Unlike most of the other magazines I’ve read recently, Midnight Street contains a varied mixture of interviews, reviews, and articles, as well as a sprinkling of poems interspersed among the fiction. It’s an A4 magazine with coloured illustrations on the cover and black and white within.
Read my review at UK SF Review.
Unlike most of the other magazines I’ve read recently,
Midnight Street contains a varied mixture of interviews, reviews, and articles,
as well as a sprinkling of poems interspersed among the fiction. It’s an A4 magazine with coloured
illustrations on the cover and black and white within.
We start with The Ice
Horse, an intriguing story by Mark Howard Jones in which an unfortunate
captive is imprisoned inside a giant sculpture of a horse. Why he’s there isn’t entirely clear, partly
due to his half-frozen state. The
background character of the artistic genius who created the sculpture adds an
interesting dimension too as the freezing captive tries to figure out an
escape.
An unstable man who suffers from gaps in his memory, among
other things, goes Shoplifting in
Chris Ward’s story that alternates between humour and pity. As his character becomes more paranoid and
desperate, unsure whether he stole the clothes he’s wearing, his situation
becomes more and more pitiable. It’s a
story well told, aside from the use of
profanity that I thought over the top, being used in the narration as well as
by the shoplifter. Sorry, alleged
shoplifter.
The something in
Ken Goldman’s story There’s Something in
Autumn Palms Lake quickly turns out to be an alligator. I’m not spoiling the story by telling you
that. The reason it’s there, told in
flashback, and the final scene, make what seems to be a fairly predictable
story into something much more interesting.
I like to experiment with unusual story formats, and Peter
Straub’s Lapland, or Film Noir
certainly is unusual. It’s written as
though part of an essay on the film noir genre, with bits of story strung
together and interesting observations thrown in. At first the style was a bit off-putting, but
in the end I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Allen Ashley’s contribution And I, The Footman is a nostalgic reunion for three old college
friends. Their weekend in an old country
house is haunted by memories of the suicide that took place last time they were
there and the mixed feelings of guilt they have harboured ever since. The mystery is maintained through the story
as reality and imagination are dreams are blurred and the truth finally comes
out at the well-crafted end.
Bliss is a
futuristic story by Peter Loftus in which the world has been struck by a deadly
virus and only the ‘lucky seven’ percent are immune. The desperation of the situation comes
through as one man looks for a high-tech way to end it all. It’s a well-written story, but unfortunately
I’d read a very similar tale in Forgotten
Worlds #5 last year so it lacked a
certain impact this time.
Sharon Bidwell’s Degrees
of Sickness suffered from a similar lack of impact and left me feeling that
perhaps I’d missed some deeper meaning.
A sick woman lies in bed, suffering from delirium and not sure what’s
happening to her. I wasn’t sure either,
so maybe that was the point. It also
suffered from following on from Bliss
where a sick man lay dying in bed. I can
only take so much depression.
A trip to Tokyo is next in store in John Paul Catton’s Flowers of Edo. The story is told in two different time
frames: WWII, when Tokyo is set aflame by bombing raids, and the present day
where mysterious fires continue to break out.
The war scenes are particularly moving, and the interweaving of Japanese
culture adds an extra dimension to this intriguing tale.
My favourite story of the issue is Roz Southey’s Spin-Off Merchandise, a story set in a
future that reminded me of Blade Runner. It’s a society where celebrity and conformity
have both gained such importance that almost everyone has gone under cosmetic
surgery in order to imitate their favourite star. The few who don’t conform are fiercely
persecuted and the mission of one woman to make her way unnoticed through the
city streets was both entertaining and thought-provoking.
The final story is the nauseating Dreams of Elvis by Donna Taylor Burgess, in which a massively obese
woman finds herself stuck on the bathroom floor after a fall. As she succumbs to hunger and thirst she
begins to hallucinate, and have nasty thoughts about her kittens. It’s definitely an attention grabbing tale,
but inconveniently placed after two other stories of ill people lying about
helplessly, so I wasn’t really in the mood for it by then.
So it’s a magazine with a wide variety of both stories,
articles and other items to keep you entertained, and the only magazine I’ve
come across so far to be published three times a year. I’m a couple of months late with this one, so
issue #10 should be out soon, and I’m looking forward to receiving it.
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