Black Static Issue 3 by TTA Press
With Alexander Glass, Will McIntosh, Matthew(Garth Merenghi) Holness
The February-March 08 issue of Britain's leading dark fantasy magazine highlights the best in horror with novel and DVD reviews, and Virus author Sarah Langan interviewed
The third issue of Black Static magazine sees it starting to establish an identity. As with the first and second issues there's disturbing photographic artwork by David Gentry, and the usual non-fiction offerings by regular columnists Christopher Fowler, Tony Lee and Mike O'Driscoll. Embedded in Peter tennant's Case Notes is an interview with rising author Sarah Langan, author of Virus (aka The Missing in the USA).
The most interesting column this month is author/screenwriter Christopher Volk taking issue with horror grand-master Joe Lansdale's assertion "that novel-writing is an inherently superior art-form to screenwriting." (p22) His rebuttal makes fascinating reading.
Alexander Glass
The fiction in Black Static 3 opens with "The Pit" by Alexander Glass. A young man is able to conjure an opening into the earth that sucks in all around it. It's technically well-written, and has competent characterization, but for whatever reason, it fails to ignite.
By contrast, while Seth Skorkowsky's 'The Mist of Lichthafen' has the jolt of an unforeshadowed change of viewpoint at the end that's akin to hitting a pothole in a speeding car, in every other way it's excellent; in an alternate Europe a port is occasionally invaded by a Lovecraft-ian mist that covers surfaces in slime and contains lurking monsters that attack two theives who dare to venture into it. Hugely enjoyable.
As is 'The Sentinels' by Tony Richards, a lovely little story about a man stranded in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona after crashing his 4x4. This hover much more on the edge of dark fantasy --in another magazine, it could have appeared non-genre-- than the stories that bookend it.
Dark Fantasy
Like the two earlier stories, the characters in Ian R. Faulkner's 'The Difference Between' are caught in the open, seeking sanctuary, but this time the locale is the trenches of The Western Front, in echoes of Dan Simmon's 'The Great Lover.' There's one clunky paragraph of infodumping, but apart from that Faulkner's style is assured, there's a wealth of detail that makes the reader feel how it was to be cowering in the trenches waiting for the signal to attack, and overall, it's a terrific piece of dark fantasy.
Carole Johnstone's 'The Morning After' is a debut story that reeks of location, and has a nice twist that's so subtle it has to be read carefully. It's a first sale that bodes well for Johnstone.
'The fantasy Jumper' by Will McIntosh is a first BS appearance by a regular contributor to sister-magazine Interzone,and it's a fine story, perhaps the best in the magazine; set at a future World's Fair, which includes amongst its attractions a booth that will generate temporary people designed to replay selected memories. Breaking from it's expected narrative arc, it's short and to the point, and perhaps worth the price of the magazine on it's own.
Garth Marenghi's Dark Place
Rounding out the fiction is 'The Toad and I' a first BS appearance by Matthew Holness, who is better known as the creator of Garth Marenghi's Dark Place and Man to Man with Dean Learner for British television's Channel 4. But he is also a short-story writer of some ability, as this demonic tour-de-farce of a model-maker revisiting his former employers attests.
BS3 has three outstanding stories, and most of the others are better than average, and well worth hunting down.
