Moving Over to Blogger
1 May 2010
We've decided the time is right to move on from this version of our
website, and you'll now find us over at
http://theakersquarterly.blogspot.com/.
We don't have any plans to take this site down, so any links should
continue to work for the foreseeable future. As time goes by we will where
practical move the content over there. Or most of it, at least. Fond as I
am of the
Invasion of the Eggmen, it's not really the direction we're moving in
nowadays!
Originally I built this site in Microsoft Word, if you can believe it,
creating each page individually. Then I moved on to FrontPage, and there
it's been stuck for a while. For a while I've wanted to update things, to
make it more attractive and make updating it less tedious, and behind the
scenes I've built prototype websites using Joomla and Google Sites, but
for various reasons I wasn't satisfied with the results.
Using Blogger will have its downsides, but it will be much easier for
me to update, leaving me more time to spend on the actual publications we
produce. Let's see how it goes! SWT
Theaker's Quarterly Fiction 32, featuring
Pantechnicon 10
31 January 2010
This special issue of Theaker's Quarterly Fiction, out now, features
the long-awaited conclusion of our very long-running serial, Newton
Braddell's Inconclusive Researches into the Unknown. And on the flipside,
a special treat, issue 10 of Pantechnicon! SWT
Theaker's Quarterly Fiction 31!
27 December 2009
If you've had a good Christmas, it's about to get better! If you've had
a bad one, here is its saving grace!
Theaker's 31 is here for your pleasure! We've got eight terrific
stories and nineteen reviews. We have fantasy from Zachary Jernigan and
Heather Anastasiu, horror from Alex Smith and David M. Kinne, and science
fiction from Alison J. Littlewood, David Tallerman, Glynn Barrass and John
Greenwood, though as ever these genre labels are applied somewhat loosely!
The marvellous cover is by Howard Watts, while Douglas Ogurek and Rafe
McGregor supply reviews. SWT
Book Launch: The Mercury Annual!
25 OCtober 2009
With shamefully little assistance from his publisher, Michael Wyndham
Thomas will be launching his novel The Mercury Annual (published in
Theaker's Paperback Library) with a reading and signing at Borders in
Birmingham today from 2pm to 4pm. Location: Borders Bookstore, Bull Ring
Shopping Centre, Birmingham B5 4BE.
Theaker's 30: Finally Here!
4 OCtober 2009
Issue 30 of TQF features not one but two writers using the initials K
and J. How many other magazines can say that? Black Static, Interzone,
Postscripts and McSweeney's may have their fans, but only Theaker's
Quarterly would dare to bring you two K.J.s in a single issue!
The issue opens with "Citadel Ninety-Nine" by Michael Canfield, in
which a bloodthirsty army tears its way across a strange, strange world.
Also in this issue
John Greenwood plots the next point in Newton
Braddell's weary journey. Jon Vagg shows what really goes on at
conventions in "DeadSoulsCon". K.J. Hays tells the story of "The Zombie
Who Went to Town in Style". K.J. Hannah Greenberg writes about creatures
in mailboxes in "Just One Case of Flash: Another Chimera Story". And Ben
Thomas & Skadi meic Beorh win this issue's best title award with "The
Periodic Honking of the Fruit-Seller's Truck".
The issue ends with our usual bountiful selection of reviews, including
comment on all of this year's British Fantasy Award-nominated novels, two
books from Rhys Hughes, and a collection by Steve Redwood.
And of course the editorial apologises for the lateness of this issue!
SWT
Facebook Enhancement!
26 July 2009
Sorry that everything's been a bit quiet around these parts lately; at
the moment I'm working hard to finish Dark Horizons 55 for the
British Fantasy Society
(it's going to be a slobberknocker!). We're heartily sorry to everyone
waiting to hear from us about their submitted stories. So the next TQF is
probably going to be a bit delayed, probably until the end of September,
but after that we'll be full steam ahead. We even have a new book on the
way out soon, but more on that later I don't like to announce anything
till it's ready!
