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Etherea Magazine #11

Etherea Magazine, June 2022. A collection of incredible speculative fiction, from authors around the globe.

Cristiana Leone is the talent behind the Artist’s Showcase

The Cabinet by Un-su Kim is reviewed by Katie McIvor

THE STORIES:

Grandmaster Basil Demetriou’s chess daemon was a skewbald centaur with a shield of gleaming gold and a red-tasseled spear. When Basil was playing, the centaur would trot across the chessboard, pointing out ley-lines of possibility with his spear, the subtle stratagems and tactics Basil didn’t always see on his own… – The Deepest Mysteries of the Game, by Jordan Chase-Young

Outside, my iconic pole stands. It spins, but slowly enough that, if you are attentive–as all my customers must be–you can read the law painted onto it, red text onto white: I shave all those, and those only, who do not shave themselves… – Do I?, by Rachel Rodman

In the basement where we worked together, packed high with papers, telescopes, globes, and ion tubes, my father printed the path. He handed it to me and expired. This time he did not have a new body waiting for him. He was tired, and his life’s work was done. The rest was up to me… – The Women at the Edge of the Universe, by Spencer Nitkey

Too fast. Her needle pierces flesh as well as fabric and a drop of blood–scarlet, swiftly rusting to brown–mars her careful work. In her distress, she looks around, and sees herself in the mirror… – The Fairest Is, by  Aimee Ogden

 My vision scrambles, as I shiver outside the data bank. It’s cold out, but that’s the least of my problems. My heads-up display keeps blinking in and out, obscuring my vision.  I’ve got to get inside the bank and pay for more cloud storage immediately. If I don’t, my cache will start shedding memories to conserve space… – What You Will Find at a Memory Auction, by Eric Farrell

 

In a long and varied career, Hop’s few achievements had been cons, tricks, or accidents. He needed a win. A real one, just one before he retired. And a big one to prove to himself that he could have been the best Inquisitor of the bunch, if he had chosen to… – Don’t Forget Your Goat, by Rick Danforth

Daniel and I are back sitting at the dining room table. He pops the champagne and fills my glass to the brim, as he did before. I still can’t get my head around this phenomenon. It’s enigmatic enlightenment, but makes me question whether I’ve fully appreciated every other moment in my life… – The Now Effect, by  Pauline Yates

A plain headstone, angular and simple. Just the woman’s name and the years of her birth and death. No “beloved mother” or “loving wife”. Grass tickled the arches of her feet as she stepped off the path. Feet in contact with the earth, hands on the top of the gray stone, Sonia waited… – Ghost Song, by Jeanne Kramer-Smyth

Fuck your tunes. We need the ammo. And that goes for the rest of you, too. Copyright licenses aren’t worth a goddamn if you’re dead… –  Boom & Bust, by  David F. Shultz

 Both of them were going to die. John knew this to be true. Every time he tried to mentally prepare, however, the goddamned soldier next to him on the dogsled kept arguing the impossible… – Across the White Desert, by Deborah Sheldon

They say war’s hell, but peace ain’t no picnic neither when you’re on the losing side. The thought often niggled at the back of Mauric’s brain, but tonight stood front and center as the veteran crouched in the roadside ditch, ankle-deep in muddy water. It ain’t about the money, he told himself again… – A Hard Peace, by Eric Lewis