www.morpheustales.com remarkable story by Dev Jarrett; and “Legacy” by Richard Farren Barber, who gets better with every story. Picking four out of the thirteen stories on offer had me tearing my hair out; it’s so difficult to pick out just a handful of these exceptional stories. The creators of these stories are all in top form. I hate that I’m not a part of this magazine. I’m gutted. I wish I had a time machine, then I’d go back six months and sit down and write. Of course, I’d probably steal some of the brilliant ideas contained in this magazine if I did. Ripped Genes is an SF magazine that demands you read it. Check out the free preview and then go buy yourself a copy. You will not regret it. Cutting edge SF at its very best! Devilishly good stuff! By Stanley Riiks
RIPPED GENES: THE BIOPUNK SPECIAL ISSUE Edited By Samuel Diamond www.morpheustales.com I really wanted to hate this issue. For completely selfish and nasty reasons, I wanted to hate this magazine. I wanted to submit to it, I had some amazing ideas. Ideas that never made the transition from brain to page. For whatever reason (that thing some people call writers’ block and I call life), I didn’t make the deadline, although I had determined months before that I’d write something. In the end I wrote nothing, and because of that I didn’t want to like this issue. And you know what? Now I feel even worse. Because this is not just a good special issue, this is the kind of magazine that excites me (ok, not in that way, you perve!). It inspires me, it makes me want to write, it wakes up my brain! Filled with ideas, and bursting with sparkles of brilliance, the editor, Samuel Diamond, has delivered a treat. This is SF as it should be! There are far too few SF magazines out there. Morpheus Tales delivers a good share of horror, but the SF is sadly lacking. The small press for SF seems to have mostly dried up (forgive me if I’m wrong, but I’ve looked and I can’t find much). Which is why magazines like Ripped Genes: The Biopunk Special Issue are so important. It doesn’t just deliver, it delivers by the bucket load. There is not a bad story in this diverse bunch, but highlights for me were “Fishing the Life in Notochords” by Matt Leyshon, a writer who never fails to amaze me; “Baby Boom” by Alan Spencer, another writer I’m familiar with who shows time and time again that he’s more than just a blood and guts horror writer (although he does it so well); “Screaming Monkeys,” a
Free preview: http://issuu.com/morpheustales/docs/rippedg enes Buy the printed magazine: http://www.lulu.com/shop/samueldiamond/ripped-genes-the-biopunk-specialissue/paperback/product-20364897.html Buy an ebook: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/2 24661?ref=morpheustales APOCALYPSE ISLAND By Mark Edward Hall http://www.markedwardhall.com/ The opening scenes of this book are some of the most harrowing I have ever read. No joke. Hall manages to get inside the mind of someone in a bad, bad situation, and doesn’t shirk the responsibility. But I digress. The main narrative of Apocalypse Island follows Danny Wolf, a musician recently released from prison where he served time for a 2