Shoreline of Infinity, Issue 13, Autumn 2018

Shoreline of Infinity Science Fiction Magazine #13

by Noel Chidwick (Editor), Premee Mohamed (Contributor), Preston Grassmann (Contributor)

Shoreline of Infinity Science Fiction Magazine -winner British Fantasy Society award 2018 for best magazine/periodical

New science fiction stories - and more

Esme Carpenter – Harry’s Shiver
Premee Mohamed – The Time Between Time
Laura Young – Daughter
Bo Balder – Splitting Up
Caroline Grebbell – Goodnight Rosemarinus
Tim Major – Cast In the Same Mould
Rachel Armstrong – Origamy (extracts)
Preston Grassmann – The Silk Tower of Beijing

Poetry: Tris Crest. Charlotte Ozment, Nate Maxson

New for Shoreline of Infinity 13 - Six Word Science Fiction Stories
Gregg Chamberlain, Dane Divine, Michael Stroh


Art competition: we have a winner – Jimmy McGregor
The Beachcomber Presents: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Mark Toner, Stephen Pickering & Tsu Beel

SF Caledonia: Chris Kelso on Preston Grassmann

Plus an interview with Rachel Armstrong on her amazing debut novel Origamy

177 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 2, 2018

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]

In Pull up a Log Noel Chidwick says that the tradition and sense of myth in Scottish story-telling underlies Shoreline of Infinity, tales of wonder told round the fire as the cold swirls around, and invites us in. Reviews has Katy Lennon finding the worlds depicted in the anthology Improbable Botany edited by Gary Dalkin feeling “real and conscious”, Samantha Dolan is impressed by Cat Hellisen’s collection Learning How to Drown, Steve Ironside appreciates rather than enjoys the lampoon The Church of Latter-Day Eugenics by Chris Kelso and Tom Bradley, but still tilts his crown to it, Rachel Hill finds Autonomous by Annalee Newitz to be an accomplished thriller, tackling thorny contemporary issues without offering simple solutions, Callum McSorley welcomes us to the Wild East of the collected novellas of Apocalypse Nyx by Kameron Hurley, formula plotting and all, Marija Smits says Sealed by Naomi Booth is a powerful book with an original, hard-hitting premise, Lucy Powell describes The Freeze-Frame Revolution as hard and fast-paced narrative that really makes you think, gripping till the last page, Georgina Merry defines Fifty-One by Chris Barnham as a fun read – with flaws.
Multiverse has poems by Tris Crest, Charlotte Ozment and Nate Maxson, while a total of three 6 word stories (written respectively by Gregg Chamberlain, Dane Divine and Michael Stroh) appear, one each, at the bottoms of pages 44, 71 and 131.

In the fiction:-
Harry’s Shiver by Esme Carpenter. A man commissioned to steal some sort of valuable (unspecified) raids the ‘unbreachable’ Caste Arco. To aid him he makes use of devices he calls Shivers. I’m afraid for me this story was marred by far too much obtrusive info dumping, some unnecessary phrases, the occasional odd word choice and more than a smattering of cliché.

In The Time Between Time by Premee Mohamed windows onto another planet have begun appearing all over Earth. Eleven year-old Dalton finds one in her back garden and tries to keep it secret.

Daughter by Laura Young is narrated by a woman taking her terminally ill mother from Japan to her home in San Francisco to care for her. Things turn strange during the flight and even stranger when they land.

Splitting Up by Bo Balder is narrated by a Split – a part of someone’s personality which by medical intervention has been reduced to only restricted access to that person’s body but takes over for designated purposes - in this case interacting/having sex with a boyfriend.


In Goodnight Rosemarinus by Caroline Grebell a future human, evolved into a sea-dweller, is held captive by an alien Observer. This story is followed by a one page article “We Have a Winner” on the artist, Jimmy McGregor, who won the competition to illustrate the story.

Tim Major’s Cast in the Same Mould describes the peculiar circumstances in which life is discovered on Mars.

The Beachcomber Presents Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein by Mark Toner, Stephen Pickering & Tsu Beel discusses Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the original and its various adulterated adaptations.

Next comes an interview with the author (conducted by Noel Chidwick) and extracts from the novel Origamy by Rachel Armstrong.

Preceded by a very short author intervew (by Chris Kelso,) The Silk Tower of Beijing by Preston Grassman is dedicated to the late Iain M Banks. Seeming to take inspiration from that author’s A Gift From the Culture an inhabitant of an Earth taken over by aliens strikes at the core of their hold over humans