Even though the UK’s Murky Depths #8 is out already, I’m just now getting caught up with #7. Everything I said about this magazine in my review of Murky Depths #5 applies in spades to this issue — edgy content, handy format, and super-slick presentation and design. If there were more magazines that looked like this on store shelves we might all be singing a different tune when it comes to the future of short fiction print venues.
Murky Depths has strong shelf appeal — and that always starts with a good looking cover. This issue has one of my favorites, a biplane confronting some strange, colossal creature; and the first feature of the magazine is an interview with the artist behind the image, Chris Moore. Many artists are featured in this issue, which includes a section of biographies of artists and illustrators involved in past and future issues of the magazine. That, combined with the excellent level of interior illustrations and graphic features, make Murky Depths a real feast for the eyes.
Comic strips include “Flashback” from regular Murky contributor Luke Cooper, and James Johnson and Leoanrd M. Giron’s “A Brief History of Dogfighting,” which treats us to an escalation of aerial combat technology from the first thrown brick in WWI to biogenic craft fighting in deep space. My favorite is probably the darkly weird “Bite the Bullet,” again from James Johnson with art by Denis Packer, which shows us what happens when a man literally eats his gun.
There is some strong fiction in this issue. One of my favorites was “Scratch” by Jason Palmer, a story of a nasty future in which an irresistible itching disorder — which tends to result in people scratching whole limbs off — has infected the human race. Other standouts in a very good mix of stories include Willie Meikle’s fractured “Viewer’s Choice,” the mysterious epistolary tale “The Longest Road in the Universe” from C.S. MacCath, and the gritty flash piece “Survivalist” by Kevin Brown. My own flash fiction piece “A Healthy Outlook” is in there, too, accompanied by a very cool illustration from Ricky Martin.
For a more in depth review of this issue have a look at Gareth D. Jones’ review over at SF Crowsnest.
