Friday Flash Fiction: Prequel

Prequel will be appearing in the 2011 Daily Flash anthology from Pill Hill Press.

50 Stories

After writing this week's flash fiction story ready for Friday, I added it to my Great Spreadsheet of Fiction and came to the remarkable conclusion that I have now written fifty stories. That's twenty flash fiction and thirty longer short stories. I can hardly believe it myself!

Friday Flash Fiction: Built by Moonlight

Built by Moonlight
By Gareth D Jones


This story now appears in the Illuminations anthology.

The somewhat breathless style of this week's story was inspired by the Ray Bradbury collection that I'm currently reading. Many of his stories have that rambling style that drags you inexorably from paragraph to paragraph without time to pause.

Roadwalker - Out Now

Issue #19 of Jupiter magazine is now out and contains my story Roadwalker, the sequel to Roadmaker that appeared in issue #16.

The review of that issue called Roadmaker 'a gorgeous story', and hopefully I've maintained the same feeling and standard for this one. Roadmaker was written as a stand alone story and I've tried not to make Roadwalker depend too much on knowledge of the first story, but you can still buy copies of #16 if you want to follow the story from the begining.

Three Laws of Baby Food

Inspired by Isaac Asimov and by much experience, I have devised the Three Laws of Baby Food. If you are a parent you'll appreciate their accuracy:

1. A baby will always make a mess when not wearing a bib.



2. A baby will always make a mess with orange food, and not with white food, except where this contradicts the First Law.



3. A baby will always make a mess with the last spoonful, except where this contradicts either of the first two Laws.
   

Favourite Stories of 2007

I've read around 400 short stories this year, about half of them new, but every now and then a story particularly stood out to me. Not all of them were perfect, but enjoyable, thought provoking or above all, memorable. I've finaly ended up with a list of my ten favourites published during 2007, listed here in chronological order:



A Pocket Full of Posies - Michele Dutcher – Aphelion #112
I've always liked sky elevators, and this one seems to be well-thought out. The whole story was well told and the ending had the air of a classic SF novel. The passage about the mysterious old lady added an extra dimension of realism and the whole story could easily have lasted much longer.

Passing the Test - Anna Feruglio Dal Dan – Farthing #5
This story remained with me for a long time after I finished it. It deals with a refugee’s attempts to return to Earth from one of the colonies, a very topical subject in the UK, and the test of humanity that he is obliged to take. The man’s desperation to bring himself and his daughter to safety really involve you in the story and his struggle against the seemingly indifferent authorities grips the emotions to the end

The Blue Parallel - Jessica Reissman – Hub #11
A cleverly inventive story that explores a world where reality is not solid and precautions are necessary against the chaotic work of ‘patterners’. It’s one of those stories that could be SF or fantasy, but it doesn’t actually matter as you are caught up in her marvellously crafted world.

City of Flesh - Russ Jackson – Fiction #2
The longest and most riveting story of the issue. It’s a classic ‘aliens walk among us’ conspiracy, and the various protagonists offer different slices of insight into what’s happening. The Day of the Triffids came to mind among other things, and I was gripped to the end.

The Gate – Rhian Chapman – Fiction #2
The emotive story of a star ship pilot who uses wormhole-type gates to transport cargo across the galaxy. The transit is beautifully described and the emotional highs and lows of the life of a pilot are truly involving.

Young Love on the Drowned Side of the City – William D McIntosh – Darker Matter #5
A post-apocalyptic tale of youngsters left to fend for themselves in a ruined city while the adults struggle to cope with their own trauma. The society is well realised and the relationships between the characters make it a troubling but heart warming tale.

Paston, Kentucky – Jonathan C Gillespie – Murky Depths #1
Small self-replicating machines are stripping the land of metal, leaving behind a ruined society. The different aspects of that society are well-thought out and the mission to destroy the machines is both gritty and gripping.

Spin-Off Merchandise – Roz Southey – Midnight Street #9
A story set in a future that reminded me of Blade Runner. It’s a society where celebrity and conformity have both gained such importance that almost everyone has gone under cosmetic surgery in order to imitate their favourite star. The few who don’t conform are fiercely persecuted and the mission of one woman to make her way unnoticed through the city streets was both entertaining and thought-provoking.

Audience of One – John Hickman – Aphelion #116
A fabulous story. I loved the irony and the way the frustration of being stranded on Titan came across. The alien(s) were great too. In fact, everything was great.

The Redoubt – Gareth L Powell – Aphelion #117
There was real emotional depth here as a young couple are offered the chance to send a digital copy of themselves on a universe-spanning voyage to the end of time. The scope of the concept and the agonising debate made it just perfect.


P.S. I couldn't find links for a few of the authors. If you have a link for any of them, please let me know!

Repeat Reviews

The UK SF Review site is back up and running, so my two previously posted reviews are now available there too:

Fiction magazine #4, featuring a story by fellow Flash Fictioneer Gareth L Powell, and Dark Tales #11.

Friday Flash Fiction: Future Perfect

After writing Frozen a couple of weeks ago in the first person, present tense, I started thinking about what other unusual tenses could I use for a story. In the end I settled on:

Future Perfect
By Gareth D Jones


By the time you read this I will have succeeded. How can I be so confident? The realities in which I will have succeeded in repairing the imperfections in the continuum will be the ones in which you will be reading this log. In those I will have ceased to exist. Does this sadden me? No. There will be plenty of versions of me living on in other realities. In these I will be sad to have failed in my mission, yet happy to be still in existence. In those realities I will have returned and deleted this log.

The imperfections will have gone when you are reading this. In fact it will be as though they had never occurred. Then why I am I writing this? In the hopes that some of you who will be reading will appreciate the sacrifice I will have made.

For you, the future will be without imperfections.



The End

Just a reminder, as it's a new year, the other Friday Flash Fictioneers who post a short story most weeks are:

Neil Beynon
Martin McGrath
Gareth L Powell
Paul Raven
Shaun Green
Dan Pawley
Justin Pickard

A New Year - A New Experiment

I've decided it's time for another bold, and some might say pointless, blogging experiment. I've created a new blog:

A Million Blogs

It's sole purpose is to collect incoming links from other blogs to see how quickly and how far it can climb the rankings of the blogosphere. I've embedded a technorati authority widget so you can see how it progresses. How can you join in this grand experiment? Simply add a link to it from your blog and ask all your readers to do the same.

How many links will it collect? I have no idea, but the clue to my ridiculously over-optimistic aim is in the title of the blog.

So, start linking and we'll see where it goes!

What Did I Do in 2007?

It's time once more to think back on what I've accomplished in the writing field over the past year.

One of the highlights has to be my first professional publication, in Cosmos magazine. I was also very proud to appear in issue #1 of Murky Depths. My story Looking In,Looking out received many favourable comments and the artwork that accompanied it was phenomenal. I also had my first semi-professional sale, only just before the Cosmos sale, this one to Hub magazine.

Altogther I had 14 stories published last year, including reprints and translations. My first paid translation came in September when Absolute Zero was published in Ennea, a Greek magazine with an astounding circulation of 200,000. I added German and Spanish to my repertoir this year too.

I've written quite a selection of reviews as well, most recently on the well-respected Whispers of Wickedness site.

I also must mention the Friday Flash Fictioneers. Not only have I written loads of very short stories, but got to know several other authors along the way, most of whom I shall get to meet in the flesh finally at Eastercon this year.

So, onwards into 2008 for more of the same...