Feast or Famine?

The anthology Feast or Famine? is now out, and includes my Jack Vance-style story Season of the Slumwort. All of the stories in the anthology centre around food in some way. In my case it's the eponymous slumwort, which is an unappetizing cabbagelike vegetable that appears all too often throughout the story.

A Hole Lot of News

Happy to announce that I've sold my short story A Hole Lot of News (spelled deliberately like that) to the anthology The Big Book of Quantum Fiction. It shares the same setting as my story In Response to Your Reader - the small community of the Caer Valley, after the mysterious Isolation Event.

I have a few other ideas for the same setting...

Season of the Slumwort

 Having signed the contract, I can now announce that I've sold my Jack Vance-inspired story Season of the Slumwort to the anthology Feast or Famine from Purple Toga Press. The anthology will contain food-related stories, and my story revolves around the eponymous and unappetising slumwort. Looking forward to seeing the anthology in print early next year.

Living on the Edge of Darkness

The Spring 2025 edition of Dragon Gems is now out, including my short story Living on the Edge of Darkness. This story was partly inspired by a short story by Jason Sanford that I read in Interzone years ago, and also partly by an episode of the remake of The Prisoner.

Terrific Tomorrows Yesterday

 Well, not exactly yesterday, but a few days ago the anthology Terrific Tomorrows was released, with a reprint of my story Ode to an Earthworm.

I'm really looking forward to receiving my copy - there are some great titles amongst the TOC.

Ode to a Reprint

I'm very pleased to have sold a reprint of my futuristic farming story Ode to An Earthworm to Terrific Tomorrows, an anthology of optimistic SF. It was first published in the anthology Looking Landward a few years ago. It's due to be published next month.

Shockingly, this story has never appeared in translation! I must rectify that...

Final Publication of the Year, Probably

 The reprint of my steampunk novelette The Journey Within appears now in the anthology Dickensian Steamfantasy, from Rogue Planet Press, making a total of fourteen publications this year.

This story was first published in the anthology Ancient New and has also been published in German.

Dickensian Steamfantasy Anthology

 The people behind last year's Shakespearian speculative fiction anthology are back this year with a Dickensian anthology: Dickensian Steamfantasy - A Very Unexpected 1800.

A reprint of my novelette The Journey within has been accepted for the anthology which could be out by the end of the year. 

Five Ways to a Spanish Reprint

 A reprint of the Spanish translation of my story Five Ways to Accidentally Save the Earth from Alien Conquest is included in the year 10 anthology of Cuentos para Algernon.

That's the sixth appearance for this story in a year.

Back to the Shakespeare

 A reprint of my story Alleged Shakespeare Play May Prove Time Travel Possible is out today in the anthology Of Poets, Spies and Unearthliness from Rogue Planet Press.

It's always great to find the perfect anthology for a story.

Shakespearian Cover

The cover of the anthology Of Poets, Spies and the Unearthliness – Otherworldly Tales in the Times of Shakespeare and Marlowe has been revealed, with the release date hopefully to be some time in October.

The book will include a reprint of my story Alleged Shakespeare Play May Prove Time Travel Possible, which was first published last year in Brief Candle magazine.

 

Shakespeare Returns

 I'm very pleased that a reprint of my short story Alleged Shakespeare Play May Prove Time Travel Possible has been accepted for the anthology Of Poets, Spies and Unearthliness - Otherworldly tales in the times of Shakespeare and Marlowe. It's always great to find such a specific market for such a specific story.

The anthology is due out some time later this year.

Book Review: AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future by Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Quifan

One of the greatest challenges for a Science Fiction author is to write a story set twenty or so years in the future. It’s not close enough to be indistinguishable from today, it’s not far enough in the future that anything could be possible, but it is close enough that you can soon be proven entirely wrong in your predications.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

The Chorochronos Archives

New time travel anthology The Chorochronos Archives is out now from JayHenge publishing. It includes my Victorian SF story The Long Afternoon of Sir Rupert Moncrief, which has previously appeared as a podcast from Gallery of Curiosities. 

 You can read this story in two different ways, either in chronological order, or following Sir Rupert as he jumps back and forth in time.

Book Review: London Centric edited by Ian Whates

In this new collection from NewCon Press, editor Ian Whates has drawn together tales of future Londons that range from near-future versions of the city that could be the city as we know it, to far-future glimpses of dazzling architecture and stunning technology.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: Radicalized by Cory Doctorow

Don’t you hate it when technology tells you what to do? My car keeps telling me what gear to change into. It’s so annoying! If I wanted my car to tell me what gear to change into I’d have bought an automatic! I know how to drive a car without being told what gear to change into!

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: The New Voices of Science Fiction edited by Hannu Rajaniemi & Jacob Weisman

The editors, Hannu Rajaniemi and Jacob Weisman, of this new anthology, The New Voices Of Science Fiction have set out to present the new, up-and-coming authors who they expect to see more of in the coming years. Some of them are names I’m already familiar with and others are completely new to me.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: World Science Fiction #1 edited by Francesco Verso

At a panel on translated fiction at the Dublin WorldCon, Francesco Verso was very passionate about creating opportunities for more Science Fiction from around the world to be translated into English and between numerous other languages. I met him briefly afterwards in the dealer hall. He is the founder of Future Fiction, an Italian organisation devoted to translating Science Fiction into Italian and numerous languages into English. World Science Fiction #1 is the first anthology of international Science Fiction published in English by Future Fiction.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: 2001: An Odyssey in Words edited by Ian Whates & Tom Hunter

To celebrate the centenary of Arthur C. Clarke’s birth, NewCon Press has produced a volume of stories that all contain exactly 2001 words. It’s a fantastic concept, giving rise to a great selection of brief yet entertaining stories but, even with a page count of around 200 pages, that still amounts to rather a lot of stories for me to cover in a single review. Some of the contributions have a definite Arthur C. Clarke feel to them, others reference various of his well-known works, notably ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, and others are just great Science Fiction. There’s a chance that with so much to comment on, I could end up writing this review in 2001 words, too.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: Go Forth and Multiply Edited by Gordon Van Gelder

I’ve often found when reading Science Fiction from the 50s and 60s that what dates it more than the technology is the social attitudes. It was a much more sexist world in those days and the fiction reflects that: the astronauts and scientists are almost always male and any female characters are always secretaries, stewardesses or nurses and they frequently have hysterics and need to be slapped round the face.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.