The second issue of Black Static lives up to the standard set by the permier issue. The Polaroid snaps cover is particularly effective, and that theme is taken up throughout the issue.

Lisa Tuttle and Steven Utley. In the Hole.

First up is a story from two authors well known in the SF field, and it's a really strong collaboration. A man is heading home after a long incarceration by the enemy. Just how long, he doesn't know, as he is disorientated from spending so much time in dark, sensory-deprived solitary confinement. He owes what little sanity he has left to the imagined nocturnal visits from his girlfriend.

He is suprised to learn that she is still in their home town, and has been waiting for him. But as we follow him to her doorstep, we see just how much has changed, and just how alienated he is. However, for a moment there is a chink of light - perhaps the two can, against the odds, re-forge their relationship?

But those dark, desperate times in the confines of his own imagination have taken too much of a toll on him, and in seeking to find the sanctuary of those times, he is caught in flagrante solo delicto nocturna and he must seek a new life elsewhere.

It's an intense story of alienation and disorientation, with his wanderings through the ravaged streets of his youth providing some memorable imagery, and worth the admission price alone.

F. Brett Cox. The Serpent and the Hatchet Gang.

The women of a fishing village take up arms against the sea of troubles which confront them - notably the alcohol-fuelled violence they suffer at the hands of their husbands. For one woman, the serpent in the seas nearby turns out to be more real than myth, and in challenging the men on land, she has similarly to challenge and embrace the monster in the seas that threatens their community.

Scott Nicholson. Must See to Appreciate.

Very neat ghost story with a twist in the tale. An estate agent is showing a potential buyer around a house : the main problem is the presence in the cellar, and the agent is desperate to get the sale made without taking the buyer into said cellar. However, the buyer is persistent, and in the darkness of the cellar, out of the shadows, appears....

Steve Rasnic Tem. Unknown.

Another dark tale of alienation, in which a man seeking anonymity amongst the crowds of a new city finds himself face to face with an old girlfriend, shattering his delicate equilibrium.

Melanie Fazi. In the Shape of a Dragon.

Another tale from Fazi translated by Brian Stableford (there has been at least one in The 3rd Alternative, and one in F&SF - with another in that source translated by Christoper Priest).

A young girl, living with her father, is in tune with the strange music haunting her house and her father's studio, in which she finds a drawing which may explain all. Her father warns her off against crossing the threshold to this studio, but in transgressing this instruction she transgresses further.

Linda Rucker. Ash Mouth.

A more traditional horror story, although well away from hackneyed horrors. A young woman, who lost a sister as a child, finds her childhood horrors remain as she visits an elderly relative, and finds that those in-between places, those between light and dark, are very much populated...

Andre Humphrey. Holding Pattern.

Again, a more traditional psycho horror story, as we follow a man who believes that his solid relationship with his wife may be in fact based on very rocky ground. As he takes action to rectify the situation, it only becomes clear towards the end just how unreliable a narrator he is, and the true horror of his actions unfold against the actual truth of what has, or has not, been happening.

Conclusion.

A very strong set of stories, staying well clear of the chop-schlock-spurting blood horror that I tend (perhaps unfairly) to characterise as that which the darker end of the speculative fiction genre provides. OK there is bread-knife butchery, but it's sneaked in towards the end of the issue, rather than having arterial blood spurting all over the pages. Oooh, hang on a sec, all this talk of blood is making me feel faint....

The good news is that Andy Cox is now planning to have Black Static and Interzone appearing in alternate months, and if this can be established and maintained then this will be a very solid foundation for TTA Press after some years of effort. They've also just got both Interzone and Black Static available on Fictionwise, which is good move, and will hopefully profile the magazine to a larger audience.