Grimdark Magazine Issue 40 – By Scott Lynch

The marble eyes are long gone, replaced with buttons clipped from a naval blazer Somner found washed up on the shore. The koala toy belonged to his father. “Oh, you’re hungry. Is that it?” Somner stands, brushing crumbs to the floor. He crosses the narrow room to Stuffy, who rests on uneven peg legs in the corner, and offers a palm of empty air.

“Grub’s up,” Somner says. “Who’s a good boy? Yes, you are.” Someone shrieks. He bolts upright. Snatches his binoculars from beside the sword. Runs to the window. Yanks back the curtain to reveal another strategic gap between the boards. He puts a lens to the brightness and studies the boulevard. Two Apostles on horseback, hooves clopping a road pockmarked as an acne-scarred back, lift their axes, cheering, dragging a woman bound with rope.

She is still alive. The Apostles ride their horses round the corner. Elsewhere: distant gunfire tattoo. Somner doesn’t know who he is praying to anymore, but he prays. Just in case. Take her quick. He watches the waves for a while before closing the blinds. The ocean churns. A whisper in the tide tells him to come and surf again.

Before it’s too late. Come home. He grips his side, unable to tell if this feeling, this physical sensation, is just the dull throb of mourning what used to be, or the first stages of the turning. “No, Stuffy. I’m fine. Fuck. I said don’t worry, mate. Stop barking!” Somner shuffles upstairs.

Stairs groan under his weight—not that he’s heavy. He’s skeletal. Clothes hang off him like tree moss. It’s just that the house, like everything everywhere, is husking. Hollowing out. Rotting. A seagull has fallen through the shredded tarpaulin. He thinks it is dead until he picks it up. The bird squawks and tries to bite him, its unbroken wing flapping. Somner wrings its neck and sets it down. Later, he’ll boil off its lice, pluck it bald, stew it after dark.

After dark, always.

Project Starship: Materials Engineering Challenges in Dark Science Fiction Featuring Graham McNeill, Richard Swan, and Essa Hansen John Mauro All the Riches of Suffering Ben Galley The Absolute Aaron Dries Review: The Devils by Joe Abercrombie Sally Berrow Under Furious Skies Christopher Buehlman The Dreams of Wan Li Andrea Stewart An Interview with J. Michael Straczynski Beth Tabler Review: The Fury of the Gods by John Gwynne Emma Davis The Subtler Art Cat Rambo Mental Health in Fantasy and Science Fiction: A Changing Landscape Aaron S. Jones Stones Anna Smith Spark Locke Lamora and the Bottled Serpent Scott Lynch From the Editor in Chief Adrian Collins Ten years.

Forty Issues. Grimdark Magazine has come a long, long way since being an idea I used to help a mate practice doing business consulting work way back in 2013. A whiteboard, a six pack of beer, and an afternoon stuck in a room working through templates and client engagement practices is where this ezine started. A BFSA nominated, Reddit Stabby and Aurealis award-winning publication that is the stalwart of grimdark fiction is where we now stand, ten years later. Grimdark Magazine is about people, and I have a few to thank for what we’ve built over the last decade.

Our magazine is run by volunteers (myself included) and I am so incredibly fortunate to count people like our leadership team (Beth, Carrie, John, James, Sally, and Fiona) and our review team and our freelancers amongst my colleagues and friends. Past and present, they are the reason we are what we are now.

From Neil Clarke (Clarkesworld), who set my expectations on what it would be like to run a magazine (and remains an idol of mine, today), to Cheresse Burke, Layla Cummins, and Kyle Massa, our first ever team members, to our current team of around forty people, and everyone in between. Mark Lawrence, who was the first ever author to accept a solicitation pitch from me and sent over Bad Seed to be our cover story.

Mike Myers, who taught me so much about reading as a magazine owner, and not a fan.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 5387416024e7e49b
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 947,616 bytes (0.904 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 176
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 298.29 minutes
• Total Words: 59,657
• Total Characters: 330,769
• Average Words per Page: 338.96
• Average Characters per Page: 1879.37

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