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Etherea Magazine #16

Etherea Magazine, #16. A collection of wonderful speculative fiction, from authors around the globe.

Africa Risen is reviewed by Katie McIvor

The Stories:

I’m sure the real deal is still out there somewhere, in all its bulk and circuitry, huddled in some trillionaire’s bunker. It would be a hell of a thing to keep it in working order, of course, but I suppose they’d have thought of that too. They’d have fuel for decades—ilmenite stockpiled in glittering heaps—they’d have a qualified repairer on staff – Nine Minutes, by C. H. Weihmann

He often drapes himself over things I need. Carefully, haphazardly layers his body over chairs, tables, beds. He’s corporeal only for me and that’s where the frustration lies, watching others fetch their glasses of water or turn the temperature to their liking, while I go thirsty and hot – Hound, by Azlïn Auckburally

I smile, hoping my silent acknowledgment will convince him to move his pointless banter along to someone else’s desk. I have a 3:20 deadline, and regardless of what Lance might think, Page Six doesn’t write itself – The Illusory Truth of Magical Mike’s Page Six, by D. Thomas Minton

The first ones to die were those Golden Ones who had shrunk their amygdalae. No way to muster a real fear response as civilisation literally crumbled around them. They sipped on pilfered champagne or wandered aimlessly and were picked off one by one, bewildered rather than afraid. At least they died happy, after a fashion – The Golden Ones, by K. G. Davis

When Tommy turned ten his parents brought him in for the Procedure. He was separated from them and brought into an auditorium in the hospital basement. He sat in a padded-back chair next to hundreds of other children who had just turned ten – The Procedure Sign, by Leonard Richardson

I often thought about what our reunion would be like when I was young. Before the darkness. I never imagined it to be like this. Her on my table. Pale. Cold. Unmoving – Empty, by Kai Delmas

Not much of a robot—even though it’s seated, she can tell she’s taller than it, and she’s not even five feet. Instead of a face like a person, it has one long eye that looks like an astronaut’s facemask. No nose or mouth or ears, just little holes under the eye that are probably a speaker and microphone – The Princess of Solomon Pond Mall, by Timothy Mudie

She’d laughed. Marilla couldn’t recall what she’d told the man, or even his face, but she contemplated the question as she walked toward her office. She passed the marketing department’s insipid new posters—The only limit is your imagination and Be anyone you want to be, among other inaccuracies—and muttered, “Anything. I’d do almost anything.” – The Crown, by Taija Morgan

A gust of wind blew a sheath of thick dust over the truck. The wipers swept the windscreen clean. For a second the Courier was reminded of the desert. There were all the stories he’d read as a kid; adventure tales set in the Sahara and the Kalahari, full of grizzled explorers unearthing mysteries in ancient tombs; there were phar-aohs and sphinxes and pyramids and camels and palm trees – The Tidal Lock, by Dan Peacock

I open my eyes and see a rifle pointing at me. Well, not at me exactly. At me and Sister. Or just at Sister, I’m not sure, because the barrel is dancing in circles and zigzags. Sister’s heavy breathing rumbles, hur, hur, hur, lulling me. Her snoring shakes her chest, which, in turn, shakes my head, as it’s tucked under her tit. I el-bow her hard – Pyrrha, by Antony Paschos

Excitement was: the scent of burning oakum, black powder and white smoke, the taste of sulfur, the tang of blood in the air, sharp as hot iron, and bodies sweet with the odor of coming death – Fate is a Bloody Mistress, by Paula Hammond