Well, there are certainly some very fine stories on offer. One of my favourites is ‘Albert and the Engine of Albion’ by Terry Gates-Grimwood; in a letter to his friend Baron Stockmar, Prince Albert describes the mysterious stranger – an assassin, perhaps? – stalking Queen Victoria. The stranger, it transpires, is the King of the Folk of the Earth (the faeries, in other words), come to elicit the monarch’s allegiance – and to father her child. Gates-Grimwood’s writing is evocative, and his idea interesting. But I think a story this short doesn’t really do it justice; I’d love to see a novel or novella exploring the theme in more detail.

And that wasn’t the only time I felt a story in the magazine could do with a little expansion. For instance, ‘Beyond Ledra’ by Cathy Buburuz is a tale of horror on the bayou, where a serial killer visits a witch in search of something to remove his feelings of guilt. It’s atmospheric (if perhaps a little overwritten in places), but too short to be satisfying.

Alan Heal’s contribution, ‘We’ll Take Manhattan’, couples some effective writing (‘It was when I heard my apartment door being kicked in that I first had an inkling that all was not right with the world’) with a weird storyline in which Manhattan is literally cut off from the rest of the world. The trouble with this story is not excessive brevity as such, but that the cause of these events isn’t clear enough. No, I don’t require a full explanation of all odd happenings in a story; there’s nothing wrong with readers having to fill in the blanks. But if an author is too vague about things, it can become hard to care about what’s going on. I began to feel that way as I finished ‘We’ll Take Manhattan’, and it spoiled an otherwise good story.

Despite what I’ve said so far, not all the stories in this issue of Scifantastic feel too short. Karl Hodge’s ‘Remembrance’ fills a little over half a page, but it is perfect at that length. It’s told by a mysterious, super-intelligent entity that is losing its knowledge at a rapid rate. And, even more strangely, it tells us that‘you and I were once the same’. I won’t say more than that – just don’t be surprised if you glance down at yourself once you’ve finished reading Hodge’s tale!

The strangeness in ‘Waldo Fobgib’s Electric Picture Shop’ by Andrew O.D. Booth begins quietly: Ben lends his Pocket PC to fellow student Lizzy (whom he fancies); when she returns it, the PDA can – impossibly – pick up television signals. The man responsible is one Waldo Fobgib, who has been tinkering with machines to help speed up their evolution – but he’s also ‘borrowed’ people in the process… There’s some nice writing here, but it’s undermined by some particularly glaring typographical errors (the phrase ‘silicone-based life’ conjures up a rather different image from the intelligent machines that Booth intends!). I’m not sure if the ending lives up to the intriguing start, but I’d recommend the tale nevertheless.

The other stories in the magazine are a mixed bag, with some decent ideas that aren’t always well executed. For example, ‘Beasties’ by Michael A. Kechula is about a psychiatrist’s patient who claims that little ‘beasties’ are coming to Earth down ladders and taking things back to the Moon. Okay, but you can spot the ending a mile off. The non-fiction consists of an interview with William Smith of Trunk Stories, which succeeded in making me want to read a copy of that magazine; a few short book reviews that perhaps should be a bit longer; and a letters column which, at the moment, is unfortunately not much more than a space filler. The overall quality of the magazine is a little uneven, but there are some very fine moments. Scifantastic deserves your support, and I wish Sarah Dobbs and the rest of her team every success.

David Hebblethwaite lives out in the wilds of Yorkshire, where he attempts to make a dent in his collection of unread books. You can read more of David's reviews at his review blog.

© 2006 Laura Hird All rights reserved.