© The Stygian Lepus
The first part of my science-fictional horror story Appopolis Now has recently been published in Edition 30 of the Stygian Lepus, a magazine where, to quote the current blurb on its website, “the shadows don’t fall – they think, watching you from the edges of perception.” As with all my stories that are dark and fantastical in tone, the story is attributed to the penname Jim Mountfield.
Appopolis Now is set in the future and imagines a society that’s slightly more high-tech than the one we will live in at the moment. It’s also a society that’s… Well, perhaps not dystopian, but definitely Cronenbergian. (Wow, I have just typed ‘Cronenbergian’ and the Spelling & Grammar checker hasn’t put a red line under it. That must mean it’s a recognised English adjective now, like ‘Orwellian’, ‘Kafkaesque’ and ‘Ballardian’.) If you’re familiar with the works of Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg, that should give you some idea about what to expect.
Edition 30 of the Stygian Lepus contains 14 pieces of macabre, disturbing and unorthodox short fiction and, for the next month, can be accessed here.