Midnight Echo 6: the Science Fiction Horror Special Line-up

I can now announce the line-up of interviews, stories and authors for Midnight Echo 6: The Science Fiction Horror Special to be published by the Australian Horror Writers Association later this year. The issue is edited by critically acclaimed Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine editor David Kernot, Writers of the Future finalists and Australian Shadows award nominee Jason Fischer, and myself.

Stories

We aimed for science fiction stories set into the far future and taking place in the far reaches of space. In this issue you’ll discover a strange world with a planetary ring forged from organic matter, bizarre aliens cataloguing and collecting humans to populate their idea of paradise, Lovecraftian horrors come to life in the heart of a comet, cybernetic monsters hunting humans in the hull of an abandoned star ship, and paranoid space explorers pushed to their limits at the frontier of an uncharted universe.

The stories, in no particular order, are:

• “Out Hunting for Teeth” Joanne Anderton
• “Trawling the Void” Alan Baxter
• “Silver-Clean” Jenny Blackford
• “Graveyard Orbit” Shane Jiraiya Cummings
• “More Matter, Less Art” Stephen Dedman
• “Seeds” Mark Farrugia
• “Earthworms” Cody Goodfellow
• “The Wanderer in the Darkness” Andrew J. McKiernan
• “Dead Low” Cat Sparks
• “Surgeon Scapelfingers” Helen Stubbs

Interviews

The issue will feature an in depth interview with Chris Moore, world renowned British science fiction artist best known for his striking covers for Orion Publishing’s SF Masterworks series and for his concept art for film The Empire Strikes Back. We also interview a well-known multiple award winning science fiction author, and who that is we will announce later.

Artwork

Artwork will be announced in the coming days, but I can say that we were lucky to score a cover from an extremely talented science fiction illustrator who will be well known to the readers of Interzone.

Jupiter 32 and Scenes from the Second Storey

Two brief news items, the first being that one of my better sci fi illustrations dating back 15 years now is to appear on the cover of Jupiter 32: Eurydome. I did a lot of black and white ink illustrations through the 1990s and into the 2000s, but not so much these days when my focus is on writing. That said, my art did appear in Secrets of Kenya in 2007 and will now appear in Cthulhu Unbound 3 hopefully released soon. This illustration is amongst my favorites, of a scientist in a cybernatically enhanced all environmental suit (sans helmet) studying a herd of alien creatures. Her all terrain vehicle is parked behind her.

The other news is that Scenes from the Second Storey, which features my Australian Shadow's nominated short story, "Dream Machine", is now available as an ebook from Smashswords.

Ellen Datlow’s Honorable Mentions 2010

Every year there several Year’s Best science fiction, fantasy and horror collections are released, and while it is always nice to get a story reprinted in one, the next best thing is to appear on the Recommended Reading list. This year, my first recommended reading appearance is in Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year Volume 3, with my collaboration with David Witteveen, “Sweet as Decay” which appeared in Macabre.

Also making the list are three stories from my first edited anthology, Cthulhu’s Dark Cults. They are “Perfect Skin” by David Witteveen, “The Eternal Chinaman” by John Sunseri and “The Devil’s Diamonds” by Cody Goodfellow. Cody goes one step further, with one of his stories actually being reprinted in Datlow’s anthology.

Congratulations to everyone who made the list.