Fantasy Scroll Magazine is an online, bi-monthly 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 #7 includes 9 short stories and one graphic story: "No Tale for Troubadours" - Pauline J. Alama "Hell of a Salesman" - Hank Quense "Beyond the Visible Spectrum" - Axel Taiari "Little Sprout" - Rebecca Roland "When the Dead Are Indexed" - Gary Emmette Chandler "Dragon Rodeo Queen" - Kate Sheeran Swed "The Adjunct" - Patricia S. Bowne "Outside In" - Anna Yeatts "Conversations with a Ghost" - Josh Vogt "Shamrock" - Josh Brown & Alberto Hernandez In the non-fiction section, this issue features: Interview with Author Tina Connolly Interview with Author Rachel Pollack Interview with Author Hank Quense Science Corner: 7 Things to Know About Mutations Book Review: A Princess of Mars (Edgar Rice Burroughs) Movie Review: EX_MACHINA (Alex Garland) 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.

To begin with, a strange but sweet story by Rebecca Roland, "The Monster on her Cheek."Next up, "Three Rules for Befriending Ghosts," by Benjamin Thomas, in which a ghost becomes a loyal companion. Then, an odd little tale of a pregnant house. Yes. That's correct. "Offspring" by Brenda Anderson.Finally, our recycled story for the month, "Devil Got You on Speed Dial" by H. L. Fullerton, which originally appeared in DarkFuse's Horror D'oeuvres. Plus a new edition of FXXK WRITING by Jason S. Ridler.

Rose has finally got her life in order with a great job managing her brother's restaurants, a promising future with her boyfriend, a niece on the way, and regular talks with her dead mother's spirit.Things start to go wrong when the centuries-old book of magic, a guide to necromancy for her and her family, becomes ill. Rose wonders if her frequent visits with her mother's spirit is harming the book, or if something more sinister might be going on. She enlists her cousin Josh's help since he's the only other necromancer around, but he has his own problems trying to fit in as the newest cook in her brother's restaurant.As the book's condition grows worse, Rose, Josh, and the rest of her family hurry to find a cure before they discover whether it's possible for a magic book to die.

The magic barrier protecting the Taakwa from their enemies, the Maddion, is gone. Malia, who led the Taakwa against the Maddion in the Dragon War, must convince the magical being, the changer, to repair the barrier before the Maddion invade to take revenge on her people and the winged Jeguduns who also call the valley home, even if it means reversing the healing the changer wrought for her. Chanwa, the wife of the Maddion leader, uses the disorder created by the changer to lead a coup against her husband in a desperate attempt to ensure she and the other Maddion women are treated as equals. Her life, and the future of every Maddion woman, depends on her success. Both women know the only way to succeed is to come together in an unlikely alliance.

FIVE STARS is the new Stupefying Stories sampler package. These five carefully selected stories from our earliest issues are all outstanding examples of the types of stories we like to see, because these are the types of stories we love to publish. Whether you're a new friend who's wondering whether to start following Stupefying Stories, an aspiring contributor wondering what we're looking for in submissions, or an old friend who just happened to miss these tales the first time around, check out FIVE STARS.

Rose has sworn off necromancy until a college statistics assignment sends her to a graveyard. Her entire grade depends on the assignment, so she uses her magic to convince the slackers in her group to help.When her powers don't work like they should, Rose discovers that there's another necromancer in Albuquerque whose inexperienced magic is affecting hers. Worse, she discovers there's a being called the Phantom who is devouring spirits and gunning for her and her powers.As if statistics weren't hard enough already, Rose has to track down this other necromancer and keep herself and her family safe from the Phantom.

The magic barrier protecting the Taakwa from their enemies, the Maddion, is gone. Malia, who led the Taakwa against the Maddion in the Dragon War, must convince the magical being, the changer, to repair the barrier before the Maddion invade to take revenge on her people and the winged Jeguduns who also call the valley home, even if it means reversing the healing the changer wrought for her. Chanwa, the wife of the Maddion leader, uses the disorder created by the changer to lead a coup against her husband in a desperate attempt to ensure she and the other Maddion women are treated as equals. Her life, and the future of every Maddion woman, depends on her success. Both women know the only way to succeed is to come together in an unlikely alliance.

Rose has reason to celebrate. She just graduated high school, she finally worked up the nerve to ask Roger on a date, and it looks like her family's necromancy skipped her.But then she finds the corpse of a homeless man behind her brother Ed's restaurant and inadvertently revives him. Not only has she inherited her family's necromancy after all, but it's the most potent form that exists. She wants nothing to do with the magic that drove her father to kill her mother and then himself, and so she refuses to read her family's book of magic or admit that she's anything but normal.However, her power attracts three lumenancers, or wielders of light, to Albuquerque to kill her. For centuries, they have believed it their sacred duty to wipe out necromancers. Not only are they eager to eliminate Rose, but they want to kill Ed, too, just to make sure he can't pass the magic on.Rose searches for a peaceful, mundane way to get the lumenancers to leave her alone, but when they threaten Ed, she must embrace her necromancy and all that the book of magic has to teach her.