Latest Story News!

OUT NOW

The latest round-up...


1. Where There's Magic (Fantasy - 6,980 words) - came out at Kaleidotrope

2. Sometimes You're the Windscreen, Sometimes You're the Fly (Fantasy - 878 words) came out in Issue 1 of Outlook Springs

3. Best Friends Forever (SF - 790 words) came out at Daily Science Fiction

4. My Sister, the Fairy Princess (Horror - 1,700 words) came out in Black Static Issue 52

5. I Am Not Your Doppelgänger (Fantasy 497 words) came out at The Flash Fiction Press

6. A Partial Inventory of Things I Have Loved (Fantasy - 973 words) came out at Flash Fiction Online

7. Wrong Word (SF - 817 words) was podcasted at Manwaker Studio

8. There You Are, My Love (Supernatural - 1,000 words) was podcasted at Manawaker Studio

9. Free to Loving Home (Donation Required) (SF - 729 words) was podcasted at Manawaker Studio

10. God State (SF - 1,400 words) came out at Daily Science Fiction

11. Legion (Horror - 1,667 words) was reprinted in Abstract Jam Issue 4



FORTHCOMING

1. Good, Fine, No (Horror - 2,308 words) will be published at Solarcide, 2016

2. The Shining Wire (SF - 4,406 words) will be published at The Sockdolager, 2016

3. Smash and Grab (SF - 3,037 words) will be reprinted in 9 Tales from Elsewhere, September 2016

4. Waiting to Burn (Fantasy - 700 words) will be reprinted in Spirit's Tincture, Nov 2016

5. Getting Shot in the Face Still Stings (Horror - 3,798 words) will be reprinted in Murder Mayhem from Flame Tree Publishing

6. For Your Safety and Comfort, Please Keep Arms, Legs and Tentacles Inside the Car At All Times  (Fantasy - 3,210 words) will be reprinted at Strange Constellations, March 2017

New story at DSF - God State

My 1,400-word SF story 'God State' is now free to read at one of my favourite magazines, Daily Science Fiction!

When you get to a certain age, conversations with your mates often turn into a nostalgia-fest about The Good Old Days — although it's usually debatable whether this idealised, romanticised past was better than the present at all. I tried to explore some of the ambiguity in this story — which is better here, the past or the present? I think it's still debatable.


God State - SF - 1400 words 
On the way out of the gig, I stop at the merchandise stall to get a t-shirt. I find one in my size and pull out my wallet, then hesitate. It looks good quality, but the colour — almost exactly the same blue as a scanner booth — puts me off. I read somewhere that they call that shade 'Spectral Indigo,' and ever since then it's given me a slight case of the creeps. 

 Read the rest at Daily Science Fiction

New Audio Story - Free to Loving Home at Manawker Studio

My SF flash piece, 'Free to Loving Home (Donation Required)', which was first published in the anthology You, Me, and a Bit of We by Chuffed Buff Books in October 2013, has been podcasted at Manawaker Studio.

The story was inspired by a news report on rescue centres for dogs, which made me wonder how that might work for humans. (The Hugh Everett Rehoming Centre, incidentally, is named for the American physicist who first came up with the Many Worlds theory of quantum physics). What if, when you lost a loved one, you could get a ‘rescued’ version? I started with the idea that it would be literally ‘free to a loving home’ but I couldn’t help thinking that such a place, even if it started out altruistically, would at some point be turned towards making a profit—and the rather cynical ‘donation required’ aspect began to take over.

Manawaker Studio have done a great recording -- the narrator has done a really good job of capturing the rather smarmy auctioneer's tone of this story -- the kind of 'I know this is illegal and horrible, but aren't we all having fun?' vibe.  Listen to it here