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Shoreline of Infinity Science Fiction Magazine #8
Shoreline of Infinity, Issue 8, Summer 2017
Stories
Targets – Eric Brown
Goddess with a Human Heart – Jeannette Ng
The Pink Life(La Vie En Rose) – Nathan Susnik
These Are the Ways – Premee Mohamed
The Black Tide – Laura Duerr
The Starchitect – Barry Charman
Arthur Kovic’s Days of Change – Michael Teasdale
The Folger Variation – Chris Kelso
SF Poetry by Lauren Harwyn, Louise Peterkin, Colin McGuire
Cover – The Rescue of Sister, by Stephen Pickering
Flash Fiction Competition
Noise and Sparks: Ruth EJ Booth
SF Caledonia – interview with Chris Kelso
Tales of the Beachcomber—Mark Toner & Stephen Pickering
Book Reviews
All the Galaxies by Philip Miller
The Last Days of New Paris by China Miéville
Raven Stratagem by Yoon Ha Lee
Rupert Wong and the Ends of the Earth (Gods and Monsters: Rupert Wong Book 2) by Cassandra Khaw
Ancestral Machines: A Humanity’s Fire Novel by Michael Cobley
The List by Patricia Forde
Targets – Eric Brown
Goddess with a Human Heart – Jeannette Ng
The Pink Life(La Vie En Rose) – Nathan Susnik
These Are the Ways – Premee Mohamed
The Black Tide – Laura Duerr
The Starchitect – Barry Charman
Arthur Kovic’s Days of Change – Michael Teasdale
The Folger Variation – Chris Kelso
SF Poetry by Lauren Harwyn, Louise Peterkin, Colin McGuire
Cover – The Rescue of Sister, by Stephen Pickering
Flash Fiction Competition
Noise and Sparks: Ruth EJ Booth
SF Caledonia – interview with Chris Kelso
Tales of the Beachcomber—Mark Toner & Stephen Pickering
Book Reviews
All the Galaxies by Philip Miller
The Last Days of New Paris by China Miéville
Raven Stratagem by Yoon Ha Lee
Rupert Wong and the Ends of the Earth (Gods and Monsters: Rupert Wong Book 2) by Cassandra Khaw
Ancestral Machines: A Humanity’s Fire Novel by Michael Cobley
The List by Patricia Forde
- GenresShort Stories
131 pages, Paperback
First published June 12, 2017
1 person is currently reading
29 people want to read
About the author
Noel Chidwick
45 books19 followersI'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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 14, 2017
It was with great delight that I found out Shoreline of Infinity, a Scottish Sci-Fi magazine. It was then with an even greater delight that I read it, and found its contents to be superb.
As with any anthology, some stories will appeal more than others. To me, "Goddess with a Human Heart", by Jeannette Ng, is the star of this issue, and worth the price of the magazine alone. An Aztec inspired Sci-Fi dystopia, which leaves you wanting to read more about this inventive and original world.
"The Black Tide", by Laura Duerr, is a second favourite, and an interesting, thought-provoking story.
The reviews section was an added plus, as well as the author feature / interview.
All in all, Shoreline of Infinity is a very complete magazine, and certainly a valuable read for anyone interested in Sci-Fi. The fact that it is a Scottish publication featuring a diverse array of international authors is the cherry on top.
As with any anthology, some stories will appeal more than others. To me, "Goddess with a Human Heart", by Jeannette Ng, is the star of this issue, and worth the price of the magazine alone. An Aztec inspired Sci-Fi dystopia, which leaves you wanting to read more about this inventive and original world.
"The Black Tide", by Laura Duerr, is a second favourite, and an interesting, thought-provoking story.
The reviews section was an added plus, as well as the author feature / interview.
All in all, Shoreline of Infinity is a very complete magazine, and certainly a valuable read for anyone interested in Sci-Fi. The fact that it is a Scottish publication featuring a diverse array of international authors is the cherry on top.
July 30, 2018
Starting with the fiction:
In The Pink Life (La Vie En Rose) by Nathan Susnik everything is connected. iPerceive mediates Lauren van Kamp’s everyday life, monitoring her serotonin levels and whatnot while overlaying the real world with a “happy” veneer. Only when things go wrong can she begin to forge a human connection.
Laura Duerr’s eponymous The Black Tide is an infestation of black jelly-fish every harvest Moon. Ingested, they either kill you or confer immortality. The story is written well enough but as soon as you think about its scenario it instantly falls apart. Our narrator has apparently forgotten the phenomenon before, on just that day, she brings her unknowing college friends to the seaside town where she grew up. Really? And how would such an annual event - and its consequences - ever be kept secret?
The Starchitect by Barry Charman is again eponymous – the woman commissioned to build for a client an environment inside a star.
Goddess with a Human Heart by Jeanette Ng takes as its starting point Aztec belief and ceremonial. A young girl awaits the sacrificial donation of her heart to the Goddess. The high priest, whom the girl had earlier saved from drowning, has other ideas.
These Are the Ways by Premee Mohamed is a standard military SF tale which, like so many of these things, valorises a useless death.
In Arthur Kovic’s Days of Change by Michael Teasdale the mundane unchanging life of the titular Kovic quietly morphs around him.
Targets by Eric Brown presents a solution to any pote ntial problem with overpopulation. People are randomly selected to be tattooed with a hologram that allows police to kill you at their whim. Both the narrator’s wife and his son are so marked.
In SF Caledonia: Chris Kelso, editor Noel Chidwick outlines said writer’s output so far and conducts an email interview with him by way of introduction to:-
The Folger Variation by Chris Kelso an extract from a novella which is a breathless sort of read about a guy being pursued by a murderer but his grandfather’s time machine may allow him to prevent all that.
