Godmachine (2012)

Godmachine. Dir. Richard Cranor, 2012. Starring Robert Leeshock and Von Flores. 22:42 minutes.

Reviewed by Paul Wilks

Godmachine, a short promotional sci-fi film, is set in a futuristic dystopia of transient computer viruses and menacing global corporations. The protagonist John Lee, a traumatised war veteran, is tasked to destroy a computer virus which grants sentient cognition to androids. Things do not go to plan and the virus infects John through his own technological implants. Grace, an android whose voice is able to channel the big bang, comes to be protected by John and the couple lead to a new world away from the malign Chinamerica corporation.

Whitmore, Broken Vacuum Cleaner & MacKillop (2012)

Steve Whitmore, Broken Vacuum Cleaner & MacKillop Series 2, Episode IV: Yuckahula. Abysswinksback Books, 2012. Pp. 16. ISBN 978-1476363233. Free.

Reviewed by Kate Onyett

This is one short, short story. Short, very fast and very funny. It’s not often I actively giggle out loud. I did for this one. It is also confusing—in a good way. Mostly because it pulls your leg the same way as a particularly frisky terrier might as it playfully attacks and nips your ankles. And it moves like a whippet casing a sausage van. Yes, this is a small, boisterous, surprisingly loud-voiced metaphor of a story.

Daunt're, Holes in Parallel Dimensions (2011)

Brian Daunt're, Holes in Parallel Dimensions (The Illogical Detective #1). Untreed Reads, 2011. Pp. 112. ISBN 9781611872040. $4.99.

Reviewed by Kate Onyett

Something odd and awful is happening in Fairyland. For a start, Santa seems to have gone bomb-happy and heavily reindeer-intolerant. Old King Cole is not a merry soul; in fact, he has braved stepping into reality to seek out the help of Britain’s greatest detective. No, not Mr Holmes, but Mr Holes! Fairyland isn’t the only place about to descend into bloody madness. It is 1913, and Europe is gearing up for war.

Hennessy, At the End (2012)

John Hennessy, At the End. John Hennessy, 2012. Pp. 232. ISBN 9781476249599. $0.99.

Reviewed by Paul Wilks

John Hennessy’s At The End, available via Smashwords, is an action packed dystopian thriller aimed at young adults. Relentlessly fast-paced from the very beginning, it’s a short novel, which readers will almost find themselves holding their breath as they read. Set in the near future, aliens have invaded planet Earth, then rounded up or killed most of the world’s population. Four teenagers; Maggy, Darrel, Felix and Penelope find themselves in this post-apocalyptic nightmare where survivors are being hunted and killed by the invading alien creatures. The aliens, nicknamed ‘Alions’ by Maggy due to their physical similarity to lions, are intelligent, powerful, determined and ruthless. It ultimately takes all their wits to survive and make their way to safety.

Hamer, The Charter (2012)

Gillian E. Hamer, The Charter. Triskele Books, 2012. Pp. 399. ISBN 978-0-9571932-1-5. £2.99 e-book/£6.99 print.

Reviewed by Martha Hubbard

In many ways The Charter is a straightforward crime-thriller. Sarah Williams Morton has returned to Moelfre, the small Welsh town on the Island of Anglesey where she grew up, to attend the funeral of her father, Professor Owen Williams. She had not been back there since she fled her father’s drunken, controlling, behavior many years before. Now a successful Londoner, with her handsome, rich, husband, Dominic Morton, beside her, she is painfully aware of the local communities resentment of her and their animosity towards her father.

Nayman, Luna for the Lunies! (2012)

Ira Nayman, Luna for the Lunies! Smashwords/CreateSpace, 2012. Pp. 276. ISBN 978-0-9876996-2-6 (digital)/978-1470053734 (print). $0.99 (digital)/$14.95 (print).

Reviewed by Steven Pirie

Luna for the Lunies! is Ira Nayman’s third humorous science fiction collection of ‘Alternate Reality News Service’ articles. The News Service provides journalism without bounds, for their operatives will travel anywhere in multi-dimensional time and space to bring to print all that’s relevant in this universe or, indeed, any other universe you’d care to imagine. Add an ‘Agony Aunt’, an ‘Ask the Tech Guy’, and an odd ‘Unlived Lives Obituary Column’ and the recipe is there for a Monty-Python-meets-Douglas-Adams-like romp across time and space and all in-between.

