Friday, July 25, 2014

New story at Daily Science Fiction: Jump, and I'll Catch You

My near-future SF story, 'Jump, and I'll Catch You', inspired partly by an abiding love of alien invasion stories and unreliable narrators, partly by a novel about the Tudors and partly by the Mad Cow Disease scare of the nineties, is out today at Daily Science Fiction.

Being Polite was like lying, but not the normal kind. If you were trying to pretend your sister had broken something when it was really you, that was normal lying and that was still wrong. This kind of lying was special, and it was only done because you wanted to make people happy, and have a nice time. Especially with Our New Friends.

Read the rest at Daily Science Fiction today!

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Star Quake 2

Very pleased to repot that my ghost story 'The Visiphorical Art' has been selected for the Star Quake 2, the second 'Best of' anthology from SQ Magazine. The first one looks great, so looking forward to this coming out!

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Latest story news

New story in Fantasy Scroll Magazine

My dark fantasy story 'The Fine Art of Fortune-Telling' which originally appeared in the Orbital Hearts anthology, has been reprinted in the wonderful Fantasy Scroll Magazine, and is now free to read here, alongside an excellent crop of 13 other stories, from the likes of Mike Resnick and Ferrett Steinmetz.

Having your name on the cover? NEVER gets old :)

The Fine Art of Fortune-Telling - Dark fantasy - 3,966 words
It clearly isn’t considered decent to try to duck out of your own mother’s memorial ceremony, especially in favour of a trip to Pizza Express. Even Alan’s tolerance has some limits. In my husband’s world, when your parents die you mark the occasion appropriately. And since I like his world and want to carry on living in it, that’s what I’ve agreed to do.


Reviews

My Strange Horizons story, 'Tomorrow, We'll Go Yak Herding' picked up a couple of nice reviews! Lois Tilton of Locus said: 'At it's heart, a story of comfort between friends' -- which is pretty much exactly spot on (my personal theme when writing this was 'Keep Calm And Phone Your Mates').  And Tangent gave it a Recommended, which was a great thrill.

It's always a bit nerve-wracking when a story goes out, and a massive relief to know that somebody likes it :)


Forthcoming stories

My SF story 'Jump, and I'll Catch You' will be published at Daily Science Fiction on Friday 25th July. You can subscribe to get the stories delivered by email, or read them at the website. This is one of my favourite stories, and I'm thrilled it found such a good home!