Category: News

New Zealand is currently in lockdown due to the global pandemic. While this state of affairs continues, we will not be sending out any physical orders. While the Random Static store will remain open (pre-orders for Comics & Stories are particularly welcome!), we have no idea how long it will be before we’re able to resume shipping. Expect delays of at least weeks, and quite possibly months. In the meantime, we hope you and those you care about all make it safely through the present crisis.

Update: we’re now shipping again, but it’s likely that the postal service will take longer than usual to complete deliveries.

As you can see, Random Static has a brand new website! This long overdue revamp was carried out for us by the wonderful folks at DragonByte. We’re very pleased with the new look, and the site should be easier to use as well – especially for anyone viewing it on their phone. Please let us know if you encounter any teething problems.

Barking Death Squirrels author Doug Van Belle has not one but two film projects in the works. Orion 66 is based on the SJV-nominated novella The Jackal’s Waltz, which is a prequel to Barking Death Squirrels and deals with humanity finding its place in a universe where you’re either predator – or prey. The film is being directed by the multiple-award-winning James Cunningham.

Van Belle is also working on the pilot for the SF comedy Johnny Ruckus, to be filmed at Avalon Studios in Lower Hutt. The pilot is mostly funded, but is running a Kickstarter campaign to raise the rest. We think an NZ-made SF show from a talented writer would be fantastic – support it if you can!

Random Static Ltd is pleased to announce the table of contents for Regeneration: New Zealand Speculative Fiction II. Once again, we have a fantastic range of stories by talented authors, and we look forward to sharing them with you.

• Last Harvest – Matt Cowens
• Rescuing the Airmen – Tim Jones
• Hunting Ythan – Mary Brock Jones
• The Mistress of Fishes – O.J. Cade
• Max’s Black Box – Grace Bridges
• In a World Full of Birds – I.K. Paterson-Harkness
• Insomnia – Kylie Thorne
• The Spectre Spectrum – Debbie Cowens
• Carving Out a Life – J.C. Hart
• Kiwi or Queenie – Jennifer Compton
• Emptying Roesler – Simon Petrie
• Tapping the Skin of the World – Anna Smith
• Doorway – Rebecca Harris
• Monocarpic Colony Blues – Elizabeth Gatens
• Harvesting the Gyre – Jonathan James Todd
• The Origami Tree – A.J. Fitzwater
• Evacuation – Fran Atkinson
• Splintering – Anna Caro
• Mother’s Milk – Dan Rabarts
• Cave Fever – Lee Murray
• Coat – Grant Stone
• Ren – Toni Wi

Regeneration is due to be launched on the 12th of July at Au Contraire 2013 – watch this space for more details and pre-order information.

We know a number of stories have been hindered by the busy-season, so we’re extending the deadline until January 31st. If you’re part way through a story but haven’t had chance to finish it off, or have an idea for a new one, here’s your chance. If you’ve already submitted, remember we do accept multiple submissions – whilst we’re very unlikely to select both, having two good stories in the mix does increase your chances.

To recap, we are looking for submissions of short speculative fiction (10 000 words or under) on the theme “regeneration” by New Zealand authors. All submissions selected for the anthology will receive paid publication, author’s copies of the anthology, and for those who are members of Au Contraire 2013, the chance to win additional prizes, including a grand prize of $500 in book vouchers. Full guidelines are at https://randomstatic.submittable.com/submit.

To those who have already submitted by the original deadline, thank you for your patience. We are working on keeping up with reading as submissions come in, so we don’t expect news on the result will be too much later than it would otherwise have been.

Submissions are now open for a second volume of NZ speculative fiction, provisionally titled Regeneration. This is a followup to the award-winning collection A Foreign Country, and will again be edited by Anna Caro and Juliet Buchanan. As with the first volume, we’re running a short story competition for inclusion in the anthology in conjunction with the National SF Convention – enter here. Membership of the convention is not required, but the anthology is limited to NZ citizens or residents.