Announcement: "Falling" will be in ANALOG Science Fiction

What a great pleasure to be able to report that Falling will be appearing in ANALOG Science Fiction, probably some time in 2026. 

This one was a lot of fun to write, and for the first time I was able to "go play in the Jovian system," with  FIFO worker on the assignment to end them all. Fly in, fly out work is one thing ... but when the flight to and from the job is a year old, it's a life-changer. In Falling, the central character is out there for the best and worst of all reasons: money. Without it, everything falls apart, yet the quest to earn it is not conducive to family life. And yes, our hero is left a partner and child back on Earth. What's a mother to do?

This story had been in my mind in one form or another for some time, but I'd usually pictured it as taking place on Mars. The thing is that I've written so many stories set on Mars that -- 1) I didn't want to identify myself as "that writer who only writes about Mars," not to mention -- 2) I felt as if I needed a challenge. Get out of the familiar environment (which is almost a witticism) of Mars and make a foray into the Badlands. And they don't come much "badder" than Jupiter. So...

Much research later, Falling found itself completely restructured. The central character changed from being a detective assigned by the department on Earth to investigate a murder in the industrial south of our neighbouring world to being an engineer working with the heaviest heavy industry imaginable. And the stage on which the story plays out shifted from the aforesaid Martian industrial wasteland to the upper atmosphere of a giant world that really, seriously, wants to kill you. Result: a story with which I was extremely happy. 

And the cherry on the cream is that this one will be appearing in ANALOG Science Fiction in a year or so. It's always a thrill!

Next: back to the very serious job of editing, with two major projects ahead of me for Mike Adamson, and after both books are delivered, he and I will be collaborating on a novel. Speaking of Mike, the last week has been a blizzard of hard but rewarding work as we revamped and expanded his website. It's well worth a look ... a writing site that is a visual feast of artwork. Check it out on the link attached to his name there.

Announcement: Islands Of the Mind has been published

 

It's my great pleasure to announce that "Islands Of the Mind has recently appeared in Way of Worlds, a science fiction anthology from Underdog Press.

Rather than writing at length about my own piece (which is about terraformers on an alien world being remade for humans), let me just quote the blurb from the anthology's page and include the link:

Venture into the uncharted territories of imagination. Within these pages, you’ll encounter worlds both familiar and utterly alien, where the boundaries of reality blur and the human spirit is tested against extraordinary circumstances.

A master of disguise finds her mission twisted by unexpected alliances, uncovering secrets that could shatter the very foundations of her world...

In the desolate aftermath of a devastating war, a lone survivor confronts not only the ghosts of the past but also an enigmatic visitor from a long-vanished enemy...

And in a realm where technology and magic intertwine, a desperate search for a lost artifact leads to a confrontation with a power that could reshape the very fabric of reality...

Within these pages, find these tales and more: a journey through the fractured memories of a dying starship captain; a tense standoff between scavengers and the guardians of a forgotten city; and a poignant exploration of artificial intelligence grappling with the complexities of human emotion.

From the depths of space to the ruins of Earth, from the ethereal planes of magic to the intricate circuits of artificial minds, these stories explore the resilience of the human heart, the enduring power of hope, and the infinite possibilities that lie beyond the known. Prepare to be transported, challenged, and inspired by these tales of wonder and discovery.

Find the Way of Worlds here, at Underdog Press ... and thank you for reading!

Announcement: The Brandstatter Watch has been published

 

"The Brandstatter Watch" has appeared in Tales of Horror #3, for March 2025! 

This story is the second of two co-written works from Mike Adamson and myself (we're working on the third at this time -- a George Trevelyan story which will be a pine-tingler with that "can't put it down, am reading between my fingers" quality). 

The current story is a "tale of unease," in which the dead are ... well, restless. Set in a village "out west" of London, it pivots around a somewhat rare and precious pocket watch -- a watch with a history. 

It's a tremendous pleasure to report the publication of this piece, and I'm looking forward with great anticipation to working in cahoots with Mike again, especially since we'll be returning to the world of retired Detective Inspector Trevelyan, whose nose for trouble of the supernatural variety is infallible. 

Find Tales of Horror #3 here ... and thank you for reading! 

Announcement: The Brandstatter Watch will be published in Tales of Horror

 

It's a great pleasure to be able to make this announcement, because it marks a first: the first time Mike Adamson and I have published on a co-credit, after writing in partnership. It's been some time since I mentioned on this blog that we were working in concert, and I hope there will be many other co-credit, cowritten stories -- in fact, novels -- to come. I'll post again when the Tales of Horror collection is published. 

Mike has written a lot of horror, and in fact, we recently completed editing on an H.P. Lovecraft anthology to be issued very soon by Belanger Books, as well as the Crimson Blade anthology, which came out from Hiraeth late in 2024. There again, I served as editor and cover artist). 

Next on our co-writing schedule will (I believe) be a George Trevelyan novel, and I'm looking forward to this. George has been a favourite character for several years now, and I always enjoy returning to his world, which is actually the same space-time as Sherlock Holmes.

It's been an impossibly difficult year for me, personally. I'd only just grabbed the bit between my teeth and started to run with a major SF project, The Gift of Prometheus, when the world seemed to explode at the end of September, 2024. When your husband is calmly handed a terminal diagnosis and given a prognosis of two years that will be horrible before the so-called inevitable happens ... suffice it to say that everything jumps off the rails. I didn't write a word for months.

