Shoreline of Infinity, Issue 7, Spring 2017

Shoreline of Infinity Science Fiction Magazine #7

by Noel Chidwick (Editor), Davyne DeSye, David L. Clements

This issue we celebrate the work of Jane Yolen with an interview and her poems. Stories Something Fishy--David L Clements
Message in a Bottle--Davyne DeSye
An infinite number of me--Dan Grace
3.8 Missions--Katie Gray
Anyone Can ask About Enhancement--Terry Jackman
The Walls of Tithonium Chasma--Tim Major
Quantum Flush--Daniel Soule
Brother's Keeper--Shannon Connor Winward That Very Mab--May Kendall and Andrew Lang (SF Caledonia) Tales of the Beachcomber--Mark Toner Monica Burns on That Very Mab, and the writers May Kendall and Andrew Lang Noise and Sparks--Ruth EJ Booth Book Reviews Parabolic Puzzles--Paul Holmes

140 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 2017

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

[Blue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this up at the Transreal bookstore in Edinburgh. A very nice issue with great stories, mostly sci-fi. Favorite stories were Message in a Bottle by Davyne DeSye and the graphic story Tales of the Beachcomber by Mark Toner. The interview with Jane Yolen and get poetry is great, too.

[Jack Deighton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Taking the fiction first.
In The Walls of Tithonia Chasma by Tim Major machines imbued via imprints of “human brain patterns” with artificial intelligences and whom a local Reverend asserts may have souls are sculpting Valles Marineris on Mars.
An Infinite Number of Me by Dan Grace is narrated by the daughter of a physicist whose work involved the interactions between the many different worlds where they touch each other.
Another take on different realities, or, rather, a possible different future is Brother’s Keeper by Shannon Connor Windward.
Message in a Bottle by Davyne DeSye is couched as a series of unreplied-to messages from an artist who seems to have been left totally alone in the world. (Annoyingly, its approach and the style in which it is written reminded me of an unpublished story of my own.)
In Anyone Can Ask About Enhancement by Terry Jackman a ”normal” working man tries for Enhancement in order to impress/keep his girlfriend. This story can go in one of two ways. And it does.
3.8 Missions by Katie Gray tells of a medtech whose job it is to reach disabled iSoldiers in the field and get them back working again. 3.8 is the average number of such missions completed. Our narrator is on his fifth.
Quantum Flush by Daniel Soule is a light-hearted piece about a time travel jaunt to find out the cause of the Alexandria Library fire.
Another light-hearted piece, Something Fishy by David L Clements, has an explorer on an alien planet encounter a human-sized fish which is singing arias.
Mark Toner’s The Beachcomber continues its graphic story-telling with an account of how Martians have adapted over the years to the many different human ways of viewing them.
In SF Caledonia Monica Burns considers That Very Mab by May Kendall and Andrew Lang, the first in the series written by two authors and the first to feature a woman. The extract, as might be expected from is 1885 publication date, is very Victorian in nature.

The non-fiction contains an interview with Jane Yolen four of whose poems make up Russell Jones’s MultiVerse section. Ruth E J Booth’s Noise and Sparks 4: The Work of the Heart discusses the role of the artist in troubled times. Reviews features Iain Maloneyon Ken Macleod’s The Corporation Wars: Insurgence, Pippa Goldschmidt looks at the collection Thought X: Fictions and Hypotheticals edited by Dr Rob Appleby and Ra Page, Chris Kelso welcomes the reminder from Iraq + 100: Stories from Another Iraq edited by Hassam Blasim of Britain’s responsibility for the chaos in that country and finds the stories are well written and “beautifully executed,” Chris Heyman likes Luke Rhinehart’s Invasion, Steve Ironside sees flaws in T J Zareski’s The Cygnus Virus but looks forward to part two, Katie Gray had a good time reading the clockworkpunk of Stephen Palmer’s The Girl with Two Souls even if the central character(s) remained undeveloped, Thom Dayg liked Hold Back the Stars by Katie Khan overall [but his review indicated it would not be my thing,] and Iain Maloney gives a warm thumbs up to Chris Beckett’s Daughter of Eden.