Sci-Fi, Thrillers, Contemporary
Don’t Sleep Downstairs is another of my Arizona stories, my on-going love of the place coming through, in its own odd way. With a bleak old farmhouse and a visiting painter I hope I’ve captured something of character and of the feel of the place. It was fun to write and I hope it’s fun to read.
Thanks to Lori and Bob at Flashes in The Dark for publishing the story.
Finding Keys, a 500 word story and another entry for the Halloween contest – themed space “not outer space, but the space between things” – has just come out on MicroHorror. Another story with the protagonist waking in a hospital bed – my other entry Airhead started the same. Both go in very different directions though.
I try to read broadly, but probably read just way too much contemporary American fiction*. I discovered Ray Robinson‘s Forgetting Zoë by accident. Firstly the cover appealed, and then the setting – Arizona (at least for part of the book) – my passion for four corners states, and surrounds, continually fed by some excellent literature.
Forgetting Zoë is an exceptional story, told to a certain extent as if it was a straight crime novel – there’s a crime, there’s some mystery to the solving of that – but beyond that it’s really a literary novel, savouring the words themselves throughout, while still maintaining pace and intrigue. The novel certainly seems to draw on events that have been in the media over recent years – the story focuses on the abduction and imprisonment of Zoë, and the experiences of the families involved.
Robinson’s attention to setting is striking – the novel is set between the dry heat of Arizona ranchlands, and an island off Newfoundland, cold and weatherbeaten.
*What I didn’t realise during the reading of the book is that Robinson is British. I’m surprised by what a good ear he has for writing fiction that fits with other mid-west novels.
Part five of my serialized novel The Rotated is now up in the November issue of Infinite Windows. Car chases, flashbacks, even a little more explanation of ‘rotating’. It’s all very fiery and fast.
This month’s issue also includes my story Pipes and Bones – a hard sci-fi adventure set in the same world, with some of the same characters, as my story Skinny Joe, which came out in the June 2009 issue. I have more stories to come in the same location – gradually I hope it unfolds and more about the world – Daron – is revealed over time.
All of my stories are special to me, for one reason or another, yet Fledgling is one of my personal favourites – perhaps the closest I’ve come to getting the whole thing right. If you were to ask me to recommend just one of my stories to read, this would be it.
My thanks to the editors of The New Flesh Magazine – William Pauley III and Brian Barnett for publishing the piece – I didn’t know if it was quite the right fit, but I guess it was. Also my indebtedness to Jodi MacArthur for her invaluable feedback on an early draft of this story.
Oh, what is magic realism anyway? I was looking for a way to describe this story quickly and that seems to describe it – real, but with the tiniest hint of magic.
Another action-adventure Sci-Fi piece in Antipodean Science Fiction. Giant Mushroom Envelops Small WA Town is a quick shoot-em-up set in Western Australia (not Washington), which seems appropriate in AntiSF. Giant fungal invasions remain high on my list of fears, and it’s cool to smother Western Australia too, though I have another story on the backburner, with nasty fungus further east.
Antipodean Science Fiction publishes 10 stories monthly, each story around 500 words long.
Trunk Stories is another print anthology from Static Movement and editor Chris Bartholomew – an anthology of lost and forgotten stories.
My story – one of the longest I’ve ever had published at around 8000 words – was written about five years ago, went to a few publishers, and didn’t make it to print. I still like the story – about an older stepbrother visiting a blended family, initially grating on everyone, but eventually enthrally his younger stepsisters with an adventure story – and I’m stoked to see it in print.
Trunk stories is available from Amazon and also (at a discount, with reduced shipping for $ break spending) from the Pill Hill bookstore.
“Airhead”, my entry for the Spaces – Halloween contest run through October at MicroHorror is up now. Nathan limited entries to a maximum of 500 words, so this is even shorter than usual.
What would you do if you had the chance to right a wrong and save yourself at the same time, even if you knew somehow that the righting might be just a little evil?
The November issue of Static Movement is out, with another excellent cover by Lee Kuruganti. The issue includes my story Lizard Brain.
I often wonder what part of our brain has us do behaviours that are detrimental, even destructive, and wonder if there is some post-human approach we might take to reduce the impact of those desires. Would we still be human, though?
My posts here have dried up a little, but I’ll be back soon, ranting and reviewing and linking. Marking is one of the funest things I do, but it’s something I do in my free-time, so somethings fall by the wayside. Mostly no TV, no movies, little of my own creative writing and pretty much no blogging. Part of my goal this year was to blog at least four times a week, but with a couple of hiatuses, that’s perhaps been a little less.
Still, grading papers is cool and it’s a good way to engage with other writers in a different way to the blog. I’m around three quarters of the way through now, with a deadline of Friday next week, so after that I should be back and adding to the morass that is the world of blogging once more.
Sean Monaghan - Writer 