Announcement: Firegrounds will be published in ANALOG Science Fiction

The best possible news today ... Firegrounds will be appearing in ANALOG Science Fiction, probably early in 2025. This is my third outing with ANALOG, and I'm absolutely thrilled.

The story concerns a woman working for the RFS, or Regional Fire Service in South Australia's desiccated, ravaged mid-north, maybe half a century from now. Climate Change has happened. Past tense. It's not a question of stopping it ... now, survival is all about preventing fires, and this story examines ways and means of doing that, utilizing the cutting-edge Ai and robotics of the 2070s...

All of which falls apart somewhat when you've lost your husband to this job, and your teenage son is going so far wrong, you're haunted by the worst of all intuitions about him and his friends, some of whom are already incarcerated, others at liberty by a thread. 

Firegrounds is a story that's very close to my heart. Somewhere far, far down the track, I think there's a full novel to be derived from the foundations built by this little piece. In this incarnation, it's only about 4,000 words, but a lot of world building went into it, and one day ... one day ... So I took out half an hour and lashed up a cover to illustrate the story, and help to celebrate the sweet process of the contract signing. 

Watch this space, and when the issue is published, I'll blog about Firegrounds again.

Announcement: Root and Branch appears for the second time, ebook and paperback

What a great pleasure to announce that  Root and Branch is appearing in reprint! This is a slightly abridged version of the original text, but the cuts are by no means major. They don't detract from the story in any way; it's mostly a swatch of backstory and characterisation here and there that's been pruned away to make a large story fit into a smaller space.

The Sunshine Superhighway: Solar Sailings anthology is available via Amazon, from Jay Henge, in both Kindle and paperback editions. 

The story concerns the troubles faced by a living city who has contracted a disease. The city grew, and is still growing ... she's home to a million souls who have nowhere else to go. And she's dying. The race is on to find out why, and find a cure, but it appears there's no hope. Until the sky gypsies arrive with their living, flying showboat, Capricornia. Meet the charismatic and irresistible magician and stage manager of the greatest show in the sky who, quite by chance, holds out a skerrick of hope for the city of Waratah. 

Find Sunshine Superhighway: Solar Sailings at Amazon right here, and ... good reading!