I have been able to do one nice thing here this weekend, which is set
up a fan page on Facebook for
Theaker's Quarterly & Paperbacks. Then I've added a Facebook fan box
to the news page (it should be over there at top right), and a Facebook
badge to the whole site (it should be in the column to the left). That'll
make it much easier to post little updates on progress and news,
announcing acceptances and books that have come in for review, and that
kind of thing. If you're on Facebook, click on Become a Fan to add our
updates to your wall.
Radio Wildfire
24 June 2009
The people who produced Raw Edge, a long-time fixture of Brum
libraries, have moved on to producing an arts radio station/podcast called
Radio Wildfire. Check it out later this week for a chat with our good chum
Michael Thomas, who'll be reading from
The Mercury Annual, the first
book from Theaker's Paperback Library.
Theaker's Quarterly Fiction 29
7 June 2009
So here is TQF29, seven stories high. Douglas Thompson takes the lead,
with the eerie and poetic "Madame Mortadore & the Clouds". "Foundling" by
Nick Sansone follows a painter through a troubled life foretold, while
"Imaginary Prisons" by David Tallerman also has a good deal to say on the
subject of prophecies. John Hall delivers the last of his forgotten
stories to our horror section, "The Feaster from the Stars". Its final
image is unforgettable. John Greenwood then lets us have it three times in
the third eye, as Newton Braddell wends his hopeless way across the world.
The review section contains the usual batch from me, as well as ones by
John Greenwood, Rafe McGregor and Steve Redwood, who consider Morpheus
Tales #3, a Hound of the Baskervilles graphic novel, and Midnight Street
#12 respectively. Enjoy yourself in there! SWT
TQF in the Space Year 2010!
Our calculations suggest that with our final issue of 2009 we'll
finally achieve our goal of catching up with McSweeney's Quarterly Concern
(in issue numbers, that is by every other measure, um, let's just say
we're plugging away at it). And we've had a few sticky moments this year
when trying to do TQF and Dark Horizons at the same time (not to mention
our return to book publishing with The Mercury Annual). So with TQF33 we
will go back to being a quarterly, scheduled a little erratically to allow
plenty of time for Dark Horizons. We should really have done this a year
ago, but we just had to catch up with McSweeney's, didn't we, regardless
of the way our babies and wives went lonely and untended for lo those long
weekends... The 2010 schedule:
- TQF33 (Spring): 30/4/10
- TQF34 (Summer): 30/6/10.
- TQF35 (Autumn): 30/10/10
- TQF36 (Winter): 30/12/10.
Theaker's 28!
24 April 2009
The latest an issue has been for ages! But at last Theaker's Quarterly
Fiction 28 is available. You can grab it from
our website as a free pdf, or buy it as a paperback book from
Lulu. It's also
available from Feedbooks in
lots of different ebook
formats.
This is one of our most interesting and varied issues yet. It starts in
the best possible way with "Quadrant Five" a bunch of people on a
spaceship going who knows where. That's followed by the next riveting
instalment of Newton Braddell and a short-short from Josie Gowler,
"Soldier", before things get rather literary with the double-barrelled
strangeness of "Breaking Out of Sleep" and "Anatomy of a Wounded House",
from Barry Pomeroy and Douglas Thompson respectively. Then John Hall
wonders whether you dare descend "The Stairs in the Crypt", and Jason
Hinchcliffe tells the saga of the "Bloodbegotten". I round out the issue
with a bunch of my famously perspicacious reviews what have I decreed to
be "well-written", "brilliant" and "superb" this time around? SWT
Domain Name Sorted
24 April 2009
Finally got the domain name sorted out, so
www.silveragebooks.com points
back here again. Phew! SWT
TQF28 Late...
7 April 2009
Sorry to everyone hanging on for issue twenty-eight of our glorious
magazine. I've been a bit distracted by work on the BFS website, part of
which involved posting the voting forms for the British Fantasy Awards
what cruel torture, to be asked to do that when TQF is so unhappily absent
from the list of best magazines! What foolish pride or self-defeating
ethics persuaded me to ban Mrs TQF from nominating us? Anyway, we realise
the effect this issue's absence must be having on your daily lives, but
please hang in there. You'll forget all the pain once the fix is in! It'll
be out by the 20th at the latest, I should think. SWT
Domain Name Problem
18 March 2009
I've just noticed that
www.silveragebooks.com isn't working, since Lycos quit their
webhosting. I thought I'd successfully transferred it elsewhere, but it
seems not! Should be sorted soon. SWT
Dark Horizons 54
7 March 2009
Dark Horizons 54, about to be sent out to members of the British
Fantasy Society in the March 2009 mailing, is filled to the brim with
goodies
The stories and poems range from the fantastical medieval past to
the astonishing worlds of the future, while articles take the reader from
the artist's studio to the forests of London, stopping off at Mythago Wood
and Twombly Town along the way, not to mention a fleeting visit with the
Drenai. And all of it assembled here at SAB Towers! SWT
A Thousand Downloads at Feedbooks!
