Shoreline of Infinity 33: Shoreline of Infinity science fiction magazine

By Noel Chidwick, M Luke McDonell, T L Huchu and 2 more

Science fiction short stories, interviews, poetry, articles and reviews. Some cracking artwork too.

Callum McSorley – Cradle
David Lawrie –    You are in a Room
Brent Baldwin – Three Resurrections and the Warm, Embracing Earth
M. H. Ayinde – The Walls of Benin City
Benjamin C. Kinney     – The Successors
Lucy Zhang – Material Reuse
Michael Teasdale  – Frank Peterson Comes Home
M. Luke McDonell – The Internet of Things That Care

    Multiverse: poems from Liana Kapelke-Dale, Thomas Piekarski, Juliette Lee

T.L. Huchu:     Hume and A.I.

Ruth EJ Booth    Noise and Sparks

Q&A with Siobhan Loganof Space Cat Press
Teika Marija Smits asks the questions
'Severed Souls' anthology - extracts

Flash fiction competition - The Winners!

Winner: Jesse Rowell
Runners-up: Nathan Susnik, Dom Barlow

Beachcomber – Farewell to Kings
Mark Toner

• Language: English
• Publisher: The New Curiosity Shop
• Release date: Feb 25, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215960035

Noel Chidwick

Editor of science fiction magazine, Shoreline of Infinity.

Book preview

Shoreline of Infinity 33

SHORELINE OF INFINITY 33

Science Fiction Magazine

Edited by

NOEL CHIDWICK

Shoreline of Infinity Publications / The New Curiosity Shop

Contents

Editorial Team

First Contact

Pull up a Log

A wee statement from Noel Chidwick and Mark Toner, co-founders of Shoreline of Infinity

Cradle

Callum McSorley

Three Resurrections and the Warm, Embracing Earth

Brent Baldwin

The Walls of Benin City

M. H. Ayinde

The Successors

Benjamin C. Kinney

Material Reuse

Lucy Zhang

Frank Peterson Comes Home

Michael Teasdal

The Internet of Things That Care

M. Luke McDonell

You Are in a Room

David Lawrie

Multiverse

Alien Queen

Liana Kapelke-Dale

In Hibernation

Thomas Piekarski

Spatial Equations

Thomas Piekarski

Scarf to Dr Who

Juliette Lee

Dr Whos to Scarf

Juliette Lee

Zion

Juliette Lee

Reviews

A Dowry of Blood

Joe Gordon

Face

Phil Nicholls

The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer

Suki Hollywood

Lost in Time

Jeff Hunter

Hume and A.I.

T.L. Huchu

Noise and Sparks

Ruth EJ Booth

Q&A with Siobhan Logan of Space Cat Press

Teika Marija Smits

Extract from ‘Severed Souls’ Anthology

Space Cat Press

Judgement Call

Jennifer Moore

S.O.S

James Walton

What the Worry Monster Knows

Sarah Davies

Live Specimen

Alex Harwood

myPet Flash Fiction Competition Winners

Introduction

I Know How This Ends

Jesse Rowell

[Omni]Pet

Dom Barlow

The Tan One

Nathan Susnik

About Shoreline of Infinity

Beachcomber

Mark Toner

Logo with solar eclipse inside the words ‘Shoreline of Infinity’

Issue 33: Winter 2022

Award-winning science fiction magazine

published in Scotland for the Universe

ISSN: 2059-2590

ISBN: 978-1-7396736-7-3

Copyright © 2022 Shoreline of Infinity

Contributors retain copyright of own work

Submissions of fiction, art, reviews, poetry, non-fiction are welcomed: visit the website to find out how to submit

www.shorelineofinfinity.com

Publisher

Shoreline of Infinity Publications /

The New Curiosity Shop

Edinburgh

Scotland

Cover Art: Scribble Imp

Editorial Team

Co-founder, Editor-in-Chief, Editor: Noel Chidwick

Co-founder, Art Director: Mark Toner

Deputy Editor, Poetry Editor: Russell Jones

Fiction Editor: Eris Young

Reviews Editor: Ann Landman

Non-fiction Editor: Pippa Goldschmidt

Marketing & Publicity Editor, Proof Reader: Yasmin Kanaan

Production Editor: James T. Harding

Copy-editors: Pippa Goldschmidt, Russell Jones, Iain Maloney, Eris Young, Cat Hellisen

Fiction Consultant: Eric Brown

First Contact

www.shorelineofinfinity.com

[e-mail]

Twitter: @shoreinf

Pull up a Log

A wee statement from Noel Chidwick and Mark Toner, co-founders of Shoreline of Infinity

It is time

Rafiki

Shoreline of Infinity began life in the autumn of 2014 when we concluded that Scotland needed a science fiction magazine. We agreed that this magazine, like Scotland, should be outward looking and welcoming to all.

Let’s see what happens, we said.

*Swipes forward.*

It’s been brilliant. There are 33+ issues of the magazine, nearly 100 live and online Event Horizons, a score or more special projects, and we gave Scotland’s own Genre festival, Cymera, a leg-up. In that time-journey we’ve encountered dozens of creative and talented writers, artists, actors, musicians, performers, organisers, editors, videographers, producers, voice artists, and more – including science fiction heroes we would not have met otherwise. Best of all, we have made many friends as we travel along this arc of the circle of life, and have learned oh so much.

At the end of this year, we’re stepping off the Shoreline of Infinity Spaceship to spend more time with our own creative projects, music and writing, and also with our families, who were getting a tiny bit jealous.

