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    Black Static #31 Horror Magazine
    Black Static #31 Horror Magazine
    Black Static #31 Horror Magazine
    Ebook236 pages2 hours

    Black Static #31 Horror Magazine

    By TTA Press

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    About this ebook

    Black Static is the 2011 and 2012 British Fantasy Award winning bimonthly horror and dark fantasy short story magazine from TTA Press, publisher of Interzone and Crimewave. Black Static contains groundbreaking dark fiction by some of the world's best writers and most talented newcomers, plus hard-hitting features and innovative artwork. Many recognised authors and artists started their careers in TTA publications and new ones like V.H. Leslie, and Brighton's Seán Padraic Birnie,continue this tradition. However their better recognised peers; Ramsey Campbell, Joel Lane, Nicholas Royle, Nina Allan continue to supply great stories.
    The summation of Matthew Dent's review of this issue, Black Static #31, Nov–Dec 2012 is quoted below.
    "If anyone reading this thinks that horror is just ghosts, gore and serial killers, I urge them to get hold of a copy of Black Static. I’m a firm believe that you can tell a lot about a society from the things that terrify it, and the stories which are on the front lines of the genre at the moment are a psychological, introspective crop focusing on grief, lost and exclusion. Make of that whatever you like, except that it does lead to some brilliant storytelling."
    matthewsdent.wordpress.com/2012/12/08/black-static-31-novdec-2012-a-review/

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTTA Press
    Release dateDec 23, 2012
    ISBN9781301757527
    Black Static #31 Horror Magazine
    Author

    TTA Press

    TTA Press is the publisher of the magazines Interzone (science fiction/fantasy) and Black Static (horror/dark fantasy), the Crimewave anthology series, TTA Novellas, plus the occasional story collection and novel.

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      Book preview

      Black Static #31 Horror Magazine - TTA Press

      BLACK STATIC

      #31

      A magazine of horror and dark fantasy.

      Cover:

      by Richard Wagner

      * * * * *

      Black Static

      Issue 31 (NOV – DEC 2012)

      Print edition ISSN 1753-0709 © 2012 Black Static and its contributors

      Published bimonthly by TTA Press

      TTA Press, 5 Martins Lane Witcham, Ely, Cambs CB6 2LB, United Kingdom

      * * * * *

      Website: ttapress.com

      Email: blackstatic@ttapress.com

      * * * * *

      TTA Press on Smashwords: ISBN: 9781301757527

      First draft v3 Roy Gray

      * * * * *

      Editor: Andy Cox

      Contributing Editors: Peter Tennant, Tony Lee, Christopher Fowler, Stephen Volk, Mike O’Driscoll

      Podcast: Pete Bullock, transmissionsfrombeyond.com

      Twitter + Facebook: Marc-Anthony Taylor, facebook.com/TTAPress

      Events/Publicity/E editions: Roy Gray

      * * * * *

      Print issue retail distribution: Pineapple Media, pineapple-media.com; Central Books, centralbooks.com

      * * * * *

      Smashwords Edition License Notes

      This emagazine is licensed for your personal use/enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this magazine with others please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this magazine and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please go to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the contributors and editors

      * * * * *

      To obtain the print edition of Black Static in Europe or North America where your retailer may not stock it please ask them to order it for you, or buy it from one of several online mail order distributors...or better yet subscribe direct with us!

      Subscriptions: Print edition subscriptions available online at ttapress.com/shop

      Note we have some illustrations in this edition and you can also see these at http://ttapress.com/1486/black-static-31/0/5/

      Unsolicited submissions of short stories are always welcome. Please follow the contributors’ guidelines on the website.

      * * * * *

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      EDITORIAL NOTES

      COMMENT/COLUMNS

      COFFINMAKER'S BLUES - by Stephen Volk

      INTERFERENCE - by Christopher Fowler

      FICTION

      BARBARY by Jackson Kuhl

      illustrated by Ben Baldwin

      SISTER by Seán Padraic Birnie

      illustrated by Vincent Sammy

      THE PERILS OF WAR ACCORDING TO THE COMMON PEOPLE OF HANSOM STREET by Steven Pirie

      illustrated by Rik Rawling

      THE THINGS THAT GET YOU THROUGH by Steven J. Dines

      SKEIN AND BONE by V.H. Leslie

      TWO HOUSES AWAY by James Cooper

      illustrated by David Gentry

      REVIEWS

      CASE NOTES - book reviews by Peter Tennant

      BLOOD SPECTRUM - DVD/Blu-ray reviews by Tony Lee

      NOTES TO THE READER – links etc.