7 March 2009
We've only added seven issues to Feedbooks so far, but in total they've
now been downloaded over a thousand times. I'm happy of course, but I'm
grinding my teeth at the thought of all the lucky Americans reading our
mag on their wonderful Kindles! Come on Amazon, share the love with your
British disciples! SWT
Hurrah! Theaker's Quarterly Fiction 27!
1 February 2009
As if to make up for number twenty-six being late, number twenty-seven
is ready three days early!
TQF27 presents a marvellous novel in full: Operation 1848 by Mike
Schultheiss! Plus two short stories: "Orchid Strangelove and the Kiss of
the Taipan" by Sam Leng and "Lost Futures" by Cyril Simsa. The issue is
rounded out with the usual half-baked reviews, news and editorial musings.
A complete novel! Another brilliant cover! It must be
Theaker's Quarterly Fiction 27.
I see this issue as the beginning of Phase III of this magazine. Phase
I began with issue four, our first proper issue. Phase II began with
either issue sixteen (our first printed via Lulu) or seventeen (our first
external and international contributors). Phase III, I think, is marked by
two things: the change to a paperback format, and availability on
Feedbooks. Phase IV, of course, will involve lots and lots of ants. SWT
Theaker's Quarterly Fiction 26: Finally Available!
16 December 2008
This issue of Theaker's Quarterly Fiction has one of our best ever
covers, courtesy of the marvellous John Shanks. It shows the three kings
doing battle with a demon on their way to Bethlehem. Eric R. Lowther tells
this seasonal story in "We Three Kings".
In the last of our series of stories by Richard K. Lyon & Andrew J.
Offutt, Tiana pays a visit to the "Inn of the White Cat". In John
Greenwood's series that never ends, Newton Braddell researches "The
Cruellest Month". And then John Hall tells the chilling story of "The
Burrower Beneath". In the last quarter of the issue we have reviews of the
latest from PS Publishing, among others.
It's a rather shorter issue than usual (we had to hold some material
over to next time like I said below, we were a bit too ambitious this
time), but it's a very nice one. The editorial is a bit rubbish I'm
still working through my feelings about losing at NaNoWriMo, so you'll
have to bear with me but if you skip that bit you'll have a great time
with Theaker's Quarterly Fiction #26.
SWT
Download TQF24 and TQF25 for Your Kindle, Sony
Reader, Mobile Phone, etc
15 December 2008
Though I've let everyone down on issue twenty-six of TQF, I did do
something useful over the weekend: I've made the last two issues of the
magazine available on Feedbooks.
Here is issue 24 and
here is issue 25.
Feedbooks is a great source of free reading material for ebook readers of
all kinds. There are three strands to the site: "newspapers" collated from
RSS feeds, which can be synchronised to your reading device;
out-of-copyright books; and user-created material (like our magazine).
The most impressive thing is that once content creators have uploaded
the material, Feedbooks outputs it in whatever format the user asks for.
Even if you just read TQF onscreen, it's worth a look: one of their
formats is a very handily structured pdf which is much easier to navigate
than the ones available here. You miss out on the art and the marvellous
typesetting, but you can't have everything! SWT
Whatever Happened to TQF26?
14 December 2008
Issue 26 of Theaker's Quarterly Fiction is one of our most ambitious
yet clearly a bit too ambitious , since it isn't ready on time! It
shouldn't be more than a week or two before it's out. Thanks for your
impatience it means more than mere patience ever would
If you were able
to wait patiently for our next issue it would show we weren't doing a good
job! SWT
Whatever Happened to the Theakers?
