Alex Acks

James Beamon

William Ledbetter

Is there a better way to start a story than "No sh!t, there I was..."? If you hear that phrase, perk up, because you know you're in for a heck of a tale. That's how all the craziest - and most interesting - stories start. And then we told a bunch of authors to make sure their stories started with that very phrase Grab a pint of your favorite beverage and gather round. We've got two dozen stories here to horrify, amuse, and mystify, each with their very own illustration. Hard to believe, but no sh!t... there I was.

No Sh!t, There I Was

Melvin Morrow has become a barbarian warrior maiden. Will he be able to escape this new, dangerous world and the chainmail bikini he foolishly chose as his armor or will he and his friends be stuck living their lives as their game avatars? Melvin's a teenage boy not used to being ogled or the real world consequences of wearing a steel bikini. But the real world has shifted... him, his friends Jason and Rich, and his big brother Mike are stuck in character, in a place where danger doesn't lurk because it prefers to boldly stride out in the open. Mages import game players like Melvin via the Rift Pendulum. The reason: the work's suicidal and pendulum heroes are insanely powerful. Usually. Melvin and his friends can be, too, if they're in the right emotional state to trigger into character. Melvin's a one-man, uh, one warrior maiden army when he's angry but anger's hard to find with all that mortal danger striding around everywhere. The road back home's at the end of a suicidal quest. Melvin better find something to rage about... because being genre-savvy only gets you so far. Pendulum Heroes, James Beamon's debut novel, is an adrenaline fueled adventure for anyone who's spent a little too much time on the character creation screen instead of playing the game, those of us who have thought just how godmode we'd be with mage power, but mostly it's for all of us who have wondered who the heck installs a portal to another world in a wardrobe. Fans of Ernest Cline and Scott Meyer will find a lot to love in this new series.

Pendulum Heroes

Alex Shvartsman

Piers Anthony

Alvaro Zinos-Amaro

Anna Yeatts

Fantasy Scroll Magazine is an online, quarterly publication featuring science fiction, fantasy, horror, and paranormal short-fiction. The magazine’s mission is to publish high-quality, entertaining, and thought-provoking speculative fiction. With a mixture of short stories, flash fiction, and micro-fiction, Fantasy Scroll Magazine aims to appeal to a wide audience. Issue #3 includes 13 short stories: "Descant" — Piers Anthony "The Peacemaker" — Rachel A. Brune "My Favorite Photos of Anne" — Aaron Polson "Verisimilitude" — Alan Murdock "Orc Legal" — James Beamon "Kindle My Heart" — Rebecca Birch "Burn in Me" — Carrie Martin "The Memory-Setter's Apprentice" — Alvaro Zinos-Amaro "Hither and Yon" — Anatoly Belilovsky "The Contents of the Box with the Ribbon" — David Neilsen "The First First Fire" — Alexander Monteagudo "Missing Tessa" — Anna Yeatts "The Perfect Book" — Alex Shvartsman In the non-fiction section, this issue features: -Interview With Author Piers Anthony -Interview With Author and Publisher Anna Yeatts -Interview With Editor Scott H. Andrews -Artist Spotlight: Suebsin Pulsiri -Book Review: Upgraded (edited by Neil Clarke) -Movie Review: The House That Dripped Blood (1971) (Peter Duffell) The magazine is open to most sub-genres of science fiction, including hard SF, military, apocalyptic & post-apocalyptic, space opera, time travel, cyberpunk, steampunk, and humorous. Similarly for fantasy, we accept most sub-genres, including alternate world, dark fantasy, heroic, high or epic, historical, medieval, mythic, sword & sorcery, urban fantasy, and humorous. The magazine also publishes horror and paranormal short fiction.

Fantasy Scroll Magazine Issue #3

What Does a Future Without Police Look Like? In 2020, protesting citizens issued the cry to “defund the police.” But what does that mean? We challenged science fiction authors the world over to give us their vision of a world without police and fair systems of justice. In this collection you’ll find eleven stories showing alternate forms of law enforcement and criminal justice spread across near future, alternate realities and different worlds. Explore places where everyone in the community takes a part to bring justice to killers and citizens step into the role of Mr. Rogers to be good neighbors and resolve disputes. Find worlds where the errant are helped to redemption and a future where a modern angst-ridden cop’s mind is blown. This anthology shows you what “defund the police” can look like. We invite you to take a journey into social landscapes you may not have thought possible.

James Beamon

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