      BACKPAGE

      EDITORIAL NOTES –

      BRITISH FANTASY AWARD

      The weekend of September 27 to 30 I went with Roy to Fantasycon. We attended the British Fantasy Awards ceremony and delighted to say Black Static won for Best Magazine -- for the second year running! Thank you everybody who voted for us. Roy collected the award, and here he is with me, Alison Littlewood, Victoria Leslie and Ray Cluley to his right, and Simon Bestwick to his left.

      * *

      PRICES

      The Print Issue cover price has risen, but subscriptions are unchanged and offer considerable savings on 6 issues, greater savings on 12, and even more on joint subscriptions with our sister magazine Interzone. Lifetime subscriptions are also available. More details overleaf and on the website. I think the amount of content and all the work involved is well worth the money, so please stick around. I promise not to hurt you if you stay

      E book issue prices will settle at $4.99 US and its equivalent elsewhere but exchange rates and taxes will affect the price seen on the various E book sites selling the magazines.

      * *

      Internal hyperlinks did not seem to be a useful innovation and caused some problems with contents lists so they are not used in the reviews sections this time. Feel free to tell us if you think that is a mistake.

      * *

      E-Edition (An Apology): This E edition of Black Static 31 has been uploaded later than I hoped but at least Black Static 32 (printed.) will not be published when this is uploaded. Hopefully I can do better henceforward. Please accept our apologies for delays. Keep checking Smashwords or Amazon for new issues. Thanks for your patience! This issue, #31, has been out in print since Nov 10.

      * *

      Note there are several references to Fictionwise.com as a source of TTA Press E Books, Eg Crimewave, Alison and the magazines. This will remain correct for a short time but Fictionwise are due to close in the USA in December and in the UK in January. After that we are not sure what will happen about TTA back issues and e books held solely on the 3 Fictionwise sites. They are old files and I have not been able to obtain all copies. Hence they are unlikely to appear on Smashwords or Amazon and many back issues may well be unavailable in E book formats once Fictionwise closes. If you do want copies please buy them soon. More in the Endnotes.

      * *

      Another important development is TTA Novellas, works in the 20–40,000 word range, published as B Format paperbacks and available singly or on a cheaper subscription. The first of these Eyepennies by Mike O'Driscoll (our TV reviewer) is now available as an e book, more here, and in print.

      * *

      This issue's cover and backpage cover art is by Richard Wagner.

      * *

      The next print issue, Black Static 32, will be dated January/February

      * *

      Submissions of short stories are always welcome, but please follow the guidelines on the website.

      * * * * *

      COFFINMAKER'S BLUES

      by Stephen Volk

      STILL TRAUMATIsED AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

      Cast and crew met up on Hallowe’en night 1992 and watched Ghostwatch going out – ‘live’, as it were. Ninety minutes later, with Michael Parkinson ‘possessed’ by Mother Seddons and Sarah Greene trapped in the ‘glory hole’ under the stairs, the BBC switchboards were jammed with irate callers, angry at being taken for a ride, as they saw it. (Possibly also angry at being scared in the comfort of their own homes – another reason I wanted to write a television scary movie: in the cinema you go to the story, in television the story comes to you.)

      At times the BBC did everything to diminish the possibility of the idea of what we now glibly call a ‘mockumentary’ working. They suggested, for instance, that we should use actors instead of real presenters, and even threatened to pull the programme the day before transmission unless last minute changes were made to the opening captions. But then again, as Parky said when we interviewed him recently, You can’t badmouth them too much – at least they made it.

      At the outset, having written the drama, I was mindful that the construction of Ghostwatch was essentially that of a wish-based experience very much influenced by the books and ideas of Hilary Evans (albeit that he subsequently shook a disgruntled fist at the programme in his book Panic Attacks). The audience (you, at home) want to see a ghost, and so a ghost appears. Our belief system makes it happen. We’ve created a massive séance, says Dr Pascoe, and in some ways TV is a massive séance. At one point, one of the Early sisters says to the camera You have to stay! Have to see this! because I wanted a sense that we, the viewing public, are complicit in what we watch.

