Writer of science fiction and fantasy and other stuff
As I mentioned last month, the sad demise of Filles Vertes Publishing left my time-travel adventure, Fifty-One, out of print.
Well, I’m pleased to say it’s now back on sale. Options are:
Amazon: paperback and e-book available here
The book is also available through the Independent Publishing Network, so you should be able to get it through bookstores too.
Finally, you can still snap up one of the remaining signed copies of the first edition, from me or ebay! Details here.
My science fiction novel, Fifty-One, was published in 2018 by US Indie, Filles Vertes Publishing. Sadly, FVP has gone out of business.
This means that Fifty-One is currently unavailable, which of course sucks (but more on that below). That’s the bad news.
As for the good news – it means I am now the lucky owner of the total UK stock of the first edition of Fifty-One. If you don’t have it yet, and want to get your hands on a signed copy of what will obviously one day be a collector’s item (possibly), all you need to do is:
I’m also planning to reissue the book as a second edition – paperback and ebook. News on that very soon, so watch this space.
Those great folks at Starship Sofa have done an audio version of my story ‘Once There Was a Way’. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts, or on the Starship Sofa site. While you’re there, be sure to subscribe – they do some great stories.
The story first appeared last year, in the first anthology from Filles Vertes Publishing (who also published my novel, Fifty-One). The book – which features numerous other great stories – was called ‘Flicker: Stories of Inner Flame’, and you can check it out at Filles Vertes Publishing.
The story is one of three first published last year in the ‘Way’ series. It features a young man called Siggy, who meets a woman called Ellie. They fall in love, and she shares with him a fantastic secret: she has stumbled upon a mechanism for traveling between different versions of reality, between worlds that are subtly or dramatically different from our own, depending on how far you go along a mysterious path called the Way.
Siggy has a wanderlust, and showing him the Way is like giving him the keys to the sweetshop. He can’t resist using it without Ellie, only to get lost in parallel worlds, forever searching for the version of reality he left behind, the one with his lover in it.
It’s always nice to hear a story interpreted by someone else, and Andrew Leman does a fine job with the narration (including some suitably English dropped aitches!).
Here’s a taster of the story. For more, check out the podcast or buy ‘Flicker’ (and support a super independent publisher).
Once There Was A Way
I had known Ellie a month. We were at a party near the coast. It was after midnight when we kissed in the dark under the trees at the bottom of the garden.
Ellie said, “There’s something I want to show you.”
“Will I like it?” I assumed we were talking about sex, which was fine with me.
“I’ve never shown anyone else. I think you’re ready.”
She took my hand and led me through a gate, into a cliff-top meadow overlooking the Atlantic. A full moon stood sentinel over the sea, laying a shimmering trail across the water.
“Do you want me to show you something amazing?”
“Right here?” I admit, I was still thinking about sex.
“It only works at full moon.” She stepped closer and kissed me again. “Close your eyes and relax.” Her hands were on my shoulders. She eased me backwards, a step at a time. “Tell me what you feel under your feet,” she whispered. “Each step.”
“Grass, of course. Grass again. Wait -.” A change in the texture of the ground, some kind of artificial surface.
“Open your eyes.”
I had one foot on a layer of mist, which was not there a few seconds before. It glowed faintly in the moonlight, making a ghostly path that snaked away from us, rippling along the cliff top. I thought at first it was some trick of the moonlight and a trace of sea mist, abetted by the wine we had drunk. But, however impossible it seemed, there was no denying that I stood on a thin strip of light a couple of inches above the grass.
“What is it?”
“It’s called the Way.”
“But what is it?”
“You can find out by trying it,” Ellie said. “You’re always keen to travel. But you have to do exactly as I say. Don’t go far, just a few minutes and then come back. Count the number of steps you take and make them even. You have to take the exact same number on the way back. And also, take this.” She reached up and unclasped the silver necklace she wore. “When you come back, give it to me before you do anything else.”
“Why?” The chain had a tiny silver dolphin on it.
“I’ll explain later. Now go, but hurry back.”
***
Is this two hundred trips, or maybe more? I’ve lost count. This time, her house isn’t even there. Instead, a brutalist 1970s apartment block squats on a patch of grass. Two teenage boys sit on the roof of a wrecked car. They watch me as I approach. I keep walking.
Once out of sight, I take the turning that should lead to the pub. But that isn’t there either. There is a row of narrow houses, some with boarded windows.
No house, no pub. No way of knowing if Ellie ever lived here or ever will. I should be used to this. I should have learned by now not to hope. But every time it’s a punch in the gut.
The full moon remains high and I walk back to where I left the Way. I step on it without a backward glance, and the buildings around me fade away.
I move on.