10 December 2008
I can't believe I forgot to announce our monthly awards for three whole
months... The worlds of music, television, film etc must have been
devastated...
Best device: Rocket eBook. In the space of a couple of months the
Rocket eBook has gone from being a dusty relic to my ever-present
companion. At the moment it's loaded up with half a dozen books and
magazines for review, a dozen submissions for TQF, another dozen
submissions for Dark Horizons, and (courtesy of Feedbooks) half a dozen
old sf books and collated "newspapers" of up-to-date articles from the
Guardian, Wired, BBC and Gizmodo websites.
Best radio: Adam & Joe. The ridiculous hullaballoo over Ross and
Brand's larking about knocked the wind out of their sails for a week or
two, but they're back to their best now. (And good for Adam this week for
calling Jonathan Ross a national treasure.) They're a very welcome
throwback to the days when 6Music was something more than a training
ground for Radio 1 DJs. The freewheeling creativity of Song Wars is a
constant inspiration.
Best television: Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles. More in the
vein of the first Terminator film than the second, but that's fine by me
I thought the second one was a bit of a dud. A superb cast, great writing,
great effects.
Best music: In Rainbows, Radiohead. Never been a huge Radiohead fan in
the past, but this is pretty much a perfect album. And you can really
boogie to it. And I can't pick Portishead's Third every month.
Best comics: Rick Random, Space Detective. Good, old-fashioned fun.
Best novel: Song of Time, Ian R. McLeod. Haven't finished it yet, but
it's very, very good. Extremely depressing, but in, erm, a good way. And
lots of it is set in my part of Birmingham. SWT
Theaker's Quarterly Fiction #25!
5 October 2008
It's almost Halloween, and so we have a very scary issue for you! Full
of very scary stories! Plus, check out that microscope on the cover. How
cool is that?
See Theaker's Quarterly Fiction #25,
out a day late, but we hope you'll forgive us. SWT
The August Theakers!
27 August 2008
Are we still doing this? Dear me. Okay, then:
- Best comics: The Savage Sword of Conan, Volume 1
- Best novel: The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Michael Chabon
- Best game: Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2
- Best film: Maniac Cop
- Best television: The Middleman
- Best music: Bonus CD (Antidotes), Foals
This month I've been using the Wii to listen to radio on the BBC
iPlayer. I knew it had to be good for something. I could have bought two
hundred packets of chocolate Hobnobs with that money... SWT
Dark Horizons #53
27 August 2008
 Every
member of the British Fantasy Society receives
Dark Horizons twice a year as part of their membership. Launched in
1971, it's one of the longest-running small press magazines in Britain.
The fifty-third issue will be sent out to members in September, and it was
produced by the staff here at SAB towers.
If you're a member, once you've had a look, let the editor know what
you think in the
Dark Horizons forum. If you're not a member,
get it sorted while there's still time!
This issue contains nine short stories of fantasy, horror and a smidgen
of science fiction, arranged very roughly in chronological order; from
days of yore to near-future apocalypses. Interspersed among the stories
are eight poems. Then there is an article taken from a forthcoming book on
Terry Pratchett, plus an interview with the book's author, Lawrence
Watt-Evans. The BFSQ&A section addresses the burning questions of the day,
while the issue comes to a triumphant close with our updated submission
guidelines, the advertising prices, and a list of BFS email addresses!
Jim Fuess
provided the cover art for this issue, while six other wonderful and
generous artists have allowed the use of their work to illustrate the
issue's fiction: Lara
Bandilla,
Dominic Harman,
Steve Cartwright,
Michelle
Blessemaille,
Paul Campion and Alfred R. Klosterman. SWT
AA Independent Press Guide
27 August 2008
Just a sad note to say that we can't recommend the AA Independent Press
Guide to writers any more, because no updates are going to be made unless
publishers pay a fee. The TQF details are all fine, but the Dark Horizons
details, for example, are well out-of-date. (Edit: they've now been
updated.) Writers are directed instead to
www.ralan.com and www.duotrope.com.
SWT
Theaker's Quarterly Fiction #24!
4 August 2008
In theory this is our festival special hence the fancy pants cover
but I have to admit that we didn't carry the theme through into the issue.
