MAGAZINE REVIEW – BLACK
STATIC VOLUME ONE SEPTEMBER 2007
. A new
horror magazine, or is it? Black static is a relaunch of the well-respected 3rd Alternative Journal, sister paper to the superior Interzone Magazine. Many regular writers and features have carried over from the 3rd Alternative to its reincarnation, which focuses on horror, rather than science fiction. The first issue is marred by its heavily over-darkened artwork, which often looks like black blobs on the page, but later issues would improve on this considerably. The stories, reviews and features more than compensate for this however. There are film reviews, and book reviews, including a look at Laurel K. Hamilton’s 14th Anita Blake Vampire Hunter novel, The Harlequin, and Simon Clark’s London Under Midnight. There is a chilling slightly tongue in cheek feature on trends in the Japanese media for suppressing stories of wartime atrocities while telling readers how to identify a woman as a Korean prostitute by her aroma alone. There is a terrific interview with Michael Marshall Smith, and some tremendous fiction. My Stone Desire by Joel Lane tells of a policeman investigating
missing persons who is willingly overpowered by a fungus that traps people forever. This is marred only by the soap opera preamble in the middle about his failed family relationship. Much better is Simon Avery’s Bury The Carnival, where, in a strange, unspecified town, somewhere in Latin America, an investigative
reporter checks out claims that a
puppeteer has the ability to give life to his mannequins. This is a dark twist on Pinocchio, with shades of Bladerunner. The puppeteer Charousek has stolen powerful magic from a powerful, mysterious order known as The Puritans, who’s Thought Police known as The Precisemen, are trying to get it back. That the reporter finds out the truth so quickly suggests that these detectives are a it slow on the uptake, as the lady reporter goes from seeing the puppeteer himself, surrounded by inanimate, but eerily lifelike puppets, to a meeting with a man reputed to be one of his first animated creations. The young man Jaromir survives an attempt to hang himself, and with the reporter, he tries to warn the puppeteer that the Puritans are closing in on him. That the reporter herself is a puppet is no big surprise, as this is territory covered heavily in other work. The story does have some tension and atmosphere, but feels like a retread of many established stories.Overall Black Static promises to showcase some of the finest horror writing of the 21st century.