It’s a little late, but at this time of year it’s customary to pull together a list of work published in the previous year (which may -ahem! – be eligible for various awards). There has been some fantastic fiction published in 2018, and it’s daunting presuming to be in that company. But I’ll just put here what I’ve had out in 2018.
After a long and winding road to publication, my time travel romance novel came out in 2018, from small press with a big heart, Filles Vertes Publishing.
If you haven’t read it, treat yourself here. Interzone said it was better plotted than Connie Willis! There’s a love triangle, time travel, and flying bombs.
By coincidence, my three new stories published this year were part of a series. I wrote about the ‘Way’ stories back in August, when the third one was published. All the stories are concerned with the consequences for people who stumble upon a mechanism for traveling between different versions of reality, between worlds that are subtly or dramatically different from our own, depending on how far you go along a mysterious path called the Way.
All stories are eligible for British and international awards, should anyone think them worthy.
In order of writing (but not strictly the order of publication), the three stories were:
Once There Was a Way (published in anthology, Flicker: Stories of Inner Flame, Filles Vertes Publishing, September 2018)Siggy meets Ellie. They fall in love, and she shares with him a fantastic secret: she has stumbled upon a mechanism for traveling between different versions of reality, along the Way.
Siggy has a wanderlust, and showing him the Way is like giving him the keys to the sweetshop. He can’t resist using it without Ellie, only to get lost in parallel worlds, forever searching for the version of reality he left behind, the one with his lover in it.
The Flicker anthology is available here. Or from Amazon.
Something told me that ‘Once There Was a Way’ was not the whole story. I left Siggy wandering the Multiverse, searching in vain for the Ellie he left behind. But what about Ellie?
That thought led to Sigmund Seventeen, the sad tale of what Ellie did after she lost Siggy.
As I said in this Electric Spec blog post, both stories have a theme that lies at the heart of much science fiction: whatever the powers and possibilities that become available to us, through technology or otherwise, our fate is often determined by the flaws that lie within us. In Once There Was a Way, Siggy loses Ellie because he always wants to look around the next corner and suspects the grass is greener, and so fails to see that what he already has. In Sigmund Seventeen, Ellie risks wasting the endless possibilities available to her in a doomed search to replace the man who got away.
Sigmund Seventeen is available free at Electric Spec.
Hard Times doesn’t feature Ellie or Siggy. But it’s still basically a boy meets girl story, set in multiple versions of Chicago. Except the girl has the power to travel at will between alternative universes, and the boy doesn’t. Surely a recipe for relationship trouble!
This story–like all my stories set on the Way–is at heart about this truth: what we get out of life is largely determined by what we are able to bring to it. There’s no magical or technological fix that can make us what we are not.
You can subscribe to Intergalactic Medicine Show – which I heartily recommend – here.
And finally, two stories that were not new came out in audio form in 2018. Both remain available for free if you want to check them out. They are:
Ghosts and tricky aliens afflict a stranded astronaut on Titan – available in Starship Sofa, episode 534, narrated by Gareth Stack
Shaun comes back from the Far East with some kind of fever, and takes to his bed, with increasingly disturbing consequences for his housemates. Available free in Tales to Terrify, episode 336, ably narrated by Matt Dovey.
I do so love the folks at Filles Vertes Publishing. They brought my novel Fifty-One into the world, and now they’ve gone and published a delightful anthology of short stories.
Called ‘Flicker’, the collection includes stories from FVP writers and winners of a recent competition run by the publisher to find new voices. You can buy it here:
Full disclosure – one of my stories is in the book (more on that below), but even if it wasn’t I’d be recommending you read the book, for its variety of voices and styles.
I particularly enjoyed K M Pohlkamp‘s ‘Physicists in Petticoats’, maybe because I’m currently reading a book on quantum physics (light early autumn reading!)
As for my story, it’s another from the ‘Way’ series, following on the heels of ‘Sigmund Seventeen’ , published by Electric Spec in May. It features a young man called Siggy, who meets a woman called Ellie. They fall in love, and she shares with him a fantastic secret: she has stumbled upon a mechanism for traveling between different versions of reality, between worlds that are subtly or dramatically different from our own, depending on how far you go along a mysterious path called the Way.
You can read more about the writing of the Way stories in this Electric Spec blog post. And here’s the opening of ‘Once There Was A Way’:
Once There Was A Way
I had known Ellie a month. We were at a party near the coast. It was after midnight when we kissed in the dark under the trees at the bottom of the garden.
Ellie said, “There’s something I want to show you.”
“Will I like it?” I assumed we were talking about sex, which was fine with me.
“I’ve never shown anyone else. I think you’re ready.”
She took my hand and led me through a gate, into a cliff-top meadow overlooking the Atlantic. A full moon stood sentinel over the sea, laying a shimmering trail across the water.
