Reviews
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I’ve heard on the grapevine that Hub is the semi-pro place to get published these days, at least in the UK. The story in Issue 77 is Hidden Underneath by Malin Larsson. This is an anecdotal tale of a cabbie who is hard to like with an enchanting ending. I’d decided that I didn’t like…
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Montgolfier Winter by Alisdair Stuart is quite a bit longer than the recent fiction in Hub has been. The start is a little ropey, there are some clunky sentences and a couple of typos. I’m being picky – Hub has set itself high standards. However, the writing becomes more assured after a while and what…
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The fiction in Issue 75 is not so much a story as a sketch. A Little Mystery by Len Bains is a short, well written exploration of what it would be like if you knew everyone’s secrets. It’s a great idea and the author alludes to some devastating consequences. I’d really like to see it…
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Well, this isn’t quite turning out to be the ‘daily writing exercise to get me motivated to work on my novel’ or ‘small writing thing I can do every day so that job hunting doesn’t take over completely’ activity that I imagined when I started. Still, I’m not one to give up just because something…
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The Romance issue. Five sci-fi/fantasy stories with a romance theme. First up, Laugh if you Love me by TK Read. It’s a little heavy on the adjectives and adverbs for my taste which makes the writing dense and treacly. That aside, I liked the Galliwoogers and it’s a neat little story that’s short enough for…
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I’m running behind again (pesky life) and Hub aren’t, so there will be a several reviews posted over the next few days. Issue 73‘s story is Behind Glass by Simon Strantzas.It’s a fairly conventional horror story and is well executed. There’s a claustrophobic atmosphere of isolation and disconnection that is compelling from the start. The…
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Ok, so this was actually released on 5th January and I’m running a bit behind. A quick glance at the Hub website reassures me that they are too. The first issue of the year is always the flash fiction issue and thus has more than one story. Issue 72 has four stories of varying lengths;…
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Hub Magazine has a new website and it looks great. Issue 71’s story is The Watchers at the Window by Marie Faye Prior. It’s good. The initial hook seems a litte weak but she so effectively creates a character completely ill at ease in his surroundings that it doesn’t matter. The sense of stress, grime…
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Crossed Genres is a new online magazine that specialises in scifi/fantasy stories that have elements of another genre. Issue 2 has four dystopian scifi/fantasy stories. Of the four, Nesting Instinct is the best. It may be a result of the dystopian theme but I found the stories hard work. Too much telling, too much description…
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Latest short story fix – Hub #70. I like Hub – it’s delivered weekly as a pdf via email and contains one story (SF, fantasy or horror) and a couple of reviews. It’s a tasty snack that can easily be consumed in between the less interesting things that I ‘should’ be doing. The story in…
Boudica Marginalia 