Tag: science fiction

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Starship Sofa – Podcast Debut

My story, “When I Close My Eyes” (see July 17th 2017) is the gift that keeps on giving. It earned me my debut in the rather wonderful Interzone magazine last year. Then it landed a berth in the recent (and also wonderful) ‘Best of British Science Fiction 2017’, edited by Donna Scott.

And now the story has popped up in a podcast – it features in episode 534 of Starship Sofa.

I confess, I was unsure how it would be, hearing my story read by someone else. But narrator Gareth Stack has done a bang-up job. I really enjoyed it, and I knew what happened! I heard little details in his narration that I didn’t even realise I’d put in the story.

Check it out, and subscribe to Starship Sofa while you’re at it. They’ve got a huge back catalogue of great stories, and it’s really worthy of your time.

The podcast is part of the District of Wonders stable, which also produces Tales to Terrify (if horror is your bag) and Far Fetched Fables (if you like fantasy)

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Now in Physical Form for UK readers: Fifty-One

Fifty-One is of course available through various channels – Google Play, Amazon Kindle, and so on.

But I’ve found that I’m embarrassingly old-school: it’s only when I see the actual, physical book – preferably in an actual, physical bookstore, among other lovely books – that I admit to myself the book properly exists.

So I’m really pleased that the book is now properly available in paperback in UK bookshops.

A reminder of what the book’s about:

Jacob Wesson is a timecop from 2040, sent back to 2nd World War London to stop the assassination of Winston Churchill. The assignment plays out with apparent ease, but the jump home goes wrong, stranding Jake in war-ravaged 1944. Jake’s team, including his long-time girlfriend, is desperate to trace him before something else goes wrong.

Stuck in the past, Jake must pull from his training and blend in. He clings to the one familiar face he can find, Amy Jenkins, a war widow whose life he saved during the assignment. Drawn to each other by their loneliness and thrown together amid the terror of war, Jake and Amy look to a future together.

But Jake’s future cannot let him go. And when his bosses finally find him in 1944, Jake faces a terrible choice: risk unraveling the modern world, or let Amy die.

To celebrate this moment when Fifty-One becomes fully available in the non-digital realm in the UK, I thought I’d bring together in one place all the ways you can now get it, should you choose to do so. Take your pick below:

Amazon UK (Kindle or paperback)

Amazon US (Kindle or paperback)

Google Play (ebook)

Waterstones (paperback)

(And, if you’re in the USA, consider doing independent publishing a favour, and ordering from … Filles Vertes Publishing ebook and paperback)

For me, there’s no substitute for finding books in bookstores, so I’ll be giving a plug on here to any stores where I spot it on sale. And look out for a launch event, coming soon, appropriately in a place that features in the story.

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Fifty-One: UK Publication

Of course, Fifty-One has been available on ebook for a few weeks now. And lucky folks in the USA have been able to buy the ravishing paperback.

But there’s nothing like having an actual physical book, available in your local bookshops. So, I’m just a tiny bit excited that the UK paperback is now at the printers, and should be available by Easter.

I certainly hope it is, because I’m planning to take a few boxes up to Harrogate, Yorkshire, for FollyCon – this year’s 69th national British Science Fiction Convention.

Really looking forward to it. If you’re there, come and say hello.

Buy a book!

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Special Delivery

Postie’s been today, and delivered a most exciting package!

These are US paperbacks, to fill a gap until the UK version hits the streets.

You can get yours (physical or electronic) from:

Filles Vertes Publishing (buy from here and help an independent)
Amazon US
Amazon UK

And now also Google Play

 

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Valentine’s Day – Is it all that?

Maybe that should be Valentines’ day (apostrophe after the ‘S’) – because Wikipedia tells me that there was more than one St Valentine matryred in Roman times, and honoured these days with roses and heart-shaped chocolate.

Whatever, I confess I haven’t taken St Valentine’s Day too seriously in the past. Not since that time I booked a romantic meal for two and arrived with Laura at the restaurant to find they had hopelessly overbooked. (We bailed out and went home with a bottle of champagne and takeout fish and chips, all consumed in bed!)

Did I mention I loved the cover?
Courtesy of Kate Cowan, Broken Arrow Designs

But now – to my surprise – I have a romance novel, published only two days ago, so maybe I need to treat this festival with respect.

All right, I admit it’s a romance novel between a man born in 2010 and  woman who dies in 1944. And there’s time travel, and flying bombs. But nevertheless, there’s a love triangle and romance in there!

It’s a been a strange and hectic couple of days since Fifty-One was published on Monday. And there’s no end in sight. As a writer, what I really want to do is hide away and write another book. But there are promotion duties to be done!

If you haven’t encountered Fifty-One yet – whether you’re seeking a Valentine’s treat or not – you can get it here:

Filles Vertes Publishing
Amazon US
Amazon UK

And you can still enjoy the book trailer. I do!

And I’d love to know what you think.

[Main photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash]

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Fifty-One – Publication Day

Out now – Fifty-One from FIlles Vertes Publishing

Also available at Amazon UK and Amazon US.

Enjoy the trailer (did I mention that I do?)

It feels like it’s been a long road to get here, but Fifty-One is now published.

I looked back over my emails, and it’s almost exactly a year since Myra Fiacco at Filles Vertes Publishing sent me the publication contract, and we embarked on the publication journey, conducted largely by email and Skype (me in London, Myra in Idaho).

It was a lucky chance that brought us together. Myra liked a tweet I posted during a PitMad Twitter pitch party in December 2016, and – despite FVP not looking for science fiction – I sent her a query.

(The Tweet, by the way, was “He’s born in 2010, she will die in 1944. Stranded in wartime London, can he save her without wrecking the future?” Still a pretty accurate pitch for the book.)

After a year of editing, rewriting, cover design and back and forth over this and that, there’s now nothing more to do to change the book. It’s out there, and I need a good sleep (before I engage in an orgy of promotion activity, obviously!).

I’d love to know what you think of it. And I’ve got this idea for a sequel…