Black Static Issue 43

by Andy Cox (Editor), Ben Baldwin (Illustrator), Stephen Volk

The November–December issue has new dark fiction by Ralph Robert Moore, Usman T. Malik, Simon Bestwick, Annie Neugebauer, Andrew Hook, Aliya Whiteley. The cover art is by Ben Baldwin (for 'Drown Town' by Ralph Robert Moore), and interior illustrations are by Ben Baldwin, Tara Bush and Dave Senecal. The usual features are present: Coffinmaker's Blues by Stephen Volk and Blood Pudding by Lynda E. Rucker (comment); Blood Spectrum by Tony Lee (DVD/Blu-ray reviews); Case Notes by Peter Tennant (book reviews), which includes an extensive interview with James Cooper.

So Black Static is essentially a fiction magazine containing short stories in the horror and dark fantasy genres. But it covers other aspects of the genre via comment columns, reviews of books, movies, DVDs and TV.

Fiction this issue:
Drown Town by Ralph Robert Moore
Ishq by Usman T. Malik
Night Templar by Simon Bestwick
Hide by Annie Neugebauer
Black Lung by Andrew Hook
Many-Eyed Monsters by Aliya Whiteley

The issue's artists are:
Ben Baldwin
Tara Bush
Dave Senecal

Peter Tennant's Case Notes book and novella reviews this issue include
CHARACTERS IN TURMOIL: JAMES COOPER: Dark Father, Strange Fruit, author interview
TIM CURRAN: Worm, Nightcrawlers, Deadlock
ALISON LITTLEWOOD: The Unquiet House (guest review by Stephen Theaker)
RICHARD FARREN BARBER: The Power of Nothing, The Sleeping Dead
PENDRAGON PRESS: The Derelict by Neil Williams, Drive by Mark West
TIM LEBBON: APOCALYPSE X2: Still Life, Shifting of Veils
SKILLUTE REVISITED: S.P. MISKOWSKI: Astoria, In the Light
TELOS PUBLISHING: The Darkness Within + Kat on a Hot Tin Airship + What's Dead Pussykat by Sam Stone, Absinthe & Arsenic by Raven Dane, The Fall by Simon Clark, The Immortalists by Andrew Hook

Tony Lee's DVD reviews this issue:
Camera Obscura: The Walerian Borowczyk Collection, The Island of Dr Moreau (1977), The Walking Dead Season 4, Devil's Knot, The Hour of the Lynx, Leprechaun Origins, Dark Touch, Found, WolfCop, Cold in July, Grand Piano, Oculus, All Cheeleaders Die, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Graduation Day, See No Evil 2, Devil's Tower, Nailbiter, Afflicted, Reaper, Kidnapped, Open Grave, Treehouse, Bad Milo!, Wrong Turn 6: Last Resort, Dark Tourist, Blood Shot

Non Fiction this issue:
Blood Pudding - Lynda E. Rucker - columnist
Coffinmaker's Blues - Stephen Volk - columnist
Blood Spectrum - Tony Lee - DVDs/Blu-Ray reviews
Case Notes by Peter Tennant - book reviews + guest reviewer Stephen Theaker.
Interviewee - James Cooper

96 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2014

Reviews

[Starry Night · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my first experience with Black Static and this issue proved to be a mixed bag. I actually bought this in paper format from a brick and mortar Barnes and Noble. It would be nice if Joseph Beth would carry some horror/sci_fi/fantasy mags since they are closer to where I live. The stories "Drown Town", "Night Templar" and "Many Eyed Monsters" were good but the other stories lacked punch or substance. I wish they would cut out the reviews in favor of a few more stories or even a poem or two. I will give this magazine another try.

[Des Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blown away, if not drown-towned out again, by this exquisitely heart-wrenching confabulation of disease, sexual and/or sororal betrayal — love unrequited for the living, but requited for the dead. The narrowest street, do just read about it in this story to believe it, the poetic traction of language blending, in its special way, nightmare and reality, as well as the deepest emotions possible, while its denizens, exchanging osculatory mouthpieces, as it were, to echo Moore’s story, fight for survival amid the biggest possible rain-producing flood (with dead fish in the sewers). A narrowest street, too, that serves, inter alia, as metaphor for explicitly ‘pincering’ cancers…

The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long or impractical to post here.
Above is one of its observations at the time of the review.