UNHINGED #2, A5, 64pp, £2:25 (4/£8; outside UK 4/£12) from P.J. Lockey, 9 South View Terrace, Silsden, Keighley, West Yorks BD20 0AS. A new quarterly adults-only magazine that likes to explore the darker side of humanity. Like many of the new wave of British horror magazines, it sports a minimalist black and white digest format, and the fiction in this issue is provided by L.H. Maynard & M.P.N. Sims, Beetleblack, Martyn Blake, David Price, Jane Fell, Stuart Young, Peter Tennant, D.F. Lewis, Emma Hooper, Robert Hrdina, Liz Williams, and Paul Marshall.
ZENE #19, A5, 36pp, 6/£12 (Europe 6/£15; USA 6/$24; r.o.w. 6/£18) from TTA Press, 5 Martins Lane, Witcham, Ely, Cambs CB6 2LB (e-mail: ttapress@aol.com; http://www.tta-press.freewire.co.uk). A comprehensive listings magazine for prospective contributors to the independent press. This issue features guidelines from the UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and the USA, plus poetry, book and small press news and reviews, and Rhys Hughes on the mechanics of invisibility.
THE HAND THAT FEEDS by Peter Crowther & James Lovegrove (Enigmatic Variations #1), ISBN 0-9536066-0-0, A5, 68pp, £5 from M. Sims, 1 Gibbs Field, Bishops Stortford, Herts CM23 4EY (e-mail: michael@micksims.force9.co.uk; http://www.epress.force9.co.uk). A new novella of menace, psychic terror, and supernatural suspense.
SHADOW BONES by David Memmott, ISBN 1-877655-28-7, A5, 116pp p/b, $10 (r.o.w. $12) from Wordcraft of Oregon, P.O. Box 3235, La Grande, OR 97850, USA (e-mail: wordcraft@oregontrail.net). Twelve speculative fictions by a Rhysling Award winner and author of three poetry collections, bringing together works that have appeared around the world in publications as diverse as Oregon East, the cult 1980s magazine New Pathways in Science Fiction and Fantasy, and Italy's L'Uomo Duplicato, all wrapped up in a luscious full-colour cover by Brian Clark.
DREAMS AT THE END OF THE NIGHT by Ewald Murrer, ISBN 80-901257-9-4, A5, 137pp p/b, $12:50/£7:99 from Twisted Spoon Press, P.O. Box 21--Preslova 12, 150 21 Prague 5, Czech Republic (e-mail: twispoon@terminal.cz; http://www.terminal.cz/~twispoon). Better known for his work as a poet, Murrer is widely considered to be one of the most important contemporary Czech writers. This is his first volume comprised solely of prose, and once again it has fallen to the pioneering Twisted Spoon Press to make his work available to an English-speaking audience. The seventeen stories featured here are "dream-like sequences in which Murrer's lyrical talents create a semiotic fantasy world where every gesture is a sign, every occurrence a communication".
DREAMERS ON THE SEA OF FATE edited by Steve Sneyd, ISBN 0-907376-15-0, A5, 72pp, £2:85 from Sol Publications, 24 Fowler Close, Southchurch, Southend-on-Sea, Essex SS1 2RD (e-mail: maelstrom@solpubs.freeserve.co.uk; http://www.solpubs.freeserve.co.uk). Anthology of SF poetry by thirty British poets from between 1940 and 1990, including work by Steve Bowkett, Robert Holdstock, Michael Moorcock, Brian Stableford, David Wingrove, Rupert M. Loydell, Ian McMillan, and Andrew Darlington. Many of these poets were inspired by Edward Lucie-Smith's seminal anthology Holding Your Eight Hands (1969), and with Steve Sneyd's sure touch Dreamers on the Sea of Fate could well prove to be just as much of a landmark collection.
PALACE CORBIE #8 edited by Wayne Edwards, ISBN 1-888283-08-4, A5, 285pp p/b, $15:95 from Wayne Edwards, Merrimack Books, P.O. Box 80702, Lincoln, NE 68501, USA (e-mail: we21011@navix.net). The long run of this annual anthology of disturbing fiction arrives at its finale with a distinguished collection of work from Mark Rich, Douglas Clegg. John O'Connor, Lyn Lifshin, Holly Day, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Mark McLaughlin, Rob Cook, Anne Blonstein, K.K. Ormond, Andrea J. Horlick, Charlee Jacob, Tom Piccirilli, Gerard Daniel Houarner, John Grey, John Marshall, D.F. Lewis, Rick Schweikert, Jeff VanderMeer, Yvonne Navarro, John Pelan, Wayne Allen Sallee, James S. Dorr, Nancy Etchemendy, Sean Doolittle, Sue Storm, and Richard L. Levesque.
SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY AND HORROR: A READER'S GUIDE by Roger Sheppard, ISBN 1-901353-01-X, A5, 434pp p/b, £25 from the Career Development Group of the Library Association (no address given). A bibliographical guide covering SF from 1960 to 1995 which provides essential information about authors such as place/year of birth/death, most readable (or best) books, UK/USA publishers of the first editions of those books, variant titles, and any awards won. The book is aimed at not only general SF readers but also librarians or booksellers, in each case to provide a fast track to the best reading available in the genre. Compiling this volume has obviously been a labour of love, but making the authors' names stand out as subheadings would have made the book significantly easier to navigate.
WAXWEB by David Blair, CD-ROM, e-mail blair@telepathic-movie.org for further information. A hypermedia version of WAX or the Discovery of Television Amongst the Bees (1992), David Blair's pioneering work of "independent electronic science fiction cinema" which combines archive footage, new video and stunning computer animation. The film went on to become an interactive multimedia website, captured now on this CD-ROM. You can watch the 85-minute movie from start to finish, or read between the frames with the Blair's shot-by-shot descriptions and section synopses it's still as fascinating and technically impressive as when the film first came out. Available in four different permutations for fast/slow PC/Macintosh, and requires Netscape 4.5 and Quicktime 3.02 (both provided).
SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY, & WEIRD FICTION MAGAZINE INDEX (1890-1997) by Stephen T. Miller & William G. Contento, CD-ROM, $53:45 (outside USA: $56:95) from Locus Press, P.O. Box 13305, Oakland, CA 94661, USA (e-mail: Locus@Locusmag.com; http://www.sff.net/locus/sfmagcd.htm). Exhaustive catalogue of 13,000 individual issues of 900 different magazines, ranging from well-known newsstand digests to obscure fanzines and small press magazines. The no-frills presentation is most definitely content-driven, with each magazine issue painstakingly cross-referenced by individual story, author and cover artist. Requires web-browser software (not included) and a fast CD-ROM drive.
COLD TONNAGE BOOKS June 1999, A5, 36pp, enquire to Cold Tonnage Books, Andy Richards, 22 Kings Lane, Windlesham, Surrey GU20 6JQ (tel: 01276 475388; fax: 0870 0548510; e-mail: andy@coldtonnage.demon.co.uk). Extensive selection of SF/F/H signed, hardback and limited editions, and many collectable paperbacks.