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Mythaxis

Established in 2008, Mythaxis is an all-digital speculative fiction magazine, forever free to read -

30/12/2024

Issue 40 of Mythaxis Magazine is out now!

https://mythaxis.co.uk/issue-40/
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FICTION
Downsizing – Jess Simms
The Vanishing Diminutive Girl Trick – David Sheskin
The Amazing Mermaid – Arlen Feldman
Crunch Thump Thump – P.R. O'Leary
American Hitsuzen – Michael Bettendorf
Wendigo – Kirk Bueckert

NON-FICTION
Cruel is the Night, by Karo Hämäläinen – a review by Bill Ryan
Short Reviews, Crime Fiction in 2024 – by Andrew Leon Hudson
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All six stories land with audio versions in place, courtesy of Micah Hyatt, so pick your poison! And to receive inbox editions of future issues, why not sign up for editor Andrew Leon Hudson's four-emails-a-year mailing list here: http://j.mp/ALH-MailingList

30/12/2024

Downsizing – Jess Simms

https://mythaxis.co.uk/issue-40/downsizing.html

Startups are the crucible of the modern business world, where futures are forged, fortunes are made and lost, careers take off or go down in flames, and pressure can be both the fuel and the fire. Jess Simms takes us to another fledgling C-suite, the place where the hard decisions have to be made. You know, you can't spell ‘executive’ without… breaking a few eggs.

30/12/2024

The Vanishing Diminutive Girl Trick – David Sheskin

https://mythaxis.co.uk/issue-40/the-vanishing-diminutive-girl-trick.html

Sometimes you hear the voice of a story in your head as you're reading. Never was there a stronger example of that magic than David Sheskin's short, sly, wall-of-text yarn, which packs more into a piece of flash fiction than words have any right to. For more evidence, I give you our audio version: passed from editor to producer with narry a note, and it sounds exactly the way I imagined it.

30/12/2024

The Amazing Mermaid – Arlen Feldman

https://mythaxis.co.uk/issue-40/the-amazing-mermaid.html

From classic greats like Freaks and Nightmare Alley we get the enticing notion of the travelling carnival as a home to the abandoned, the desperate, the reviled, the unloved: a found family of outsiders, who in turn treat as outsiders the punters they lure in with promises of salacious thrills. Arlen Feldmen mines these rich depths to strike a tragic vein, as one person’s opportunity to build a new life only leaves ’em wanting more…

30/12/2024

Crunch Thump Thump – P.R. O'Leary

https://mythaxis.co.uk/issue-40/crunch-thump-thump.html

When your friend stands at the cliff’s edge, do you ever feel the echo of an urge to push, though you never would? When the wedding gets to ‘speak now or forever hold your peace’ are you tempted to raise your voice, even if you have no reason to? Could be everyone experiences something like that at a point in their life – P. R. O’Leary maybe more often than many.

30/12/2024

American Hitsuzen – Michael Bettendorf

https://mythaxis.co.uk/issue-40/american-hitsuzen.html

American creatives… always slotting the word ‘American’ into their titles. Psycho. Graffiti. Hustle. Idiot. Why do they do it? We’ll never know. And in this case? Well, it turns out ‘hitsuzen’ is a Japanese term more or less meaning ‘according to a plan’. So when Michael Bettendorf calls this ‘American Hitsuzen’, is he saying…? No. No, he couldn’t be.

30/12/2024

Wendigo – Kirk Bueckert

https://mythaxis.co.uk/issue-40/wendigo.html

One of the things the editor enjoys in a good horror story is uncertainty regarding the how real the horror is. Was Jack Torrance haunted by the Overlook Hotel, or merely an unstable man descending into murderous psychopathy? Stripped of its supernatural trappings The Shining would be a crime story - and here Kirk Bueckert gives us a similarly borderline case study to consider.

30/12/2024

Cruel is the Night, by Karo Hämäläinen – a review by Bill Ryan

https://mythaxis.co.uk/issue-40/cruel-is-the-night-karo-hamalainen-review.html

Bill Ryan’s biannual sojourn returns him to these shores to receive a seasonally warm welcome, once again to expose us to his thoughts on an example of crime novel writing – or should that be ‘criminal’? Best let him decide.

