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FARthing: Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror - January 2007 - issue 5
01/04/2007 . Source: Eamonn Murphy 
pub: Farthing Magazine, PO Box 49752, London WC2E 9WW. 74 A5 magazine. Price: £ 3.00 (UK), $ 6.00 (US). ISSN: 1752-8208. Buy FARthing in the USA - or Buy FARthing in the UK  check out website: www.farthingmagazine.com
'FARthing' is a magazine of Science Fiction, fantasy and horror short stories published and edited by Wendy Bradley. Except for a brief editorial, it is exclusively fiction and has no news, no interviews with actors, no celebrity photographs and no illustrations except the one on the front cover. Its seventy odd pages are devoted to new stories. There are eight complete short stories and a few 'Farthing drabbles', hundred word amusing short shorts.
'The Secret Of The Squick' by David Taub is set in a distant future where mankind mingles with many alien cultures. A tax inspector who slept with his boss' wife is posted to a very unpleasant alien planet where he discovers a sex secret. He takes it home and the story ends with a sort of comedy catastrophe that is a delight. Feminists should love it and was my favourite story in the magazine, more because I'm a Science Fiction fan than for any deep-rooted feminist instincts.
All the other stories are fantasy, ranging from the conventional to the downright odd.
Among the conventional, I particularly liked 'Seeing Is' by Craig Wolf. A fantasy about a nine year-old boy who encounters a talking evil eye while walking to the swimming pool one day. The eye knows everyone's secrets and is happy to divulge them to young Jody. This is the kind of story Stephen King might write on one of his better days.
'Divining Rod And Countess' by Christopher East features a man called Rod who can 'divine' where anything is (he just knows) and his friend Caroline who counts things. He can tell you where those lost nail-clippers have gone. She can walk into a packed library and tell you instantly how many books are in it. They sell their skills for a fixed fee, going from door to door cold calling on rich men. The story is a 'slice of life' rather than a traditional dramatic construction but I enjoyed it anyway.
'Transition' has a woman using music to get away from it all, literally. It depends heavily on atmosphere and perhaps doesn't quite get the atmosphere right. To get it dead right, however, would require the vocabulary and skill of Lovecraft or Clark Ashton Smith. Steve Vance has a pretty good go.
At the weirder end of the spectrum are a talkative toolbox and a some words describing their lifestyle. These stories are indescribable and must be read firsthand but both are well written and sort of fun. In fact, all the stories demonstrate writing of extraordinary quality. Polished jewels like this don't pay off like three volume fantasy novels but I'm glad they're still being produced and I'm glad Wendy Bradley has provided an outlet for them.
'Interzone' is the last mainstream resource for short fantastic fiction in this sceptred isle, just as 2000AD is the last mainstream serious comic. I like the latter, I haven't read the former for ages so cannot make any valid criticism of it. But it's certainly nice to have a plucky little British magazine like this available, too, even though some of the contributors are from the other side of the pond.
It's reasonably priced and high quality stuff. Subscribe, Englishmen, and keep this treasure going!
Eamonn Murphy
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