We have to designate two issues a year as specials, or the International
Board of Titular Relevance would force us to change our name to Theaker's
Bi-Monthly Fiction. What can I say? A festival special seemed like a good
idea a month ago, when I was in the middle of watching the Glastonbury
Festival on tv. (Well done, Jay-Z, by the way.) There is a gig at one
point in the issue, though, in a hotel lobby. You get mini-bars in hotels,
so let's pretend that it's a mini-festival. So no one's got anything to
complain about
Except that to read about that gig they'll have to wade through the
latest of Howard Phillips' neverending series of novels in the Saturation
Point Saga. I'd complain about that. By his standards, it's not a bad idea
literary terrorists seize control of all methods of literary production
in the UK but by anyone else's standards it's not so good. Although I
turn up in it as a character, I recall few of the events Howard describes.
I've done another big editorial for this issue, which dithers around a
bit, and we have the latest stories in the Tiana and Newton Braddell
series. I feel so used to writing those names together now, it's as if
they are a couple and what a good couple they would make. She would give
him a bit of direction in his life, while he'd deliver the gentleness
lacking in hers. Aaron Polson is our one new contributor, with a creepy
story of desperate people and their desperate toys, and the desperate
ploys of those desperate toys.
There are more reviews than ever before including a handful from
marvellous Rafe McGregor and the one other thing left to mention is the
return of our news page, now with actual news!
See the amazing colossal 75,000-word
Theaker's Quarterly Fiction #24. SWT
The July Theakers!
10 July 2008
So who are the winners of this month's coveted awards?
- Best television: Doctor Who, season four
- Best film: Munich
- Best novel: Thorns, Robert Silverberg
- Best comics: Ex Machina: Fact v. Fiction
- Best game: Burnout Paradise
I'll have to write something about Doctor Who for the new issue of TQF.
I'm so grateful to Russell Davies and his team for what they've done. They
haven't just created a great programme, they've placed it right at the
heart of the BBC, made it the corporation's very raison d'etre. The
original series suffered from comparison to US programmes, whereas now
it's the other way round. When Doctor Who takes us to a different world of
time and space every single week, the US equivalents need more than people
wandering through Canadian forests to impress us.
It's interesting that two out of my five choices this month are things
I don't own (Ex Machina, which came from the Handsworth Library, and
Burnout Paradise, which came from Lovefilm). I think my vow to not buy any
books (a vow I've actually broken a couple of times, despite myself) and
my membership of Lovefilm has changed me from being a person who buys
books to being a person who reads books. Instead of a consumer of product,
I've become a consumer of content!
Although the Handsworth Library, mentioned above, has an excellent
comics section for such a small library, for some reason they all seem to
be labelled as Teenage Graphic Novels (including things like Modesty
Blaise, for example, and Ex Machina, which contains some very strong
language). It's the old mistake of confusing format and content like my
Mum complaining that there shouldn't be grown-up jokes in The Simpsons
because cartoons are for children. Grown-ups don't read comics, therefore
all comics must be for children.
This is going to turn into a blog if I'm not careful...
The five CDs currently in my five-CD stereo have not changed at all
since last time, mostly because I've been listening to NPR a lot... It
makes me feel just like Frasier. Or maybe Niles. If he was chubby. I feel
like a chubby Niles. SWT
The June Theakers!
13 June 2008
Right now I'm listening to the new Portishead album, Third, and felt
moved to write something to say how brilliant it is. It really is quite
stunningly superb, though I don't have the vocabulary to describe it. That
gave me the idea of instituting some monthly awards, The Monthly Theakers!
Recognising excellence in all fields, but not necessarily excellence that
happened this month just excellence that I experienced or encountered or
rediscovered this month. Completely pointless, of course, but it'll make
the news page a bit less repetitive! This month's award-winners, all of
whom I'm sure will be celebrating till the cows come home:
- Best music: Third, Portishead
- Best television: Lost, season four
- Best film: Iron Man
- Best book: Modesty Blaise, Peter O'Donnell
- Best comics: McSweeney's 13
And a special mention for The DFC, which has made the Friday morning
post a very special occasion in our house!
