Excerpt from "Antennae", by Tyler MacFarlane

Following is an excerpt from our upcoming issue.  Enjoy!


I’ve always been easily distracted. That’s how I noticed it the first time. A globe of white light and heat descended in an arc from above my roof, within an honest 3km. Dead of night, like I said. I remember it like a bad acid trip. I had been typing furiously at my computer for hours, and the orb showed up just in time to save me from my blank screen. It was an ‘oh, shiny’ moment that turned into a ‘wtf?’ moment. I walked over to the window and unlatched it with ginger fingers. ‘Ginger’ fingers that don’t have soul, right? Remember that red-headed kid on Youtube who had the convincing argument that ‘gingers do have souls’?. What I mean is, I was transfixed by the orb. I slid the window up until it locked into place. A summer breeze poured itself in through my window. The air was hot and thick – and it felt like it was vibrating. I kept my eyes focused on the hot white ball in the sky.



Continue watching this blog for more excerpts, as we ramp up for the launch of our 7th issue, "Tougues and Teeth", Friday October 5th at Kaffeïn.

Excerpt from Ogre Baby

Here is an excerpt from Ogre Baby, one of the stories in our upcoming issue, Teeth and Tongues, by author Ann Ewan:

Ogre Baby

           

The first time I saw a dead human, there were only eight of us smalls and I was just learning to stagger about on my new legs. The big ogre had slung the dead human over his back, so that he had to stoop down low to come into the cave, and we all ran to see what he had caught. He wasn't called "Tribe" yet, but just Big, the biggest of us, the one who brought food.

Grinning proudly, he pulled the dead human from his back and slammed it down onto the floor for us all to see. The human juice was red, not black like ours. "Real meat!" he said, especially to me, the newest, who hadn't seen something like that before. "The only real meat!"

He used his long curved claws to rip a hole in the human's belly and started pulling out the soft guts, shoving them into his mouth with both hands. The reek made me feel sick and hungry at the same time. My mouth filled with water, even though I knew I wouldn't get any food because I was the smallest and all the others were crowding closer, whining and slobbering. Hoog elbowed me in the face and Dross stepped hard on one of my feet.

            "Meat!" they cheered and begged. "Real meat!"

            One of the older ones asked, "New baby?"

            Big looked up with his mouth leaking red human juice and said, "No, this is old meat. Need fresh for new baby."

            While he was distracted, two of the smalls grabbed meat, and there was a loud crack as one of them, Croak, snapped off one of the dead human's hands. Big roared with rage and batted him away so hard that he hit the cave wall and slumped down, asleep or dead. Nip scampered out of range, with inside human meat dangling from his teeth.

            "My meat! You smalls wait till I say!"

            Big picked up the human hand and stuffed it into his mouth. The other smalls had scattered and I got a chance to edge closer, careful to keep my hands to myself. The human was shaped much like us, except where Big and Croak had ripped him, but the only hair he had was on top of his head. He was turning grey from lying around dead. His arms and legs were spindly compared to ours, and with that and the hairlessness he looked puny, more helpless than a dead deer. He had a belt with weapons, a sword that was a tiny model of Big's and a knife, but they hadn't done him much good.

            The other smalls began to creep back, pushing me out of the way. Big belched and suddenly crooked a fat finger at me to come closer. "You! Gerl!"

            The others fell back and let me through.

            "Heart meat." He held out the red drippy thing he'd just been snacking on. "Eat. Get strong."

Keep an eye on the blog for more excerpts from Issue 7. And if you'd like to pick up a copy, we'll be launching the issue at Kafein on October 5th. Check out the Facebook event for more information.

Kindle Edition Update!

Hello,

This is just a quick note to let everyone know that the Kindle edition of Settler 26 was (for some reason) unavailable to people outside of Canada. This has just been corrected and the Kindle edition should be available within 48 hours no matter where you are. If you're interested in buying it, you can go find it through our store

If you really can't wait, the Epub version is available right now :)

Thank you,

Alexander Newcombe

What do you want?

First off, I want to thank all the people that submitted and all the people that helped us get the word out about submissions. We received some tremendous work this time, and it's wonderful to read (though not so wonderful to have to choose between the good ones).

The real point of this post is to ask what people really want from their fiction, and especially their fiction anthologies like HBM. I'm very happy with what Here Be Monsters has turned in to. I feel like it showcases some great stories that people won't read anywhere else while still being the weird vehicle that Vincent, Duane, and I use to get our writing out. It is a strange hybrid though, I don't deny it.

I'd love for people to recommend some more books in the same vein as HBM to us. We recently all picked up copies of Imaginarium because we wanted to learn more about the world of Canadian speculative fiction. It's a much larger format, and it got me thinking about our own format at the discussions we've had. Our last issue (Settler 26), was larger than the rest, and it's looking like Issue 7 will be around the same size. Initially, I wanted to keep our slimmer profile because I felt like it made our book a bit more approachable, which is something that any indie publications full of strange stories could use. I don't think it makes much of a difference in the end, but if it does, I'd love to hear from people.

Which reminds me: Do you guys know anyone that has picked up HBM and isn't a regular reader? Because that would be one ticked box on the "things-to-do-before-I-die list".

We use an arcane system involving haruspicy and the stains left in the bottom of coffee cups to determine the stories we put in our books, but I will say that one thing I ask myself when reading a work (and this goes for my work as well as others') is "is it fun to read?". So, to me, I'm looking for stories that people will enjoy. I don't want one of our stories to drain part of your day away and for you to come away with nothing. And I'm not too concerned if it isn't the most original idea, either. I want it to spend your time well, and this is what I expect of other stories too. This means that the overall message of the piece isn't as important to me. In fact, when the message becomes the point of the story, I tend to get turned off very quickly - (I think sci-fi is more guilty of this than fantasy, but that might be my own prejudice.)

If anyone wants to let us know what they want in their fiction (be it of a particular genre or otherwise), please feel free to comment here or on our Facebook page. Thanks!

Alexander Newcombe

Issue 7, Imaginarium, guest bloggers, comic con and Fantasia!!!

Issue 7 is in the juicer. If you submitted then we should be responding in the next couple of weeks. Our committee is still reading and once we have read everything we will make our decisions. Thanks for opening your over ripe minds to us. Keep writing and keep taking chances.

We will also keep you up to speed on the launch date for issue 7. It is planned for end of September or early October. This in part depends on the availibility of the venue location. We're looking into this.

I've ordered  Imaginarium because it looks cool, and received it. So far, I've read the first story, Looker by David Nickle and rather enjoyed it.

Thoughts on guest bloggers? We are curious what others could contribute. Collaboration is what started this anthology after all. Would you or someone you know have an idea for something to contribute. Do you have a blog, do you not have a blog, but have things to say...? Let us know, if you think we might be interested.

Finally, two projects I hope to follow through on. I'm attending a comic con type event. I have never been to a comic con and I'm not sure what to expect. I was going to hit the one coming up in New York, because I thought, well if comic con is no fun then it's still New York. I was in New York this summmer, I went by bike from Montreal... It was a great city to explore, so getting stuck there if comic con was a bust would not be the worst. A friend has convinced me to go to Toronto, and I'm in Montreal so I can also check out the Montreal event. Back to my bike trip and project two... I want to fictionalize my real trip by bike to New York. Why? Well the real trip was awesome, I do however live in an imaginary world.

Oh, and Fantasia film festival. You will be missed. Till next year.

This blog post is rather scattered. Summer can bring that out.