyeless in a bar on Christmas Eve after closing time. A doctor comes in to assuage his angst at losing a patient.
Tales of the Beachcomber by Mark Toner is another edition - with a slight Christmas theme and nod to the team bringing us the magazine - of the strip familiar from earlier issues of Shoreline of Infinity which this time seems more light-hearted than before.
Sixby Hannah Lackoff is a tale of six successive clones of a girl and a boy and their creator.
In Goodnight New York, New York by Victoria Zelvin a suitably biologically enhanced woman goes illegal deep-sea diving in a flooded New York.
The narrator of The Descendant by Katy Lennon is a Plaisim 0200, a robot recommended for young families. It accompanies its owner - who calls it his son, only one manifestation of his psychological instability - on a government mandated trip out of Edinburgh beyond the wall into “the Vastus”. The other humans on the bus resent the Plaisim’s presence.
The Worm by Russell Jones considers the ramifications of an educational tool ingested by placing it under the tongue.
Annals of the Twenty-Ninth Century by Andrew Blair (Chapter XVII. Between Heaven and Earth) is an extract from the named chapter.