Sur-Noir: Sein und Werden #8.2 (2012)

Sur-Noir, Sein und Werden #8.2 (Spring 2012). Guest edited by Marc Lowe. Pp. 56. ISSN 2046-8601. £2.50.

Reviewed by Kate Onyett

Sein und werden: being and becoming; a self-professed “ongoing project” for experimental literature and art that is all about the surreal, the outré, about “change and evolution.” This is fiction on the move, self-describing and describing of the world around it. Expect the odd. Regularly producing anthologies of themed works submitted by independent writers, Sur-Noir is the spring edition for 2012. Typical noir-genre adventures would be all about the hard-bitten private eye, the grungy, corrupt city (mostly at night), the glamorous dame who’ll do the PI wrong, the hard-drinking flashes of inspiration. Billed as murderous, mythical, twisted, with “blood-stained walls and the foul odour of corruption,” S und W are trying to take noir to its most extreme; noir of the soul. These are existential crimes of existence illuminated in a dark, dark light, with “ne’er a happy ending in sight.” With the emphasis on noir as the collective genre for this outing, this is not meant to be out-and-out horror, and is instead meant to stimulate the mind and send the creepy thrill into the thoughtful areas of the brain.

McRath, Aged Traveler of the First Expedition (2012)

Manni McRath, Aged Traveler of the First Expedition. Self-Published, 2012. Pp. c.50. ASIN B007LTM7IQ. $0.99.

Reviewed by Kate Onyett

Ostensibly, this short story in three chapters is a thought-map of a man’s mind as he faces the long, empty years of a deep space mission to a new planet. He appears to be latching future hopes on this planet, and as his ‘story’ continues, it seems that he has much thinking and worrying to do about the ethics of the mission, his crewmates, his position on the mission and his wider concerns with his position as a universal man. The mission takes, we are told, the better part of fifty years to travel, study and return to the home-world. Unfortunately, it feels like fifty years in the reading.

Edwards, Dome City Blues (2011)

Jeff Edwards, Dome City Blues. Stealth Books, 2011. Pp. 316. ISBN 978-0983008569. $12.99.

Reviewed by Jessica Nelson

The year is 2063. Rampant disease has wiped out a third of the human population, and most of the other two thirds have been driven to living in dome cities for protection from pollution and harmful UV rays. This is where former detective David “Sarge” Stalin thinks he’s going to live out his retirement as a metal sculptor; that is, until he’s approached at a bar by a beautiful woman who needs his help. Suddenly, Detective Stalin finds himself perched on the edge of a war between man and machines as he tries to solve a string of serial killings that the police have already closed the books on... twice.

Ashcroft, Supervillain (2012)

Ras Ashcroft, Supervillain: The Concise Guide. Indie, 2012. c.26000 words. ASIN B0076ZZCIC. $0.99 / £0.77.

Reviewed by RJ Blain

Have you ever wanted to be a villain? Or, dare I ask, a supervillain? If so, Supervillain: The Concise Guide may just be the book for you. Written in a self-help style that openly mocks the finance world, this parody pokes fun at those who want to go from rags to riches based off of the help from a book by presenting reasonable methods of becoming a modern-day villain.

Lantz, Gnit-wit Gnipper and the Perilous Plague (2011)

T.J. Lantz, Gnit-wit Gnipper and the Perilous Plague. Amazon Digital Services, 2011. Pp. 42. ASIN B006AXG2Z8. $0.99.

Reviewed by Kate Onyett

This is one cute little button of a short story. Gnipper, an aspiring (an often disastrous) scientific gnome, dreams of earning her tall hat of honour within her community. However, every project she tries to prove herself has ended in disaster. The day we join her, she has a final, drastic plan to showcase her talents in the lab, dabbling with biological manipulation. Unfortunately, the cure she has created doesn’t quite work, and her subject falls into real danger. Even more unfortunately, it is her single remaining parent: her somewhat arrogant intellectual of a father.

Devenport, Spirits Of Glory (2011)

Emily Devenport, Spirits Of Glory. Self-published, 2011. Pp. 113. ISBN 978-1-4523-3158-4. $0.99.

Reviewed by Paul Wilks

Spirits of Glory, available through Smashwords, is a beautifully crafted young adult story based in the futuristic/speculative colony world of Jigsaw, where the existence of ghosts and gods is as normal and expected as driving down a highway and taking a toilet break. The protagonist Hawkeye is an astute, intelligent and refreshingly vulnerable character, and this is as much a coming of age tale as it is a curious and well-paced exploration of wider themes such as identity, otherness and disability.