It is time.

And the best bit? Spaceship Shoreline of Infinity continues its travels in the good hands of the editorial team of Russell, Pippa, Eris, Ann, Yasmin and James, and other editorial folk and supporters who have helped along the way.

Along with a loyal and growing audience we – Mark and I – cannot wait to see where Shoreline of Infinity takes us to in this weird and wonderful Universe.

—Noel and Mark

December 2022

An android toasts marshmallows over an open fire

Cradle

Callum McSorley

Black and white engraving. An angel bursts forth from a giant head.

Art: Stephen Daly

[This is a sponsored advertisement]

Every new parent goes through it: It’s 3am, Baby just won’t leave your arms so you’re having warm shnuggles when suddenly – blink! – you’ve fallen asleep, just for a second, and you wake with your heart pounding, terrified. You think what might have happened. I could have crushed Baby! I could have smothered Baby! I’m the worst parent alive!

But worry no more!

With ROCK THE CRADLE™, those days – or should we say nights!? – are gone. With ROCK THE CRADLE™’s patented kinetic memory blanket snug-harness for Baby, hyper-haptic-feedback for you, Baby will feel safe and comfortable in your arms – from any distance up to nine metres!

When your neuralware is linked, the kinetic memory blanket perfectly replicates the shape of your arms while the hyper-haptic-feedback lets you feel the weight of Baby, the warmth of Baby, and Baby’s movements – all operating within strict safety parameters so when you do nod off, the automatic pilot takes over, moulded and patterned after your body’s own rhythms, keeping Baby snug and sound and – most importantly – SAFE.

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) still accounts for 5 in 100,000—

Char pinged the advert away with a hard flick of the finger. Surely now they’d actually bought the bastard thing it would stop hounding her with flash sales and guilt trips. The hemp crate it arrived in was still sitting by the back door, still waiting for the padding moulds to dissolve so it could be chucked in the recycling. The box, more than the thing itself, reminded Char of its expense – all that stretched credit a twisting worry in her gut – and she would be glad when it was gone. It wasn’t just the actual cradle and software which had pushed them into the red – though it was bad enough – it was upgrading Hillary’s neuralware to use it which had really done the damage.

Char hadn’t needed any work done herself – her ’ware was top-spec, military grade brain-clock fibre. The Airforce techs had dug plenty of security bypass widgets from her when she’d been discharged – fine scars and barcode burns here and there on her skin stood as testament along with a replaced left eyeball – but they’d let her keep everything else. Bonus to compensate for the shit pension, or maybe it was just impossible to pull so much gear from somebody’s skull without shelling them. Either way, she would have no problem linking up to the cradle if she wanted to – but she hadn’t. Not yet.

You don’t wanna give it a go? Hillary asked. Gail was squirming and unsettled, probably windy judging from her angry tomato face. In the shade of the cot hood, she looked like she was floating, the dark folds of the kinetic blanket beneath her disappearing into shadow. She was curled onto her side, as if tucked in the crook of her mother’s arm. Even with its sleek egg shape and minimal design, Char could see the cradle’s war bones beneath the slick, home-friendly carapace – all its tech (and even neuralware itself) had trickled down from military R&D over the years. Its very shape made her think of flashfire gel bombs – at once aerodynamic but also wide to accommodate their sloshing chemical payload.

Char picked Gail up, smelled sweet-sour milk sick and that scent which emanated from her skin, full of a deep-seeping pheromone that made Char want to coddle and protect and cry. I’m not tired, I can hold her normally.

What d’you mean ‘normally’? Everyone’s got a cradle. Don’t say it like that. Hillary was drinking lukewarm coffee, eyes puffy, skin waxy in the weak daylight coming through the blinds.

Like what? I didn’t say it like anything.

You did, Charlene. You said it like it’s wrong or something.

I did not. Char bobbed Gail up and down, tried to aim her attention away from the potential argument.

"It’s not just to make things easier, you know, it’s safer."

I’ve seen the ads.

The coffee cup made a thud as it connected with a coaster. Char cringed at her own flippancy, immediately wishing she hadn’t said it. Of course Hillary wasn’t just parroting the ads. She’d trawled through articles, forums, manuals and medical journals on everything from cots to mattresses and even blanket materials for an answer which wasn’t there, though ROCK THE CRADLE™ seemed to be something close to it.

You of all people should be comfortable with this kind of thing. I don’t understand – Hillary broke off. This was the dead end of every argument. She would ask Char to talk about it, and Char would refuse.

The sun was coming up over the horizon behind the monolithic hump of Olympus Mons as they hit atmosphere, the dawn light bleeding onto its shining ice cap making it look as though it had erupted, setting the world on fire.

She felt ripples of resistance across her wingspan as she unfolded in the growing pressure. The CO gave the order – the voice crystal clear inside her head even as the thin air began to rush and thicken, turbulence threatening, and she turned up her thrusters. Coasting in zero G was fun but she lived for flight, proper flight, fighting against the world pulling you down, riding the surf of the air currents.

A powerful downbeat of her wings drove her upwards, the shadows of the squadron on her flanks darting up with her as they made contact with the clouds above the colony in the basin below.

That high, the solar domes of the settlement looked like marbles spilled on the red sand. For a moment she coasted, stalling, then she folded back her wings and dove.

The squadron went with her, mercury teardrops falling from the sky.

When Char first started waking in the night, screaming and thrashing, both of them were scared