"The Elves Hate You" by Matthew Bey
"Hamlyn" by Paul Haines
"Samhain: Lessons from the Dead" by Lesleigh Force
"The Facts of the Van Helsing Case" by Stephen Dedman
"Tangled" by Martin Livings
"Suffer the Little Children" by Rowena Cory Daniells
"The Hobbyist" by Lee Battersby
"An Alien Abduction" by Mark Patrick Lynch
"Body and Soul Art" by Eugie Foster
"Corpus Christi" by Dirk Flinthart
"The Memory of Breathing" by Lyn Battersby

The Best of Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine: Horror collects its darkest fiction from issues one to eighteen. Of those stories listed in the table of contents, there was only one not previously reviewed by Tangent. Links below will take you to the review of each story in the ASIM issue in which it was originally published.

"The Elves Hate You" by Matthew Bey
"Hamlyn" by Paul Haines
"Samhain: Lessons from the Dead" by Lesleigh Force
"The Facts of the Van Helsing Case" by Stephen Dedman
"Tangled" by Martin Livings

First, a biased opinion: little kids are creepy. Rowena Cory Daniells subtly hammers this home in "Suffer the Little Children," a story of an old widow, her remaining days in Australia, and the goannas that dwell in the bush. Tension builds from thoroughly detailed prose, and following our sad, stooped l’il protagonist around as she half-heartedly chases off naked neighborhood children is surprisingly haunting.

Daniells first presents the children as mere nuisances, a sliver dangerous and a splinter offbeat, but the focus then shifts from them to their skunk-drunk, rampaging father. Then, not so quietly, we’re back with the kids, but no longer on their side, and it is this staggering shift that really makes the story work. Horror is a genre that depends heavily on mood, more so than blood and guts. While some of the latter does make an appearance, it is the thick, alarming realization that all of this could actually happen that really grabs hold. It is the widow’s reactions, so genuine and abating, that really stick with the reader.

Straightforward storytelling that doesn’t exactly get its feet until the end, "Suffer the Little Children" has the makings of one harrowing nightmare, and for that I recommend horror fans worldwide to check it out.

"The Hobbyist" by Lee Battersby
"An Alien Abduction" by Mark Patrick Lynch
"Body and Soul Art" by Eugie Foster
"Corpus Christi" by Dirk Flinthart
"The Memory of Breathing" by Lyn Battersby

Publisher: Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine
Price: $10.00 (AUD, approx. $8 USD)
PDF eBook: 127 pages