Magazine Review: Black Static 5
I’m busy losing myself in David Moody‘s Autumn apocalypse, so expect a review of that series soon. In the meantime, and interspersed between my regrettably irregular reviews, I’m planning on popping up some comments and links to genre magazines I subscribe to, and refer to regularly, as well as a few web places that may or may not be of interest to you.
Black Static is edited by Andy Cox and published by TTA Press. After a few months’ hiatus, (wherein the publication formerly known as The Third Alternative – a mixture of sf, fantasy and horror – refocused on the darkside, redesigned with David Gentry‘s ambiguously appropriate artwork, and renamed), Black Static is now at a fifth issue, (although my timing will undoubtedly ensure that number six drops through my letterbox the day this review goes up).
What’s in it? An intriguing blend of consistently high quality dark fiction, and some fascinating non-fiction columns. On opening a magazine I inevitably find myself gravitating towards the latter, be it comment or reviews, before getting stuck into the fiction; so it’s these I’ll concentrate on first.
Christopher Fowler‘s Interference muses on genre in all its forms. His latest is a light-hearted and reluctantly dejected look at the new film genres that have come about over the last few years: for example, the Euroscare Remake Genre: not only is Hollywood remaking old horror films (for new audiences, I guess it could be argued), it’s recycling (almost scene-for-scene in some instances) new horror films from Europe – only months after their release over here. Who the hell wants to watch Quarantine, when [Rec] will do just fine, thanks.
Other new genres include the B-Superhero Genre: middle-weight comics and ‘paper-thin brands’ building new franchises, now that the major superheros are exhausted; the Maleness-In-Crisis Genre: watch as the stressed out modern male loses it; the Holy-wood Genre: the Bible creeps into the plot appealing to millions of Americans; the Brand Genre: make anything that sells into a movie; the Gay Men and Teenaged Girls Genre: High School Musical, Mamma Mia – enough said. Fowler wonders what’s happened to the Real-Life Hero Genre, where real life is too sensitive and painful for us to be permitted to spend time watching it unfold on screen – it might upset someone.
Books on the other hand, books are a place and industry where the author has become one with his/her output. Authors are as much the brand as their protagonists, and in some cases they are the central characters in the story being told, take misery memoirs, for example. Fowler is reassured because he believes that books can continue to let us escape into (un)real-life with all their blends of fact and fiction and therefore, Freedom.
Electric Darkness, written by Stephen Volk, (a man with experience in these matters), comments on the ‘so-called renaissance’ of sf, paranormal and fantasy on British TV. Problem is, he can’t find it. Especially for adults, (thus allowing Doctor Who and Torchwood to escape his scathing quill, just). America’s HBO can do it, so why can’t we? Well, until such time as the words and minds of luminaries such as Ramsey Campbell, China Mieville, Graham Joyce and Conrad Williams are utilised, we won’t, can’t and shan’t, especially whilst the TV executives have ‘a snobby terror of the ubergeek image of sunlight starved skin and sweaty black t-shirts’. But, argues Volk, there are Jane Austen geeks too…
Tony Lee‘s Blood Spectrum is a well-informed round-up of the latest DVD releases. This issue includes opinion on a mix of new and re-issued, well-known and esoteric material: Eyes Without A Face, The Sentinel, 30 Days of Night, Blade: The Series, Blood Ties ( a Canadian series), Needful Things, Wax, When Evil Calls, Buried Alive, Drainiac, Mother of Tears, The Cellar Door, Untraceable, Cloverfied, Five Across the Eyes, Black Water and The Fly. Based on my own viewing experience I’d say Lee’s opinions can, 80% of the time, be trusted. (There are several easy competitions to enter to win the DVDs in question).
Mike O’Driscoll contributes Night’s Plutonian Shore, his musings on the (dark) art of dark writing: death is his topic this time. Perhaps the most unknowable experience we’ll have to go through, all writers, horror or otherwise have a tough time expressing or understanding why people fear death and how it is experienced. O’Driscoll explains that fear of death has been divided into four types: fear of pain, fear of external punishment, fear of the unknown and fear of non-existence. The first two, we can understand, and hence horror fiction and film explores these fears in various recognizable tropes. Supernatural elements in fiction allows us to convey the idea of the unknown, to some extent; especially in the works of Shirley Jackson, M.R. James, Thomas Ligotti, Robert Aickman and H.P. Lovecraft. But stories that attempt to explore fear of non-existence are rare, and O’Driscoll helpfully provides a few references, including Thomas M. Disch‘s Camp Concentration, (a beaten paperback edition of which, incidentally, sits in the lovingly-arranged pulp bookshelf in my bathroom).
Case Notes by Peter Tennant is a wonderful book review and interview column, this issue covering in satisfying depth an author described by Stephen King as ‘the scariest guy in America’, Jack Ketchum. His stories of abuse and suffering, human and otherwise are certainly experiences you’ll find difficult to forget. But, if you prefer your monsters to be more cosmic you could do worse than Gollancz’s fine Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales of H.P. Lovecraft, edited, and with an afterword by Stephen Jones and lavishly illustrated by Les Edwards. Tennant also reviews The Mammoth Book of Horror Comics, Rain Dogs by Gary McMahon, Hunter’s Moon by David Devereux, The Grin of the Dark by Ramsey Campbell, The Second Black Book of Horror, and a themed review section on dark crime releases. Tennant also contributes regular capsule reviews to the TTA Press website, so it’s worth returning there on a regular basis.
Read together, these columns make Black Static, perhaps the premier source for a regular and opinionated overview of the horror, dark and weird genres in the UK at the moment. There’s plenty of fiction too, all nice and dark, which I’ll cover in the second part of this review, later in the week.
TTA Press also publishes Interzone (sf and fantasy), Crimewave (dark crime fiction), and The Fix, a highly recommended short-fiction review website. The Transmissions From Beyond podcast has just been launched, offering short stories from the pages of its magazines in the following genres: sf and fantasy, horror, and crime. These come from Interzone, Black Static, and Crimewave both past and present. Go here for their Flickr photostream.
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2 Comments on Magazine Review: Black Static 5
And as luck would have it, number 6 did indeed arrive last night; so part 2 of the review will be a bit of a mish-mash of both issues.
A nice review! I would dearly love to submit my work to Black Static, but, as always, I am concerned about the length of time it takes to receive acknowledgement of acceptance or non-acceptance as the case may be. I have just returned to writing after many years of doing other things, and have a story at Weird Tales magazine and should have a response very soon now. I guess the only way to know if they suit me, or I them, is to send them a story and wait and see.
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