      A subtlety not appreciated by some of the 11.5 million viewers who tuned in and thought, in spite of its wildly (and deliberately) over-the-top ending, it was all for real. They thought the bond of trust with the BBC had been broken – but, as I said last issue, that was what the drama was all about.

      Crucially, on the night in question BBC Continuity dropped a clanger. As far as we were concerned, once the credits rolled, the broadcaster could come clean and admit it was a frightening special designed for Hallowe’en. In fact what happened was the announcer simply intoned "And now…Match of the Day, leaving those who’d been terrified throughout now in a state of suspended mystification. Next morning the Sunday papers got their teeth well and truly stuck in. Halloween Drama over BBC Spoof, Viewers Blast BBC’s Sick Ghost Hoax, Parky Panned for Halloween Fright and even, in the subsequent days, the predictably lurid BBC Ghost Made Me Attack My Missus".

      If we underestimated the power of the ‘live’ TV language we’d used, it was brought home to me when a friend of mine told me she’d believed it was real. I said, What do you mean? I told you the week before that there was a show coming up on television on Hallowe’en night and that I’d written it. She said, Yes. I know that. But when I saw Michael Parkinson I thought you’d got it wrong!

      Amongst the phone calls that night was one from a vicar claiming that the BBC had raised genuinely demonic forces. Three pregnant women went into labour. And, according to a letter sent to producer Ruth Baumgarten, a woman’s husband – a Falklands veteran – was so scared he soiled his pants, and she wanted the BBC to reimburse her for a new pair of jeans. On a more sober note, Ghostwatch was later quoted in the British Journal of Medicine as being the first TV programme to cause Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in children.

      As a result of the immediate aftermath (including a tragic connection made to a young man’s suicide) the BBC battened down the hatches and vowed never to show Ghostwatch again. People at the top washed their hands of it. One top executive, in his recently-published memoirs, claimed they’d known nothing about it. The idea that an expensive Screen One drama could get through the system without everyone knowing about it is plainly ludicrous.

      So, two decades years later, what is its legacy, if any?

      Its style has been much imitated since, of course. Parapsychologist Ciaran O’Keefe, a big fan of the programme, gave a talk at the ASSAP ‘Seriously Strange’ Conference in Bath in which he pointed out the visual similarities between Ghostwatch and Most Haunted, down to its blonde, attractive co-presenter and silver-haired star. (Nevertheless, Derek Acorah’s odious fame is one side-effect for which I refuse to accept responsibility.)

      The hand-held or infra-red camera, cutting edge in 1992, is a cliché now. The ‘found footage’ horror film ubiquitous after the success of The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity, directed by Oren Peli – who in Time Out magazine quoted Ghostwatch as deserving a wider release and recognition, thereby admitting its influence on the hit franchise.

      Since the ignominy and controversy of the initial furore it caused, Ghostwatch has been variously called: Extraordinary…a thrilling ghost story M.R. James would be proud of; A work as ingenious as it is notorious; The only truly hair-raising piece of television this decade; A legend in the history of spooky television; One of the most complained-about BBC programmes ever; One of the great ‘Do you remember’ moments of British television; A hugely prescient and perceptive moment in television history; and About as subversive as TV can get. It featured in 100 Greatest Scary Moments on Channel Four and, in a Radio Times poll was voted third most scary TV programme ever (after The X-Files and Stephen King’s It).

      In 2002, for its tenth anniversary, the BFI cited it as important enough to add to its ‘Archive Television’ strand, releasing a DVD alongside the BBC ghost classics A Warning to the Curious and The Signalman. An important opportunity for myself, producer Ruth Baumgarten and director Lesley Manning to do an audio commentary and set the record straight as to our intentions.

      Now, many people come up to me at the screenings I attend and say they were kids when they saw it, and it terrified them, but they think it’s the best thing the BBC has ever produced. In Newcastle last year one chap told me he couldn’t pass the door under the stairs alone for six months after seeing Ghostwatch, and his sister standing beside him corroborated the fact. Often these days when I meet a new TV or film producer the first thing they want to say is that they saw Ghostwatch when they were younger, and loved it.

      One such traumatised youngster was self-confessed GW obsessive Richard Lawden, who runs the fantastic ghostwatchbtc.com, still disseminating news on screenings and interviews, digging out rare cuttings, tracking down old continuity tapes, and even an obscure joke from The News Huddlines. Recently Rich has finished directing the definitive Ghostwatch: Behind the Curtains ‘making of’ documentary featuring exclusive interviews with all the key cast and crew.

