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The final tally is in – a total of 38 publications this year. I am amazed. Last year was my previous best at 16 publications. This year’s total includes:
7 flash ficiton stories
2 twitter ficton stories
21 translations
15 languages – 11 of them new this year
My 1st anthology appearance
4 reprints
2 reprinted translations
1 non-fiction article
I suspect I won’t be outdoing that next year!
The biggest milestone in my writing this year – in fact the biggest of my writing carrer so far – was the completion of my first novel Roadmaker. I wrote ‘The End’ in March, then after much editing and revising sent it to its first agent in September. After that I started work on my second novel Gap Years and I’m over 10,000 words in so far.
The next biggest project has been Quivira, the story I’m writing in collaboration with Jonathan C Gillespie. It’s just about novella length and almost finished.
Aside from that I’ve written one flash fiction story, two microfiction stories for Twitter and my first three comic scripts. That’s a lot less wordage than usual on shorts, but it’s more than compensated for by the novel-length work.
I still have 5 short story ideas awaiting , so one of them will be starting off once Quivira is wrapped up. Plenty more to do next year then.
Yes, it's that time again already. By my count I've read 18 SF magazines and 8 anthologies this year. Most of the anthologised stories were from previous years though. I gave up trying to narrow this list down to a top ten a couple of yeas ago, and this year my list of favourites amounts to 13, presented here in chronological order:
Out Of Time by Jack Westlake – Murky Depths #8
Come-From-Aways by Tony Pi – On-Spec #76
Rescue Stories by Andrew West - Focus Fiction Special
Our Man in Herrje by Andrew Knighton – Jupiter #24
Ghosts in the Machine by Ian Whates – The Gift of Joy
Dusting Tycho by Vera Sepulveda – Jupiter #25
Silence and Roses by Suzanne Palmer – Interzone #223
Sublimation Angels by Jason Sanford – Interzone #224
The Festival of Tethselem by Chris Butler – Interzone #224
Palimpsest by Charles Stross – Wireless
White Wall by Tim Nickels – Midnight Street #13
Funny Pages by Lavie Tidhar – Interzone #225
Radio Man, Frequency Woman by Alex Kurnow – Murky Depths #10
I've just got the latest issues of Albedo 1 (OK, it's from October - I'm a little behind). The editorial talks about the lack of opportunities for international authors to be translated into English and outlines a brilliant plan to rectify this.
The editors have already been in contact with magazines from abroad to arrange an annul mutual story-swap. In the case of Albedo 1, the winner of their Aeon Award will be translated into 4 other langauges and published by the other participating magazines. Albedo 1 will be publishing translations from Dutch and French so far. The organisers are hoping to widen this by including other national awards, or where none exist, a story chosen by the editors of a country's 'national magazine'.
What a brilliant idea! You may have noticed that I'm really excited already about translations. I shall be offering all of my knowledge on the subject to the Albedo 1 team.
Superhero anthology Pow!erful Tales has been reviewed at the prestigious Tangent Online site. Of my story The Ironic Man, the reviewer says:
a cute microstory about market branding and how difficult it is to come up with a superhero name that really captures the essence of the hero.
Progress on my new novel Gap Years has been glacially slow up to now. This weekend I managed over 2,000 words though and crept past the 7,500 word barrier, into Novelette territory. I'll be off work for 10 1/2 days over the Christmas / New Year break. Is another 10,500 words possible? One can only hope.
40 Years by Bernd Struben
A
Absorption by John Meaney
B
Boneshaker by Cherie Priest
Breaking Point by John Macken
Blood and Iron by Tony Ballantyne
C
Clementine by Cherie Priest
The Coincidence Engine by Sam Leith
D
Diaspora by Greg Egan
Distress by Greg Egan
The Dragon Factory by Jonathan Maberry
Dreadnought by Cherie Priest
F
Final Inquiries by Roger McBride Allen
Flinx Transcendant by Alan Dean Foster
Fragment by Warren Fahy
G
Gardens of the Sun by Paul McCauley
Genesis by Bernard Beckett
H
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
I
Incandescence by Greg Egan
L
The Last Theorem by Arthur C Clarke & Frederick Pohl
The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang
Life, the Universe & Everything by Douglas Adams
The Light of Other Days by Arthur C. Clarke & Stephen Baxter
M
Mammoths of the Great Plains by Eleanor Arnason
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams
N
The Nemesis List by R.J. Frith
New Model Army by Adam Roberts
P
Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry
Patrimony by Alan Dean Foster
Perfect Circle by Carlos Cortez
Permutation City by Greg Egan
Phases of Gravity by Dan SimmonsThe Prisoner by Carlos J Cortes
Q
The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi
The Quiet War by Paul McCauley
Quofum by Alan Dean Foster
R
Red Claw by Philip Palmer
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams
S
Second World by Eddie Shah
Seeds of Earth by Michael Cobley
So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish by Douglas Adams
Starship Fall by Eric Brown
T
The Tel Aviv Dossier by Lavie Tidhar & Nir Yaniv
Teranesia by Greg Egan
Troika by Alastair Reynolds
Trouble Magnet by Alan Dean Foster
Twisted Metal by Tony Ballantyne
Z
Zendegi by Greg Egan
After the Sundial by Vera Nazarian
The Best of Larry Niven
Celebration by Ian Whates (Ed)
Celebration - A Taster by Ian Whates (Ed)
Eclipse One by Jonathan Strahan (Ed)
Eclipse Two by Jonathan Strahan (Ed)
The Edge of the Country by Trevor Denyer
Engineering Infinity by Jonathan Strahan (Ed)
Fun with Rainbows by Gareth Owens
The Gift of Joy by Ian Whates
Hard-Luck Diggings by Jack Vance
Journeys by Ian R Macleod
The Last Reef by Gareth L Powell
Luminous by Greg Egan
The Martian Chronicles - The Complete Edition by Ray Bradbury
Oceanic by Greg Egan
Shine by Jetse De Vries (Ed)
So Far, So Near by Matt Coward
Steampunk'd by Jean Rabe Martin H Greenerg (Eds)
Subtle Edens by Allen Ashley (Ed)
The Turing Test by Chris Beckett
Up the Bright River by Philip José Farmer
Wireless by Charles Stross
With a Little Help by Cory Doctorow
As the number of reviews I've written approaches 100, I've realised that my review archive is turning into an unmanageably long list. I plan to split the archive into 3 different pages - for magazines, novels and anthologies. I'll then list the entries alphabeticaly by title to make them easier to find amongst the crowd.
The reviews secton on the right hand side bar will still contain a list of the most recent reviews, but I'll also add them to the archive as I create them, rather than after they scroll off the bottom.
This should all happen over the next few days.
I received a rejection from a foreign-language magazine this weekend, with this comforting note:
Don't worry, our decisions are very unpredictable, depending on mood, weather, some people being outside for a cigarette etc.
Many genre magazines fail to make it into double figures, so it’s especially exciting to see Murky Depths hit the magic tenth issue. With the launch of a writing competition that stretches to issue 14 and with plenty more artwork and stories already commissioned for forthcoming issues, it looks like the publishers plan to be around for a while yet.
Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.
Following on from The Quiet War, Paul McCauley traces the aftermath of the devastating events of that novel through the eyes of the same half-dozen characters we came to know last time. As Gardens Of The Sun progresses we’re taken on a grand tour of the solar system, from Earth to Pluto and almost everywhere in between. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable story and seems more relaxed and elegant than its predecessor while showing the same adherence to scientific realism.
Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.
