Midnight Echo 6: The Science Fiction Horror Special

The Australian Horror Writers Association is pleased to announce the line-up of the sixth issue of their official fiction magazine, Midnight Echo. This edition is a themed issue, with all stories being science fiction horror.

The nine stories are set in the far future and taking place in the distant reaches of space. Inside 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.

Stories have been penned by various renowned speculative fiction authors from Australia and the United States, including:

• Cody Goodfellow – editor of Perilous Press and author of Radiant Dawn and Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars
• Cat Sparks – fiction editor for Cosmos Magazine and multiple Aurealis Award winning author
• Stephen Dedman – Australian science fiction veteran and author of Shadows Bite and Foreign Bodies
• Shane Jiraiya Cummings – Managing Editor of Horrorscope.com.au and author of Phoenix and the Darkness of Wolves
• Joanne Anderton – author of upcoming speculative fiction novel Debris

Emerging talented authors include Helen Stubbs, Alan Baxter, Andrew J. McKiernan, Mark Farrugia, and poet Jenny Blackford.

The issue will feature an in depth interview with Charles Stross, one of the most imaginative and insightful science fiction authors writing today. Stross has been honoured with two Hugo awards and Locus Reader awards, and has published more than a dozen novels, including Saturn’s Children and The Fuller Memorandum. He talks to David Conyers for Midnight Echo about his Lovecrafitan science fiction horror series, The Laundry, and his latest novel, Rule 34.

A second interview is 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 official wallpaper art for film The Empire Strikes Back. Insights are gained into Moore’s process for achieving his striking and imaginative art, and the many changes he has been facing in the publishing industry since he began illustrating in the 1970s.

The cover for Midnight Echo 6, ‘Strange Behaviour’, is a creation of talented UK artist, Paul Drummond, who will be well-known to readers of Interzone for his striking depictions of star ships, futuristic humans and robots.

Featured interior illustrators include:

• Steve Gilberts – Apex Digest, Space and Time, and Book of Dark Wisdom
• David Lee Ingersoll – The Black Seal and Worlds of Cthulhu
• Olivia Kernot – Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine
• Nathan Wyckoff – Jumpgates Comics

Midnight Echo 6: The Science Fiction Horror Special, has been edited by South Australian trio, David Kernot (editor of Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine), Jason Fischer (Writers of the Future winner and Aurealis nominee), and David Conyers (author of The Eye of Infinity, The Spiraling Worm and co-editor of Cthulhu Unbound 3), and is due for release in November 2011.

Further details on Midnight Echo can be found at http://www.australianhorror.com/

Previous issues of Midnight Echo can be purchased at http://www.shop.australianhorror.com/

Through the Wormhole

I sold my first story for 2011 to Through the Wormhole, a science fiction anthology edited by Bill Tucker and Wayne Goodchild, and to be published by Library of the Living Dead. The theme is far out space tales and here is the table of contents:

• Learning Poetry - John Moran
• Mother All Around - David McGillveray
• The Swan Song of a Mad Scientist - Mark Mills
• The Entropy Collapse - David Conyers
• Berserkabot - T.D. Edge
• The Galactic Fight Club Game - Barry Rosenberg
• Big Green Women - J. T. Riff
• Monkey Sang Cold - Jonathan Shipley
• Mileage May Vary - Douglas Hutcheson
• In The Service Economy - Michael H. Payne
• Minus Two Seven Two - Jim Moore
• Homo Ex Machina - S. Huston Blount
• False Ascent - Ginny Gilroy
• Digital Jesus - Michael W. Lucht
• The Physics of Forever - Richard Jay Goldstein

My story, "The Entropy Collapse" is a space opera tale set on a colony world occupied by humans and a strange seemingly invincible alien race.

I have no idea what to expect from Through the Wormhole but I'm excited because its a listing of authors I'm not familiar with, and so looking forward to reading them all. 

I'll post release dates, cover arts and so forth when I have more news. 

Australian Shadows Winners

The Australian Shadows have been announced and the results can be found here. I was nominated for the Short Fiction category. I didn't win. But the next best news was that Macabre edited by Angela Challis and Marty Young won the Edited Publication category. I'm so excited about this one, not because I have a story in the book, but because I believe Angela Challis is the most talented editor opearting in the Australian small press, and this award is so deserved. I hope Macabre goes on to win the Ditmar and Aurealis, and I can't think of any anthology that is anywhere as good as this one this year.

I did get some comments from the judges on my stories for 2010. Craig Bezant said "David Conyers' "Dream Machine" was perhaps one of the best tales to start an anthology (Scenes from the Second Storey), but I thoroughly enjoyed his story with David Witteveen, "Sweet as Decay" [Macabre]". Kaaron Warren might not have spelt my name correctly, but she did say that "Conyer's cruel, unrelenting story [is] clever, disturbing, and new."

Congradulations to all the winners, and all the shortlisted nominees as well. Next year, there are even more categories to enter.