Patrick Whittaker Knihy

After having his spaceship wrecked by the dreaded finkumpoops, space pirate Captain Codswallop takes refuge on Earth and unwittingly brings three finkumpoops with him. The finkumpoops are small furry creatures called Fink, Um and Poop who as well as being technological geniuses are complete idiots. They have a habit of taking things apart and putting them back together again in such a way as to make them do things they were never meant to do. Because of the devastation they cause, planets known to be infested with finkumpoops are invariable blown to smithereens by a fleet of Gorbanian battlecruisers – a fate that awaits Earth unless something is done to rid it of finkumpoops. Robbie Callaghan is a schoolboy. The summer holiday has just begun and he is already bored. Forced to flee his house to escape the attention of a couple of doting spinsters, he stumbles upon Hobb's End, an old station that has been converted into a home-cum-workshop by a stage magician who goes by the name of Manfred the Magnificent. Come along on this adventure!

Theaker's Quarterly Fiction #54 features a new short story by Charles Wilkinson, "Septs," and an entire novella - complete in this issue! - by Patrick Whittaker, former winner of the BFS Short Story Competition. "The Policeman and the Silence" concerns a murder investigation in the weird town of Kaza-Blanka. The issue also includes a tremendously exciting editorial where Stephen (a) apologises for this issue being late, (b) discusses the conundrum of a publisher who doesn't pay their reviewers slamming people who don't pay other types of writer, and (c) looks back at his reading in 2015. The issue also includes thirty-one reviews, by Douglas J. Ogurek, Jacob Edwards and Stephen. They look at the work of Charles Chilton, Felicia Day, Warren Ellis, Johann Peter Hebel, K.J. Parker, Terry Pratchett, H.G. Wells, Royce Prouty, Malcolm C. Lyons, Pu Songling, Sam Dyer, Leo, Garth Ennis and John McCrea, Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener, CLAMP, Robbie Morrison and Brian Williamson, Keith Giffen and Robert Loren Fleming, Alexandro Jodorowsky and Zoran Janjetov, and Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra. Plus there are reviews of Ant-Man, Goosebumps, The Green Inferno, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2, Krampus, Star Wars: The Force Awakens (twice), The Visit, Trials Fusion Awesome Max Edition, Arrow Season 2, Doctor Who Season 9, and The Flash Season 1. The cover art is by Howard Watts.