Synopsis
First up is J. Rohr’s “Riding the Rails,” a story he claims he had to rewrite from memory after a catastrophic file failure. Well, that one may have been good, but this alternate history—of a world we know but besieged by monsters of myth and legend—is great. Returning author Richard L. Rubin gives us another two-fisted retro sci-fi tale in “Commander Saturn and the Air Bandit of Mars.” And DJ Tyrer brings back his acclaimed Nyssa of Abanos for her second (and Tyrer's third!) appearance in B&B—this time in “Journey to Mount Argaeas.” In Kristen Reid’s “American Appetite,” Connor Wescott comes across some deserters with a strange sort of hunger. Yes you read the title of the next story correctly, “Callahan and the Bomb Squid.” Laughs are few and far between in our pages, but every once in awhile we get a cracker like Jonathon Mast’s, so savor it. Because S. Gepp’s “No Stand” will knock that laughter right out of your belly with this gut-punch of a hard-boiled Western. Ben Serna-Grey dropped his weird-ass “Smoke and Hamsters” in our laps and cackled with glee as he then shat in a bucket and tried to get cash for it. That’ll make perfect sense once you read this thing. We love it. Ready for more gut-punches? Hope so, because “The Drive Home” is about as pure and depressing a noir tale as we’ve ever published. Be safe driving, dear readers. “The DSD” by E.G. Thompson is a dual-pronged narrative set in a dying and dangerous frontier after the fall of civilization, and the stories herein can’t all end on downers (though they damn sure tried!), so here’s your happy ending. You’ll need it. “Crowbait” by T.L. Simpson traces the line between vengeance and justice, with a clear emphasis that the former may cause more problems than just accepting your grief and moving on. Andrew Miller sent us this noir tale about a “Shootout at Namaste Mart” and the title alone almost sold one editor on the story. “Spaceman and Freakshow” by Roger H. Stone had a similar effect, and we think the stories do both of these titles justice. Longtime supporter and just all-around great writer Steve DuBois hit us with another tale of supreme oddity in his “The Professionals” about—well, his November 19th tweet says it better than we can— “magically-enhanced urban professionals escorting a Kennedy baby to the ruins of Dallas for inauguration as God-Emperor.” Next up is “Aces and Rogues” by Anthony Pinkett, a two-fisted dogfighting space actioner that we both said we’d be “stupid not to publish.” “Don’t Let the Law Hit Ya Where the Good Lord Split Ya” is a mouthful of a title that came off Russell W. Johnson’s keyboard, but it sure is an apt one for the crime story he sent in. After that we’ve got “Starstruck” by Kristen Brand, a sci-fi tale of solar guardsmen, mixed loyalties, and, ultimately, duty. Scott Forbes Crawford’s “A Lone Man Is No Warrior” traces the story of a man who lost a king and his own warrior nature only to be spurred back to it by a woman’s attempted murder of his boss. Lastly, we have Matt Spencer’s “The Radiant Abyss.” We’ve been blessed to have some stalwart supporters over the three years of the magazine’s existence, and Spencer is the first and perhaps staunchest of those. It just so happens he writes stories we like, too.
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