The five CDs currently in my five-CD stereo are:
- Antidotes, Foals
- Sexuality, Sebastien Tellier
- Velocifero, Ladytron
- In Rainbows, Radiohead
- Third, Portishead
Is this type of thing really appropriate for the news page of a
publishing giant such as Silver Age Books? Probably not. But then, around
here, I'm in control of both the vertical and the horizontal! SWT
Theaker's Quarterly Fiction #23
1 June 2008
The new issue of TQF (out a few days early) has an enormous (by our
standards) review section, lots of great stories, and a terrifyingly long
and self-justificatory rant from the editor!
- Editors, Writers and Money: in Defence of Amateurs by Stephen
Theaker
- The Orphans of Time by Wayne Summers (who also provides cover and
interior artwork)
- Newton Braddell and His Inconclusive Researches into the Unknown: At
the Mountains of Madness by John Greenwood
- Devil on My Stomach: a Tale of Tianas World by Richard K Lyon &
Andrew J Offutt
- When a Baby Laughs by Anna M Lowther
- Shaggai by John Hall
- Reviews galore
See Theaker's Quarterly Fiction #23.
SWT
Dark Horizons
4 May 2008
I was recently lucky enough to be made editor of
Dark Horizons,
the journal of the British Fantasy Society, and so I've added a
Dark Horizons page to our own site.
There you'll find information on recent issues and the beginnings of the
new guidelines for contributors. The actual issues, of course, will never
be available on this website to read them you'll have to
join the
BFS! SWT
Two Reviews of TQF#17
30 May 2008
A recent review of our magazine said such nice things about me that I
could hardly fail to link to it:
read Don Schneider's review of TQF#17 here! If you're in the mood for
reading more about that issue, an earlier and equally kind review of the
same issue appeared a little while ago on
Whispers of Wickedness. SWT
A Notable Story of the Year in TQF!
30 April 2008
Some very exciting news: "Ananke", a story by
Jeff Crook which
appeared in TQF#18, has been selected
as one of the "notable stories of 2007" by the judges of the Million
Writers Award (an award dedicated to online fiction). While I'd like to
take the credit by claiming that I knocked an atrocious and unreadable
manuscript into a shimmering work of art, the truth of course is that, bar
a few commas, it arrived with me in its fully-formed award-nominated
state, and so all credit must go to the author! (Although I'd like to
think those commas tipped it over the edge.) Follow the
link to find out about the other notable stories of 2007. SWT
Theaker's Quarterly Fiction #22
4 April 2008
Issue twenty-two of Theaker's Quarterly
Fiction is one of our best yet (I know, I say that every time). From
Mike Schultheiss we have "Darwin's Corridor", a rousing tale of action,
colonialism, love, anthropology and philosophy on a far-off planet. Though
I've enjoyed everything I've published in this magazine, this one probably
comes closest so far to being exactly the kind of thing we're looking for.
Then we have The Spirits of 26, by Robert Laughlin, a Silverberg-esque
story of ambition, dedication and calamity. Sam Leng returns to our pages
with A Matter of Taste, another short, sharp tap on the shoulder, and
Richard K Lyon and Andrew J Offutt supply another in their series of Tiana
adventures. In my editorial I take a trip down memory lane, it having been
ten years since I started to use the name Silver Age Books (if only I'd
taken a bit longer to come up with something more distinctive!), while at
the other end of the issue John Greenwood describes the next events in the
unfortunate life of Newton Braddell, researcher unextraordinary. We round
out the issue with a bunch of reviews. SWT
NaNoWriMo Tips and Space University Trent
25 February 2008
Continuing the theme of bringing old treasures to light, we've made a
couple of areas of the website much easier to reach than they were. Our
NaNoWriMo tips, formerly intended to appear one a day on the website
during the months of October and November (a system that I never really
got working), are now all gathered together on our
NaNoWriMo Tips page, for
anyone who wants to see them. Bear in mind that these tips (like National
Novel Writing Month itself) are all about finishing a novel, any novel. If
you want advice on writing a good novel, just keep walking!
