Part 2 of the dieselpunk novella is out now at Bewildering Stories. A little more mayhem with this episode.
Part 1 is here (read that first…)
Tag: science fiction
Pan Am 617 Heavy – novella serialisation at Bewildering Stories
My dieselpunk novella Pan Am 617 Heavy is being serialised on the Bewildering stories site. You can read Chapter One, Part One now, with future episodes coming weekly.
________________
Dominic knew Keyshaa wanted Miterall dead. She wanted the money back, and the patent documents and plans, but first she would be putting a gun to Miterall head to make him squirm.
Dominic prised the carry-on bag from her hand as the cab pulled up at the SFO terminal.
“How long has he been gone?” she asked.
“Less than a day.”
“It will go very badly.”
________________
Suitcase Nuke – short story in Monk Punk
It seems that anytime you like you can add “punk” to a word and create a new literary genre – that’s kind of cool. A.J. French has put together this cool anthology of monk stories. My own – Suitcase Nuke – is an action-driven sci-fi thriller (as I hope the title suggests). The book is available at Amazon.
_____________________
Staring across Schema Menovanni’s shoulder, Gerry looked through the narrow window at the snowy Pyrenees. He glimpsed one of the eagles, wings spread, head fixed then darting as it sought prey.
“Are you listening to me, Brother Mitchell?” the Schema said.
Gerry turned to Menovanni’s face, wondering how it had become so very lined. He’d never seen the old man change his expression from neutral. His outward elderly calm perhaps belied a vexed youth. As the oldest monk in Sopphoreo, no one knew his history. “I am listening, Schema,” Gerry said.
_____________________
Editor A.J. French is doing a great job of promoting the book, with review copies going out, print ads and fliers. It’s also available at the Pill Hill bookstore.
There’s a good roster of authors here – nice to be sharing the table of contents with people like Joe Jablonski, Dave Fragments, A.J. himself, and others. John R. Fultz has a good overview of the book and his story at his blog.
Two stories in Bounty Hunter
This has got to be one of my favourites. My story “A visit to the theatre” appears in the Static Movement anthology Bounty Hunter. The story is only a little over a couple of thousand words, but it’s a fun romp, I hope. It was inspired a little by the cover illustration (I love that picture), though it’s pretty dieselpunk. Lots of chasing and shooting, and I hope, an engaging satisfying story. Okay, opening paragraphs:
____________________
Nikki heard Sam’s Sikorsky spiracopter put down on the apartment building roof and she had her leg strapped on and guns layed out on her bed before he even got down to her door.
She opened the Venetians. In the wan dawn light commuter traffic was backing up along Lexington. Horns blared and taxi drivers yelled. The new traffic signals on thirty-second hadn’t worked right for weeks.
“It’s open,” she yelled to Sam’s pounding.
____________________
Nikki and Sam feel like characters I want to take out again, and their world is just slightly shifted from ours, so there’s lots of world-building which could be fun.
The anthology also has another story of mine, under the byline Michael Shone (I liked the theme, but I’m a bit shy about having multiple stories in a single anthology, so this was a solution), titled “Katie Stumbled”. This is a longer piece, still a bit action-oriented, but a very different tone (I hope) to the other story. It opens like this:
____________________
Bill Sefheron landed the ornithopter in Clarkeson’s town square. He’d known about the Casselith here, but seeing it loom from the South Dakota horizon as he’d made his low approach had surprised him. He hadn’t realized how big this one was. The main mass of its black stone must have been six hundred feet high, the near face tapered to perhaps two hundred feet across at the top. This Casselith probably occupied close to four acres at its base, making it one of the bigger ones. Sefheron saw windows in some parts.
____________________
Thanks again to Chris Bartholomew for her work on these anthologies.
Bergamot Silhouetted – Flash Fiction in Unquiet Earth from Static Movement
My hard (?) sci-fi story “Bergamot Silhouetted” is out now in the Static Movement anthology Unquiet Earth. Yes, this is collection of zombie stories (just look at that cover), and yes, mine includes zombies, eventually. At $17 from Amazon, with dozens of stories – it’s a collection of flash fiction, ie, all under 1000 words (mine is 998) – it’s a bargain. Here’s the opening paragraphs of my story:
_________________
Corey stared through the Astoria’s viewport at the battered Bergamot. Years amongst explosion debris, and tidal stresses from the gas giant system, and from swollen and pocked Bellatrix, made her look like a lump of dead coral. The ship seemed modular though the briefing said she was a bulk carrier.
“Lover,” Luese said. “Nearly time for the briefing.”
“I never thought you’d notice me,” he said, staring at the shard that had once been a spaceship.
“Well, you are blocking the viewport.”
Corey dropped back to the bunk. “I meant the whole trip. I’ve been watching you since we left Mintaka.”
____________________
My thanks to editor Chris Bartholomew
Ganglion Trains – new sci-fi at The Fringe Magazine
This is another odd piece – not set in any previous universe, but perhaps in something I’d like to explore more. What if there was an analogue transport network, linked like the synapses in the brain, and spanning the globe, making transport quicker the way jet planes altered the way we travel? Ganglion Trains is my little caper story where I begin having fun in this concept.
Thanks to Scott at The Fringe for taking this story, quirky as it is.
Hard Suit Lock – hard sci-fi in Planet Magazine
With a cool little illustration by Romeo Esparrago, my short piece Hard Suit Lock is out now in Planet Magazine. Hard-shell space suits (see Wikipedia note on the suits here) have advocates, versus typical NASA fabric suits, for various reasons, but ultimatly soft-suits have won out. There’s something a little more fifties sci-fi about the hard suits: think of those old covers of pulp magazines from the fifties with people in suits like armour. Similar, perhaps, to the deep sea diving suits, but slimmer. Apparently NASA is working on a variety of semi-hard suits – see their page here, but these are different to the suit Andreas locks up in the story.
And, this is another story featuring my character Bayliss, who’s also appeared in How Things Fall, Redcord Macro-Nano Engine in Error State and Xuento (in Kings of the Realm).
The Rotated part five, and a new short story – on Infinite Windows
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.
Giant Mushroom Envelops Small WA Town – flash fiction in Antipodean Science Fiction, November
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.
Lizard Brain – short fiction at Static Movement
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?