As of this moment, however, Dave is in remission. The two-year prognosis turns out to be very wrong; the research into this awful disorder is zooming, and we're working hard to keep him as strong and healthy as possible while we wait for science to catch up. We all believe that it can -- and in time. The future will be very different indeed from anything that had been imagined, but it doesn't have to be bad. 

My cover art for Mike's anthology

Mike and I will continue to work, and I'll post here when there's something to report. I'm enjoying the work of the editor very much. In fact, my next assignment there will be complete in a week or so -- the Middle Stars anthology, to be issued later in 2025 by Jay Henge, another opus of Mike's, which begins a trilogy of anthologies exploring a fascinating topic: human offworld colonization in the coming centuries.

After Tales of the Middle Stars, the next editing assignment will be Ravensgate, a return to Sherlock Holmes, which should be out from Belanger Books also in 2025. With this one, all the projects we promised to deliver for this year have been fulfilled, and we'll forge onward with new titles. 

Creatively, it's going to be an exciting year, and 2026 should be equally interesting.

On the personal front, we soldier on: Dave is almost done with work, and he has surgery in a few weeks' time, which should make life, and managing this condition, somewhat easier. I live strongly in the complete knowledge that science will catch up, and that his cure (perhaps a new gene therapy) is out there in the future, close enough for us to reach the date with time to spare ... after which, we'll drive forward into the rest of our lives with optimism, and look back on these months while wondering what the heck happened.

Nothing beats holding a contributor's copy in your hand!

 

One of life's greatest pleasures is receiving the contributor's copy of a magazine you're appearing in. This is the third time I've been in ANALOG, and the thrill is huge. I'm hoping to be there again, if not late next year (probably won't happen, due to the gapping between appearances -- I think it's sixteen months, so 2024 will expire before I "get my turn," which is absolutely fair) then in 2026. I have a longer story to pitch this time, and am unsure, as yet, if it's even appropriate to show the editors something that's better than twice as long as Firegrounds. We shall see. 

Work on my new novel, The Gift of Prometheus, ploughs ahead apace, and it's looking good. I have one or two smaller literary jobs to tidy up before I start writing, and then -- time to stop talking about this and, as the slogan goes, "just do it."

Announcement: Islands of the Mind will be in THE WAY OF WORLDS

a mock-up cover lashed up by me, for my story only:
has nothing to do with the actual anthology --
used here merely to illustrate this blog post

It's official. Islands of the Mind has just gone to contract and will appear in the anthology The Way of Worlds. This one is a piece about terraforming in a distant future where habitable, Earthlike worlds are difficult to find yet critical to human survival because our population never ceased to increase. An explorer fleet has discovered a glorious ocean planet with a sweet atmosphere and friendly gravity, right in the "Goldilocks zone" -- all this world needs is landmasses. The terraformer crew arrives for business and sets about the task of creating those landmasses. And then -- and then -- ah! That would be telling. I'll blog again, with a link when The Way of Worlds comes out.

Terraforming is a subject that interests me deeply. I actually do believe that our population will continue to grow. If I'm right, and it does, humanity has only one way to go: outwards. How long is it since anyone mentioned the term "population explosion," in any but a historical context? It's been decades. Now, countries like China (population 1.412 billon as I write this) are actually passing over the top of the population growth curve. Their numbers are about to fall .. result? Not relief, that the existential dread we all felt at the population explosion if over. Oh, no. Its's all bags of panic and blue lights. Why? Because constant population growth is the only way we (yet) know to power an economy that is also maintains an endless, infinite trajectory of growth.

Far be it from me to criticize the mechanisms of capitalism: I also would like to be floating away on oceans of cash, and buy a castle in Ireland. But at the same time, in the interests of powering economic growth essentially forever, we're certainly going to vastly overload this planet. In fact, specialists say we did that long ago. It's been estimated that around two billion people is the maximum this world can sustain indefinitely. So, the predictable outcome of economic growth without surcease is a dying, or even dead, planet, with a population of ridiculous size packed into artificial environments constructed and maintained by technology in a future where "let technology do the heavy lifting" will have become both our survival mantra and our curse.  Inevitably we'll see a mass return to the colonial spirit of old...

Go west, young man. Or south, and anywhere one can find open spaces, free territory, the opportunity to succeed for ordinary folks who were born outside the .01% of the community who control 99.99% of all wealth and resources. Well, we've already entirely run out of compass points. Every square centimetre of Earth is owned, and fenced ... there is nowhere go up but up, and out.

With physics coming right around to supporting the case for faster-than-light starships, it's becoming more appropriate to look at other worlds -- and I don't mean Mars, though Mars will surely be a steppingstone along the way. I've written many stories about the Martian colonial years, and the violent "troubles" between Earth and Mars (The Way Back; Collateral Damage; Happy Hour, all published to date, with several more still waiting for homes -- Dust Gets in Your Eyes, Home Soil, and so forth). I'm working on the first draft of a new novel, as mentioned in my last post. The Gift of Prometheus....

Now, Gift is about human endeavour and ambition crashing headfirst into human ethics and dreams, in the years when the great Einsteinian starships find the way to the true FTL ships that will eventually, almost inevitably, lead us to the future you glimpse in Islands of the Mind. I'll blog about the writing process as it chugs along. Gift is the first full-on novel I've written since beginning this blog, which shows how long, rotten, and tough to beat the writer's block has been. It hit me broadside the second time we all got Covid. The third bout of Covid turned into post viral syndrome and worsened it. Now I've begun the fightback, and The Gift of Prometheus looks like a great place to begin.

The novel is very possibly set in the same universal canon as my Martian stories and Islands of the Mind. Let me think about this. But I'm liking the idea.