“Do you want me to show you something amazing?”
“Right here?” I admit, I was still thinking about sex.
“It only works at full moon.” She stepped closer and kissed me again. “Close your eyes and relax.” Her hands were on my shoulders. She eased me backwards, a step at a time. “Tell me what you feel under your feet,” she whispered. “Each step.”
“Grass, of course. Grass again. Wait -.” A change in the texture of the ground, some kind of artificial surface.
“Open your eyes.”
I had one foot on a layer of mist, which was not there a few seconds before. It glowed faintly in the moonlight, making a ghostly path that snaked away from us, rippling along the cliff top. I thought at first it was some trick of the moonlight and a trace of sea mist, abetted by the wine we had drunk. But, however impossible it seemed, there was no denying that I stood on a thin strip of light a couple of inches above the grass.
“What is it?”
“It’s called the Way.”
“But what is it?”
“You can find out by trying it,” Ellie said. “You’re always keen to travel. But you have to do exactly as I say. Don’t go far, just a few minutes and then come back. Count the number of steps you take and make them even. You have to take the exact same number on the way back. And also, take this.” She reached up and unclasped the silver necklace she wore. “When you come back, give it to me before you do anything else.”
“Why?” The chain had a tiny silver dolphin on it.
“I’ll explain later. Now go, but hurry back.”
***
Is this two hundred trips, or maybe more? I’ve lost count. This time, her house isn’t even there. Instead, a brutalist 1970s apartment block squats on a patch of grass. Two teenage boys sit on the roof of a wrecked car. They watch me as I approach. I keep walking.
Once out of sight, I take the turning that should lead to the pub. But that isn’t there either. There is a row of narrow houses, some with boarded windows.
No house, no pub. No way of knowing if Ellie ever lived here or ever will. I should be used to this. I should have learned by now not to hope. But every time it’s a punch in the gut.
The full moon remains high and I walk back to where I left the Way. I step on it without a backward glance, and the buildings around me fade away.
I move on.
(To read more, you’ll need a copy of Flicker – buying links above!)
STOP PRESS: A third ‘Way’ story has just been published in Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show magazine. You can find that here. The story is called Hard Times in Nuovo Genova.
As trailed a couple of months back, the latest issue of online SF magazine Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show features a new story.
Called ‘Hard Times in Nuovo Genova’, this is the third of my ‘Way’ stories. It’s a story of love and loss in multiple versions of Chicago.
One of the things that always interests me about writing fiction is the way that you make stuff up and sometimes the characters and the ideas take on a life of their own. You think you’ve written something the way it should be, only to find that you have to go back and explore it some more.
A while back, I wrote a story about a young man called Siggy who meets a woman called Ellie. They fall in love, and she shares with him a fantastic secret: she has stumbled upon a mechanism for travelling between different versions of reality, between worlds that are subtly or dramatically different from our own, depending on how far you go along a mysterious path called the Way.
That story–called Once There Was a Way*–ends sadly. Siggy has a wanderlust – showing him the Way is like giving him the keys to the sweetshop. He can’t resist using it on his own, without Ellie, only to get lost in parallel worlds, forever searching for the version of reality he left behind, the one with his lover in it.
The concept of the Way (which I don’t claim is especially original) obviously lends itself to a series of stories, and sure enough I wrote others. The story of Siggy and Ellie hadn’t been fully told. I left Siggy wandering the Multiverse, searching in vain for the Ellie he left behind. But what about Ellie?
That thought led to my story Sigmund Seventeen, the sad tale of what Ellie did after she lost Sigmund. That story is available online at Electric Spec magazine.
What both those stories show is a truth that lies at the heart of much science fiction: whatever the powers and possibilities that become available to us, through technology or otherwise, our fate is often determined by the flaws that lie within us. In Once There Was a Way, Sigmund loses Ellie because he always wants to look around the next corner. He suspects the grass is greener, and so fails to see what he already has. In Sigmund Seventeen, Ellie risks wasting the endless possibilities available to her in a doomed search to replace the man who got away.
I’m thrilled that the latest Way story has been picked up by Intergalactic Medicine Show. Hard Times in Nuovo Genova doesn’t feature Ellie or Siggy. But it’s still basically a boy meets girl story. Except the girl has the power to travel at will between alternative universes, and the boy doesn’t. Surely a recipe for relationship trouble!
This new story also–like all my stories set on the Way–is at heart about this truth: what we get out of life is largely determined by what we are able to bring to it. There’s no magical or technological fix that can make us what we are not.
____________________
*If you want to read, Once There Was a Way, it is included in the short story anthology Flicker, out now from Filles Vertes Publishing. Filles Vertes also published my new time-travel romance novel, Fifty-One, which is available now.