      When all is said and done, after such powerful feedback from fans especially in the last ten years and with the advent of the internet, I’m proud that the programme occupies a tiny pedestal in a dingy corner of TV history. We rattled some cages and ruffled some feathers but, as Kim Newman says in GW:BtC, How many TV programmes from October 1992 are remembered to this day? Not many. Furthermore I’d like to think the best of TV writers would agree with me that the duty of television is not just to make us feel safe in our homes, but shake us out of our complacency, and that means risk-taking. Something all too rare these days. I do think it’s the important job of storytellers in whatever medium to push buttons and poke what shouldn’t be allowed. As the writer Ramsey Campbell says, Horror is often the business of going too far.

      * * * * *

      Copyright © 2012 Stephen Volk

      * * * * *

      For more information on Steve’s fiction, film and television work please visit his website at stephenvolk.net

      * * * * *

      INTERFERENCE

      by Christopher Fowler

      DISCOVER THE STRANGE WORLD OF PROFESSIONAL WRITERS!

      I thought I should talk about the pitfalls of professional writing for a few columns. Here’s something to bear in mind: your first big publication sticks to you forever. I’ll go to my grave being described as ‘the author of Roofworld’. In fact, it was the fourth book I wrote but the first that came with high expectations and a decent publicity budget. It wasn’t hugely successful in the grand scheme of things – an ill-advised cinema campaign went wrong after a very expensive commercial aired with the flop movie The Fly 2, and many readers didn’t know where to look for it. Was it SF? Horror? Crime? Satire even? Or just an adventure?

      Readers have a residual, illogical idea that all writers they discover must be read forward from their debut novels in chronological order. In an old episode of Hancock’s Half Hour, Hancock is told We thought you were at your peak five years ago. You were very funny in those days. That attitude still exists. It’s generally assumed that your first must be your best. Books are read chronologically so that readers can understand the shape of your career, which is meant to go something like this:

      Early success (thanks to controversial subject matter), the big hit novel, an attempt to follow the big hit that flops, a collection of short stories (barely reviewed), the wilderness years, meltdown after critics say they loved your first book and you’ve been going downhill ever since, a late rally that sees the same critics describing you as a veteran and a national treasure, then a lonely and tragic early death followed five years later by the rediscovery of your backlist. Finally you come out of copyright and are hailed as a genius.

      It’s a curse of the job. As your writing becomes more refined you disappoint those readers who simply like a plainly worded genre romp. Film directors do the same thing, honing their craft until they lose their original audiences. So the first perceived hit stays there at the top of your CV no matter what you do. Whenever I have a new Bryant & May book out, the sales of the first volume rise most – and yet it’s in many ways atypical of the series, and an earlier part of my learning curve. I personally think the later books are better, but readers like to return to beginnings. At festivals I’m put on panels which, in the organisers’ minds, are made up of writers who don’t fit in. This at least means that I get to work with some of the best writers in the business, like Charles Stross, Ben Aaronovitch and Kim Newman.

      There’s another problem. You’re meant to stay where you’re put. Branch away from your usual subjects and you compromise the brand (I hate myself for even writing that). With the exception of the Bryant & May series, which has stabilised me, I’ve never written the same style of book twice. When I recently delivered my new thriller, written in a totally different format, my editor asked Will there be any more like these? because he needs to know he can sell something that’s not just a one-off.

      So – think about the first book carefully; it may be stamped on your career card for the rest of your life.

      * *

      IMAGINE! YOU CAN BE PAID FOR JUST MAKING THINGS UP!

      There’s a strange mystique attached to professional writing that comes from the idea of creating something from nothing. But it’s not something from nothing at all – every writer I know shows his or her influences quite clearly, and much of our early work can be traced back to those who inspired us. This is as it should be. You can’t take something forward without first learning from your heroes.

      My earliest work shows a painfully strong mix of influences from J.G. Ballard and William Faulkner to Ira Levin. You leap up onto these platforms, then try to step sideways onto a platform of your own, and the process often takes years. The idea of the writer as a tortured artist is now a distant memory. We think of bedridden Proust and half-crazed Poe, and a mystical reverence descends over them because we want to believe in the roman à clef. But if ‘Write What You Know’ was really all there was to it, we’d just have Hemingway instead of

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