TTMC

So, this very nice young lady called Coral King sent me a copy of a magazine which was going spare because it had a smudged cover, and she decided it was better to give it away than pulp. Coral edits The Thinking Man's Crumpet with Caroline Callaghan. The title I believe comes from a moniker once hung on Joan Bakewell (more into Kylie Minogue myself, so guess I don't qualify as a thinking man - ho hum), and the magazine's stated aim is to 'promote new and interesting female writers', but they're not zealots about it and allow a couple of blokes between the covers in No.2, so the male writers who pretended to be women to get published in QWF needn't take their long blonde wigs and mascara out of the vanity chest just yet.

The cover doesn't look that bad, and a less scrupulous publisher would have probably tried to kid readers it was intentional and sell the smudged copies as collectors' items. It's a rather icky image of a heart with ants crawling over it; either that or I retract my remark about the smudging. The magazine has an old school feel to it, bringing to mind memories of the DIY jobbies that dominated the small press back in the 80s, before we all became so infatuated with DTP and POD. It looks cheap, but then it only costs £2.50, so horses for courses. With pink paper, varying fonts and some eclectic illustrations TTMC has a fun, anything goes feel to it.

Where they could do with being a bit more serious is in proofreading. Typos averaged out at one or two a story, until we get to the male contributors, when it inexplicably soared. In Tim Jeffreys' story, speech often gets closed with a comma; in A J Kirby's apostrophes are often replaced with a curious little squiggle I can't recall the name for. What's going on? Have the cunning female geniuses behind this publication opted to pursue their feminist agenda by making us guys look punctuation challenged? The fiends

The magazine's remit covers all genres, though the editors express a preference for horror, science fiction and erotica, and most of the stories seems to fall into the first two categories with a liberal dash of the third.

Delicious by Sam Crosby starts as erotica, as two lovers liven up their sex life by introducing foodplay into the proceedings. Eventually though things turn questionable, as you start to wonder about the psychology of the participants and whether 'I'm full' could pass muster as a safe phrase. And then they turn very nasty. The erotic bit was a definite turn on, with some vivid descriptive writing and no holds barred, and the horror was a definite turn off, with one or two icky images that completely cooled my ardour, so I would say the story did what it was supposed to. I've wondered before if erotic horror is self-defeating by announcing its intentions in the brand name, but in this case the magazine's openness to genre bypassed that trap. I couldn't help thinking though, that there might have been an even more substantial story here, if the writer had discarded the gore and instead gone for the psychological horror approach, with the man force feeding the woman for his own gratification.

Anna Stephens' Bad Intentions is part of an ongoing series chronicling the adventures of a secret agent in the future. This particular episode is set in the Orgy Palace, and yes there is an orgy, and very lively stuff it is too, even if some of the participants aren't human. It certainly kept my interest, although I'm not quite convinced of the necessity to the plot of the Orgy Palace setting, which seemed like a shameless attempt at titillation (and if so, mission accomplished - it's an observation, not a criticism), but things may become clearer in a future episode.

The protagonist of 2AM by Sharon Washington is stalking her victim in the hours after midnight, and it soon becomes transparent as to who/what the protagonist is, and the kind of resolution we can expect, but by way of compensation it all gets rather lively as the climax approaches.

We Are Three by Tim Jeffreys doesn't have any sex in it. Three people are in a row boat - The It, the Super and the never named narrator - sailing from port to port and being refused permission to land for various reasons. This in turn leads to conflict between the three of them, and a neat twist at the end. I suspect the three represent aspects of the human psyche (Super-Ego and, erm, whatever we have besides a Super-Ego), but I can't be bothered to find out, and the story works at whatever level you care to take it.

A J Kirby's Skeleton in the Closet is told from the perspective of the skeleton, observing and commenting on her killer's character and amorous activities, which may or may not involve another death. Imagine Poe's The Black Cat, as told by the cat. It's a clever conceit and Kirby handles it well, the idea having enough substance to grab the attention but not outstaying its welcome. There's a nice touch of ambiguity too and possibly pertinent observations about the stunted personalities of some men who use porn that I am not going near with a bargepole

Marie O'Regan is featured author, and probably the best known and most accomplished of the magazine's contributors. In World Without End she cleverly builds what at first blush appears to be a simple tale of a young girl losing her teeth into one of global apocalypse. You can take this in several ways - as simply an externalisation of the girl's feeling that tooth loss is a monumental catastrophe, or as an actual scenario in which the macrocosm reflects the microcosm (and tempting to wonder if the girl represents Gaia). Either way, the idea is intriguing, and the story well written, managing to hold the attention all the way and make us suspend disbelief.

Stories aren't the be all and end all. There's other stuff too. A poem by Roswell Ivory. Reviews by Coral King of the first two Black Books of Horror and an interview Caroline Callaghan did with the editor Charles Black. Snippets of information about books and websites the editors have enjoyed.

This isn't a magazine that is going to have the mainstays of the UK small/indie press quaking in their boots for fear of the competition, but I don't think that's the intention. It's Coral and Caroline having fun, while pursuing their dream/agenda, and hoping the rest of us will as well, which is fair enough.

Last time I commented on a female-centric magazine I got told that I was patronising  So how'd I do this time?