And our pages of information about
Space University
Trent, previously only accessible via a back door on Walt Brunston's
author information page, can now be accessed directly. There is an
introduction to the show, an
episode guide, and even
the beginnings of a Space University Trent
timeline,
encyclopedia and
movie database. SWT
The Final Throw, by Robert Neilson
25 February 2008
Sorting through my old email over the weekend, I found that about five
years ago Bob Neilson, a respected science fiction writer from Ireland,
gave us permission to post his story, "The Final Throw", on our website.
We originally published it in the fourth issue of New Words, our first
foray into publishing. What's more, he supplied us with a copy of it in
Word, to save us from having to scan it in. Five years ago,
as you can see, things were getting quite gloomy
and quiet at Silver Age Towers. It was after we had published our first
batch of books, but before we had started to publish Theaker's Quarterly.
The slumber into which we had fallen accounts for this glittering diamond
getting lost at the back of the cupboard, but now it is recovered and on
display for everyone to read:
"The
Final Throw", by Robert Neilson! SWT
Theaker's Quarterly Fiction #21
4 February 2008
TQF#21 is now available - as usual you can download it from us
here or buy a print copy
from Lulu. I'm sorry
about the cover painting - it isn't very good, but I had a great deal of
fun painting it! (Digitally, of course - I wouldn't want to get my hands
all mucky with real paint.) The real fun, though, comes with this issue's
two lengthy stories: John Greenwood delivers the second half of a novel,
The Hatchling, and Wayne Summers brings us the entirety of "The Exile from
Naktah", a terrifying tale of a dark castle and its dark, dark lord! At
the end of the issue I bring my powerful critical faculties to bear on my
favourite game of January, Mass Effect the game that forced me into
asking my significant other to implement the parental timer on the Xbox
360... SWT
TQF Reviews Online!
3 February 2008
I've always been really impressed by the reviews section over on
Whispers of Wickedness - both by the
quality of the reviews, and by its usefulness as a source of information
on small press magazines. We can't match them in either sense, but we can
still nick their idea and put our reviews online too. It'll make us a
little bit more Googlable, if nothing else. Go see the
TQF Reviews! (By the way, if
anyone fancies writing reviews for TQF, please get in touch.) SWT
Howard Phillips' Musical Interpretation of The Fear
Man CD
2 February 2008
Lulu have sorted out the problems they were having with CD creation,
and so now you can go there and buy a CD of the first album by Howard
Phillips and the Saturation Point,
Howard Phillips' Musical
Interpretation of The Fear Man. And it only costs
£3.99! SWT
Preditors and Editors Poll
9 January 2008
There are still a few days of voting to go in the annual Preditors and
Editors poll, in which you could
vote for
Theaker's Quarterly Fiction as best magazine, or
vote for John
Shanks' cover to TQF#16 as best cover, or
vote for
Eric Lowther's "Rural Legend" as best science fiction or fantasy story,
or indeed vote for anyone else you like! For example, there's a glaring
and rather hurtful omission in the
nominees for
best zine editor! If polls have closed by the time you read this, go
have a look at the
results to see links to lots of other great magazines, stories and
artwork. SWT
Howard Phillips and the Saturation Point Online (9
January 2008)
After years of not being properly available, the first album by
Howard Phillips and the Saturation Point -
"Howard Phillips' Musical Version of The Fear Man" - is now available
on Last.fm. You can listen to it online, or even download it for yourself!
When we have a spare minute or two we'll upload some of our other old
music too We'd quite like to have a CD for sale on Lulu too, but they seem
to be having some problems on that end at the moment. SWT
Theaker's Quarterly Fiction: Year Four (#15-20)
30 December 2007
Our omnibus edition of all of 2007's issues of TQF is now available,
featuring 46 short stories and novellas, one and a half novels, one
six-part serial, five editorials, one manifesto, seven news items, one
lost classic of the Silver Age, ten reviews, one obituary, and six comic
strips. Authors in this volume include Wayne Summers, Dan Kopcow, Jeff
Crouch, Richard K Lyon, Andrew J Offutt, Howard Phillips, Mark E Deloy,
Laura Bickle, Jeff Crook, Benjamin Spurduto and Eric R Lowther. You can
see the cover on our website
here, along with the previous bound volumes we've done, or you could
just head straight over to see it on
Lulu. Only
£8.99 at the time of writing, which is pretty good
value for 460 adventure-packed pages! SWT
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