Now in our 14th year of publication, the Bards and Sages Quarterly strives to bring fans of speculative fiction a variety of new and established voices to enjoy. Each issue features an eclectic range of styles and voices to delight audiences. This issue features works by Alice Hathaway, Xan van Rooyen, Naomi Libicki & Alter S. Reiss, Julie Reeser, Jeff Rona, Jeff Dosser, Craig Fishbane, and Dylan King. A selkie on a quest for revenge against the one responsible for her sister's death undercovers more than she bargained for in "Hallfrid." A passenger at a Tokyo train station transforms into a miniature version of a Japanese movie monster...then things really start to get weird in "The Subterranean Beasts of Electric Town." In the competition for souls, the Devil turns to a digital platform in "Patron of the Dark Arts." These and other tales in this issue.
Second place winner 2018 Oklahoma Writing Federation's (OWFI) annual writing contest Horror Division. Following the brutal murder of his wife and the traumatic backlash to his son, Detective Mark Boyd has retired from the Alsuma Police Department and taken up the tranquil country life outside picturesque Button Creek, Oklahoma. But Mark's plans to heal his son and rebuild their relationship are shattered when their new life is destroyed by a pack of violent marauders. Mark's call to authorities falls on deaf ears and his only assistance comes in the form of alluring telephone lineman, Heather James. With Heather's help, Mark makes plans to uncover those responsible but soon learns the peaceful town of Button Creek is not what it seems. Its citizens are prisoner to a horrible secret, a secret which could steal his son and destroy their chance for a fresh start.
For rookie park ranger, Matt Holmes, life couldn't be better. He's met the woman of his dreams, lives in picturesque Thunderbird Falls, and spends his days working in nature's majesty. But Matt's picture-perfect life is about to take a turn for the surreal when his investigation into a string of accidental deaths reveals terrifying similarities with a series of fatalities seventeen years prior, including the drowning of his mother. Pagan ceremonies, unexplained occult rites, and a mysterious preacher are just a few of the difficulties Matt, girlfriend Colleen, and fellow ranger Andy Zimmerman must face as they uncover the source of an evil which has fed on the town of Thunderbird Falls for generations. The only question remaining. Can they stop it?
At the cutting edge of crime fiction, Mystery Weekly Magazine presents original short stories by the world's best-known and emerging mystery writers. The stories we feature in our monthly issues span every imaginable subgenre, including cozy, police procedural, noir, whodunit, supernatural, hardboiled, humor, and historical mysteries. Evocative writing and a compelling story are the only certainty. Get ready to be surprised, challenged, and entertained--whether you enjoy the style of the Golden Age of mystery (e.g., Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle), the glorious pulp digests of the early twentieth century (e.g., Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler), or contemporary masters of mystery. In our cover story, "Stranger In Paradise" by James Nolan, a naïve tourist in the French Quarter, seeking to broaden her horizons, drops by to meet a friend-of-a-friend, an antique dealer in cemetery artifacts. Hours later, as she regains consciousness naked and bound in his bed, she realizes she stumbled into a woeful misadventure. In "You Can't Go Alone" by Andrew Welsh-Huggins a homicide detective sets out to avenge the death of his drug addict son, but must reconsider his quest when he receives a warning along the way. It's 1939 Manhattan. Weegee, the city's most infamous crime photographer, needs a gimmick to excite readers bored by yet another photo of a bullet-riddled gangster. What he comes up with is sheer genius-but the results are not what he expects in Bruce W. Most's "The Dead Man In The Pearl Gray Hat." "Three Hogg's Tales And One Hairy Ending" by Jeff Dosser is a modern-crime retelling of The Three Little Pigs. How far will a brother go to protect his siblings? In "The Mayfly" by David Bart a dying Morgan Ayers has one last chance to protect his family. He utilizes a wheelchair, some WD-40 and a socket wrench. A timely piece: an El Chapo lookalike finds himself on the wrong side of the law in T.L. Huchu's "El Chappie: The World's Second Greatest Criminal". But, what did he do that was so unlawful? In "Jumpers For Jesus" by Emily Devenport a go-getter reporter goes after a go-getter religious zealot. Who is a better shepherd to the faithful-a charlatan or a daredevil?
America, a land of prosperity, wealth, and hope, but that's a fresh coat of paint on a system riddled with corruption, exploitation, and the disillusioned. Real American Horror exposes what lies under the facade: crib-side murder suicide, fear of zika virus, torture in the name of Jesus, IslamicEterror, cannibalism, racism, and so much more.
From the infamous Glasgow slum, the Gorbals, Tam Clay chronicles a week in his life, in the last days before the demolishers move in. Intersecting friends, old-timers and eccentrics, navigating his pregnant wife, frisky bedfellows and debt collectors, Tam stumbles through a derelict world on an odyssey of self-discovery. Wildly funny, outlandish and insanely ambitious – thirty years in the writing – Torrington’s pulverised ’60s Glasgow is crammed to the crevices with a blizzard of his unique and insatiable genius.
Luke hates nature, preferring the excitement of computer games to dull walks in the countryside, but his view of the world around him drastically begins to change when enigmatic loner, Guy, for whom Luke is reluctantly made to feel responsible, shows him some of the secrets that the very planet itself appears to be hiding from modern society. Hidden behind the everyday screen of school family-life, Luke tumbles into a fascinating world of magic and fantasy, where transformations and shifting identities become second nature. Luke gets caught up in an inescapable path that affects his very existence, as the view of the world around him drastically begins to change.
This title contains two novels by Jeff Noon: Vurt - where a possee of hip malcontents are hooked on the most powerful drug you can imagine; and Pollen where people are sneezing and dying all over Manchester, due to exotic blooms flowering all over the city.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.