The Beachcomber by Mark Toner and Stephen Pickering (Toner seems to have picked up a co-writer for his graphic story) sees a new recruit to the interplanetary police force undertake his first day.
As to the non-fiction:
In Noise and Sparks: The Legend of the Kick-Arse Wise Woman, Ruth EJ Booth outlines the steps by which she realised she could write now without waiting for permission.
Reviews has Henry Northmore liking but finding some flaws in All the Galaxies by Philip Miller, Eris Young bemoans the novella length of The Last Days of New Paris by China Miéville, wanting more body, and really dislikes the author’s use of an afterword as a mea non culpa, Iain Maloney finds Yoon Ha Lee’s Raven Stratagem better than its predecessor, (in my recollection that wouldn’t be hard,) Benjamin Thomas delights in Rupert Wong and the Ends of the Earth, Duncan Lunan says Michael Cobley’s Ancestral Machines is rollicking good fun but perhaps relies too much on knowledge of a TV series called Firefly, Katie Gray is unconvinced by the central premise of The List by Patricia Forde while still enjoying it and Ian Hunter is “in safe hands” with Tom Lloyd’s Stranger of Tempest (though from the sound of it I would run a mile,) while in Multiverse, Russell Jones welcomes more space in the mag for SF poetry, with two poems each from Lauren Harwyn, Louise Peterkin and Colin McGuire.
In The Pink Life (La Vie En Rose) by Nathan Susnik everything is connected. iPerceive mediates Lauren van Kamp’s everyday life, monitoring her serotonin levels and whatnot while overlaying the real world with a “happy” veneer. Only when things go wrong can she begin to forge a human connection.
Laura Duerr’s eponymous The Black Tide is an infestation of black jelly-fish every harvest Moon. Ingested, they either kill you or confer immortality. The story is written well enough but as soon as you think about its scenario it instantly falls apart. Our narrator has apparently forgotten the phenomenon before, on just that day, she brings her unknowing college friends to the seaside town where she grew up. Really? And how would such an annual event - and its consequences - ever be kept secret?
The Starchitect by Barry Charman is again eponymous – the woman commissioned to build for a client an environment inside a star.
Goddess with a Human Heart by Jeanette Ng takes as its starting point Aztec belief and ceremonial. A young girl awaits the sacrificial donation of her heart to the Goddess. The high priest, whom the girl had earlier saved from drowning, has other ideas.
These Are the Ways by Premee Mohamed is a standard military SF tale which, like so many of these things, valorises a useless death.
In Arthur Kovic’s Days of Change by Michael Teasdale the mundane unchanging life of the titular Kovic quietly morphs around him.
Targets by Eric Brown presents a solution to any pote ntial problem with overpopulation. People are randomly selected to be tattooed with a hologram that allows police to kill you at their whim. Both the narrator’s wife and his son are so marked.
In SF Caledonia: Chris Kelso, editor Noel Chidwick outlines said writer’s output so far and conducts an email interview with him by way of introduction to:-
The Folger Variation by Chris Kelso an extract from a novella which is a breathless sort of read about a guy being pursued by a murderer but his grandfather’s time machine may allow him to prevent all that.
The Beachcomber by Mark Toner and Stephen Pickering (Toner seems to have picked up a co-writer for his graphic story) sees a new recruit to the interplanetary police force undertake his first day.
As to the non-fiction:
In Noise and Sparks: The Legend of the Kick-Arse Wise Woman, Ruth EJ Booth outlines the steps by which she realised she could write now without waiting for permission.
Reviews has Henry Northmore liking but finding some flaws in All the Galaxies by Philip Miller, Eris Young bemoans the novella length of The Last Days of New Paris by China Miéville, wanting more body, and really dislikes the author’s use of an afterword as a mea non culpa, Iain Maloney finds Yoon Ha Lee’s Raven Stratagem better than its predecessor, (in my recollection that wouldn’t be hard,) Benjamin Thomas delights in Rupert Wong and the Ends of the Earth, Duncan Lunan says Michael Cobley’s Ancestral Machines is rollicking good fun but perhaps relies too much on knowledge of a TV series called Firefly, Katie Gray is unconvinced by the central premise of The List by Patricia Forde while still enjoying it and Ian Hunter is “in safe hands” with Tom Lloyd’s Stranger of Tempest (though from the sound of it I would run a mile,) while in Multiverse, Russell Jones welcomes more space in the mag for SF poetry, with two poems each from Lauren Harwyn, Louise Peterkin and Colin McGuire.
July 18, 2017
It’s the first time I’ve read this publication, and I was very impressed: this issue was full of terrific stories. Three that stood out for me were:
Goddess with a Human Heart, by Jeannette Ng: an evocative and beautifully written story of the divine, sacrifice, faith, cruelty, and a glimmer of hope.
The Pink Life (La Vie En Rose), by Nathan Susnik: a disturbing and funny tale of a world where you can sell yourself on the stock exchange, and where the real world is hidden beneath a veneer of virtual reality.
These Are the Ways, by Premee Mohamed: a fast-paces, moving, and also heart-wrenching science fiction story of war, love, bad decisions, and loss.
Goddess with a Human Heart, by Jeannette Ng: an evocative and beautifully written story of the divine, sacrifice, faith, cruelty, and a glimmer of hope.
The Pink Life (La Vie En Rose), by Nathan Susnik: a disturbing and funny tale of a world where you can sell yourself on the stock exchange, and where the real world is hidden beneath a veneer of virtual reality.
These Are the Ways, by Premee Mohamed: a fast-paces, moving, and also heart-wrenching science fiction story of war, love, bad decisions, and loss.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews