Since the first issue was released on 10 April 2011, Schlock! Webzine has consistently featured some of the best science fiction, fantasy and horror stories on the internet. Editor Gavin Chappell has since accrued a motley collection of writers and artists, all determined to make Schlock! Webzine a force to be reckoned with.
And now, we present you with the best stories hailing from the first volume of Schlock! Webzine. Inside you will find monsters and killers, saviours and saints. You will see visions of the future and depictions of the past, alternate realities and alternate personae. The birth of a genre... and the future of several more.
In the gloomy summer of 1816, a motley collection of poets, exiles, and adulterers gathered at the Villa Diodati on the shores of Lake Geneva...
Fantasmagoriana: a collection of Gothic tales by Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John William Polidori, all originating in a night of ghost storytelling.
Contains the complete FRANKENSTEIN and Polidori’s influential THE VAMPYRE, plus Gothic works by Byron, Shelley, and Mathew ‘Monk’ Lewis.
"Hamish awoke with a start. Darkness and dead white faces, loud noise and cloying, exotic scents assailed him from all sides: a scene rivalling Dante’s Inferno. For a moment, he didn’t know where he was...."
Going Underground tells the story of three teenage runaways, Hamish, Eloise and Nick, whose adventures expose them to the seamier side of supernatural Britain.
Encounters with black magicians, vampire cultists and Neo-Nazi mystics culminate in a quest for the Celtic Grail, located in the depths of the planet itself, with which their enemy Tybalt Kohl hopes to resurrect the Third Reich...
‘A STATE OF EMERGENCY HAS BEEN DECLARED AND A CURFEW WILL BE IMPOSED IN THE CAPITAL BETWEEN 1800 HOURS AND 0700 HOURS... WE MUST CRACK DOWN ON THESE INSURGENTS WHOSE ACTIONS THREATEN DEMOCRACY ITSELF.’
In a terrifying England of the near future, Will's chance reencounter with his old tutor plunges him into a world of political demonstrations and police brutality.
Persuaded by activist Daisy Rae to take direct action, Will is horrified to find society descending into chaos as a result. He and his friends embark upon a nightmare flight through the London streets that swarm with rogue members of the security forces.
The country's last chance for liberty lies in a deserted hotel room in Shepherds Bush. But what chance does Will have of getting Professor Quigley's Manifesto to Oxford before civil war erupts?
In June of 2011, I started to take my long-dormant hobby of writing seriously and one year later, you now hold this book in your hands. It is an anthology: an amalgam of short stories, poetry, novelettes, and lyrics, put together under one cover for your convenience, updated and revised from their original incarnations.
Oh, and this book is meant to scare you.
You will turn the pages slowly, afraid of what might come next. You will cringe at a characters' plight, or marvel at evil's triumph. There are monsters, menaces, and an ambiguous demon more human than you or I. There is heartache, pain, suffering, and torture contained in these pages.
But muddled in the bog and quagmire of despair, there is hope, whimsy, and exoneration. There is redemption for those who deserve it. The weak become strong. Heroes are born.
On 3 June 2012, Schlock! Webzine announced the TIMELESS WORLDS competition, open to all readers of the zine. This anthology is the result; the winning entries of the contest are published alongside the best stories of the previous few months.
Inside you will find tales of other worlds, some beyond the stars, others a shadow's breadth away from our own: a horror writer whose ambition leads him to the ultimate horror; a story of love and replicants; intergalactic boxing champs; abuse and revenge; demonic justice; homelessness and hidden roads; dying planets; high class horror; worlds of hope and despair; a noirish quest for justice in an alternative cyberspace.