30/12/2024

Short Reviews, Crime Fiction in 2024 – by Andrew Leon Hudson

https://mythaxis.co.uk/issue-40/short-reviews-crime-fiction-in-2024.html

Bringing both our issue and the year to a resounding close, it is the editor's pleasure to introduce a number more crime stories published elsewhere in 2024 to the reader's attention. So, if the six tales you've found here have but whet your appetite, let's make it an even dozen with four firm recommendations and a couple of not-bads!

01/10/2024

Issue 39 of Mythaxis Magazine is out now!

https://mythaxis.co.uk/issue-39/
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FICTION
Tintype Trolls – Teresa Milbrodt
The Note Affixed to Your Cryotube – Steven Genise
Cottage in the Woods – Carl Walmsley
With Nothing Left – Emma Burnett
Pillars of Distraction – Rob Gillham

NON-FICTION
Jungle House, by Julianne Pachico - a review by Mattia Ravasi
Short Reviews, July to September 2024 - by Andrew Leon Hudson
___

The first story of this issue already features an audio version in the page - in the weeks ahead audio for the other stories will appear as well! When they're all live we'll send out an email containing all the links, so if you'd like to receive that you can sign up for editor Andrew Leon Hudson's four-emails-a-year mailing list here:
http://j.mp/ALH-MailingList

01/10/2024

Tintype Trolls - Teresa Milbrodt

https://mythaxis.co.uk/issue-39/tintype-trolls.html

The editor has often (too often) argued the case that speculative fiction's strength is in letting authors tell stories that could also work in a more mundane context, just in ways that strict adherence to realism wouldn't allow. However, that startlingly hot take carries the implication of Going Big, of souping up normality with monsters or lasers or magic swords - instead, as Teresa Milbrodt shows, a touch of fantasy can serve to highlight the everyday experience instead of seeking to reach beyond it.

01/10/2024

The Note Affixed to Your Cryotube - Steven Genise

https://mythaxis.co.uk/issue-39/the-note-affixed-to-your-cryotube.html

There's always a place for epistolary fiction at Mythaxis – there's something special about a story which is also the document itself. Hope I haven't written that before. Anyway, now Steven Genise adds to our little cache of documentation. Have you ever woken up to find a message waiting for you? Evidence of existence going on, in a sense, without you?

01/10/2024

Cottage in the Woods - Carl Walmsley

https://mythaxis.co.uk/issue-39/cottage-in-the-woods.html

Stories change with the telling, even those that find their origin in actual events. Who tells the story? Why do they tell it? Who do they tell it to? Carl Walmsley tells the story now. Probably it never really happened. Probably you think you've heard it before, or one very like it. But a little change can keep the oldest of stories alive seemingly forever.

01/10/2024

With Nothing Left - Emma Burnett

https://mythaxis.co.uk/issue-39/with-nothing-left.html

'What is this thing you humans call X?' A question structure as old as Star Trek itself, if not even older. Not to continue harping on about how great spec-fic is, but is there a better way to explore emotions than through someone who, supposedly, has none? Emma Burnett adds more bittersweet evidence to the pile.

01/10/2024

Pillars of Distraction - Rob Gillham

https://mythaxis.co.uk/issue-39/pillars-of-distraction.html

Things are going pretty great these days, right? Well, maybe if you're one of those cockroaches waiting to inherit the earth they are, since the upright primates are either actively making that happen or passively letting it. 'Que sera, sera' as they say - or, as Rob Gillham might put it, 'Que sera, Seratoxetine'…

01/10/2024

Jungle House, by Julianne Pichico - a review by Mattia Ravasi

https://mythaxis.co.uk/issue-39/jungle-house-julianne-pichico-review.html

Will there come a time when, desperate for insights about contemporary speculative fiction, we won't have to turn to the flesh-and-blood likes of Mattia Ravasi but will instead enjoy the tender educational services of no-longer-artificial intelligences? Hopefully not, because who knows what effect that will have on us – though Julianne Pachico might have a few ideas.

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