MAGAZINE REVIEW – BLACK STATIC VOLUME ONE SEPTEMBER 2007. A new
horror magazine, or is it? Black Static is a relaunch of the well-respected 3rd
Alternative Journal, sister paper to the superior Interzone Magazine. Many
regular writers and features have carried over from the 3rd Alternative to its
reincarnation, which focuses on horror, rather than science fiction.
The first issue is marred by its heavily over-darkened artwork,
which often looks like black blobs on the page, but later issues would improve
on this considerably. The stories, reviews and features more than compensate
for this however.
There are film reviews, and book reviews, including a look at
Laurel K. Hamilton’s 14th Anita Blake Vampire Hunter novel, The Harlequin, and
Simon Clark’s London Under Midnight. There is a chilling slightly tongue
in cheek feature on trends in the Japanese media for suppressing stories of
wartime atrocities while telling readers how to identify a woman as a Korean
prostitute by her aroma alone.
There is a terrific interview with Michael Marshall Smith, and
some tremendous fiction. My Stone Desire by Joel Lane tells of a policeman
investigating missing persons who is willingly overpowered by a fungus that
traps people forever. This is marred only by the soap opera preamble in the
middle about his failed family relationship. Much better is Simon Avery’s Bury
The Carnival, where, in a strange, unspecified town, somewhere in Latin
America, an investigative reporter checks out claims that a puppeteer has the
ability to give life to his mannequins. This is a dark twist on Pinocchio, with
shades of Bladerunner. The puppeteer Charousek has stolen powerful magic from a
powerful, mysterious order known as The Puritans, who’s Thought Police known as
The Precisemen, are trying to get it back. That the reporter finds out the
truth so quickly suggests that these detectives are a it slow on the uptake, as
the lady reporter goes from seeing the puppeteer himself, surrounded by
inanimate, but eerily lifelike puppets, to a meeting with a man reputed to be
one of his first animated creations. The young man Jaromir survives an attempt
to hang himself, and with the reporter, he tries to warn the puppeteer that the
Puritans are closing in on him. That the reporter herself is a puppet is no big
surprise, as this is territory covered heavily in other work. The story does
have some tension and atmosphere, but feels like a retread of many established
stories.
Overall Black Static promises to showcase some of the finest
horror writing of the 21st century.
Arthur Chappell
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