BALLISTA issue 5

208BALLISTA issue 5 cover image

Paul Neads

Synopsis

Issue 5, Autumn 2008, is published 1 September and features chilling new tales from Alison J. Littlewood, Michael Loken, Caroline Barnard-Smith, J. Michael Shell, Crista Ermiya, Rupert Merkin, Rafe McGregor and David Buchan.

Plus news of our OPEN SHORT STORY COMPETITION with cash prizes - closing date for entries, Hallowe'en 2008.

Reviews

We hope this latest issue will keep you up at night, grizzling in the darkness of your bedroom and gnawing at your duvet in terror. It includes some real corkers from some of the best exponents of short imaginative fiction around today, combining in a volume which, more than ever, realises our ambition to publish material which is inventive, unique, and downright bed-wettingly discombobulating.

Those of you who regularly peruse our pages will no doubt recall how the task of co-editing this little mag always excites me into a frenzy of wild imagination mixed with a morbid foreboding. Anticipating this, and having just read several marvellous volumes concerning the Bible Code, I launched myself with vigour into the task of uncovering the arcane truths which I was sure, with absolutely certainty, were hidden in the text of Ballista 5. After many, many hours of studying every single word of every story I uncovered strange and deep truths buried in the pages you now read, truths that reveal the dreadful fate of humanity, truths which make the Bible Code seem as profound as The Beano, truths which are too terrible to know and too maddening for me to bear alone.

I can give you only a glimpse of the truth as predicted by the Ballista enigma. Mars Bars are 50% smaller than they used to be; all women will, before the end of 2008, become mortally afraid of the colour yellow; and piranha fish don’t like eggs. Oh, and the world ends next Tuesday teatime.

Enjoy the scary stuff, if you dare.

Andrew Myers, co-editor

Price £4.00

Details
ISBN 17506646zzzzz
Publisher Flapjack Press
Genre Short Fiction
Extent 50pp

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