Edited by Jason Copple

Available from Jason Copple, 25 Avalon Pl, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8M 1R2

Also available in the UK, from Matthew Firth, 4-C Alexandra Pl, St Andrews, Fife, Scotland KY16 9XD £2.50 per issue, or £9 for four issues.

8.5" x 11", 44 pp, two-colour cover

ISSN 1480-6819

With so much horror fiction in the independent press, it's refreshing to come across something mostly mainstream. Front&Centre is a joint Canadian/UK literary magazine with a clean, monochrome layout. This issue kicks off with a feature on Maxim Jukabowski, followed by an excerpt from his latest, The State of Montana. Highly erotic, it's the best fiction in the magazine, but I'm not sure I could read a whole novel this intense.

The rest of the fiction doesn't quite reach such heights. Jennifer Footman's 'Sisters', an evocative tale of sexual awakening, and Colin Mackay's 'Sniper's Bridge', about the harsh realities of modern warfare, get close. The most enjoyable thing about Alex Zelenyj's 'Poppy, the Girl of My Dreams, and the Alien Invasion I Can Detect Like Radar Through My Braces' is the title. The story, a young-love version of Arthur C. Clarke's 'The Nine Billion Names of God', makes good use of dialogue, but ultimately (and appropriately) fizzles out.

Most of the stories are mainstream, though in 'Crow Teaches City Boy A Few Tricks' Michael Bryson uses fantasy to demonstrate the futility of study, and Heath Carra goes further into allegory with 'Indestructible', a story about a literal broken heart. Both of these are well done, but with open endings typical of a lot of experimental work.

Two pieces of flash fiction by Dan Buck, 'Better' and 'Hard', are presented back-to-back. These few sharp lines play with the language, and mildly amuse, but there's so little of them it's hard to get involved.

For me, the low point of the issue is 'First Sex' by David Williamson, in which two gays emerge from a London club and engage in fumbled oral sex on Hungerford Bridge. Unpleasant characters, foul language, and (shock-horror) bad grammar.

Foul language and dirty deeds also feature in Rob Payne's aptly titled 'Shit Night', in which a car full of dope-heads knocks down a young biker on a wet night. They bury the wrecked corpse and leave. There's no retribution, and no conclusion to the story. Doubtless this is realistic, but it doesn't make for satisfying fiction, no matter how well it's written.

Six pages of reviews of independently published books provide useful pointers to more in Front&Centre's 'alternative mainstream' style of fiction.

Copyright © 1999 Paul S. Jenkins

Note: This review originally appeared in Zene: The Definitive Guide to the World's Independent Press.