An old Space Squid contributor Neil Carstairs posted his publishing history on his personal website. In the past few years he’s published a respectable list of short stories, and I just finished perusing them.
Back in Issue #3, Space Squid published Neil’s story "3:06pm London, England". It’s a brisk and austere heist yarn, bursting out with idiosyncratic oddities. It has a chimpanzee opera singer. How can you not like that?
On the fantasy side of the spectrum we see Carstair’s story The Lord of Dark Vale, a particularly grim tale about a hunter and his pet dragons who stalk a lone girl in the woods.
In the hard sci-fi department, it looks like Aphelion has been getting the cream of Carstairs crop (so to speak). They have an excellent short story of his called The Eyes of the Storm. This has the same fast pace and brilliant flutter of images that I remember from "3:06pm London, England." There’s blood and danger and it’s exactly as long as it needs to be.
A slightly longer selection from Aphelion is Never Say Die. This appears to be another story set in the universe of "3:06pm London, England," but fleshed out and populated by angsty cyberpunk heroes. It’s a world where religious fanatics go toe-to-toe with the casual use of genetic technology. It’s a sophisticated and global vision of the future. I’ll definitely keep an eye out for more.
