The host of low pressure systems that converged and threatened to plunge us into weather chaos has come to nothing. The forecast lacked optimism, but the day is filled with it. We were washed and dried, overnight; the city is beginning to sparkle with a crisp mid-summer glow and the air is clear and fresh. The sun flashed up first thing, announcing its arrival with fiery beams racing through the horizon’s clouds. Calm and quiet, though the wind is building.
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Necrotic City
It is January. Again. The same as last year. The sun is throwing its crepuscular light down across the city that seems, as always at this time, like some weathered, necrotic cluster of empty buildings and streets. The populace has decamped to the beaches and campgrounds for a week or two, to immerse within this tiny sliver of summer, before returning to workplaces for the full brunt of summer’s onslaught at January’s end and, most likely, through most of February. The city seems so peaceful now. Once the university year begins, and work, for most, returns to that regular routine, I’ll be seeing the crazy antics of drivers and pedestrians, of kids with little to do, of the Friday and Saturday evening drunkards creating something akin to a pre-dawn zombie apocalypse as they traipse home along my street kicking in fences and hurling bottles. Right now, though, the calm and peace is welcome.
Bizarre confusion for a contradictory world
Usually I don’t have my cellphone with me when I’m out walking or jogging. On one strange morning, however I did (that’s another long story). Anyway, startled by a sign I took this photo:
So, crossing the road to use the other side, I found this:
It doesn’t make too much sense to me (I’m sure a robot would expend its batteries crossing back and forth). I guess in some kind of bizarre logic it works – really it was only a short section of the footpath on each side closed, but it did appeal to my sense of humour.
bot
I love nano bots 🙂
…and yes, I promise to contibute more next week, or even in the next few days.
Bung Rocket
Clearly nothing to contribute to the milieu today.
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 Newly Oiled Gate: flash fiction at Flashes In The Dark
Lori Titus and Bob Eccles, the editors of the wonderful Flashes in the Dark online magazine, took my very dark story “The Newly Oiled Gate”.
I’m not sure what commentary to offer on this one – some familiar tropes, I suppose: damaged people, damaged bodies and a possibly ambiguous end. An exercise in voice, as much as anything else, I guess. Enjoy.
Madness of the Mind, now at Amazon
Madness of the Mind is another anthology from the growing Static Movement imprint. I guess the title says it all really. Two of my stories are included – “The Tuatara Terrarium” and “The Wasps’ Nest” – both dark, gothic stories, and interrelated with characters and settings appearing in both stories.
These stories are two of my favourites in part because they’re so different from much of my work. They’re most likely influenced by Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy, populated with odd characters in a very gothic setting.
The anthology is available now from Amazon, and also from the
No news today – landslide
No news today – I’m flat out catching up with things after driving a couple of hours north to collect my parents when their car became undriveable from being hit by a landslide. They’re fine, but shaken, and the car might even be repairable.
Landslide:
The landslide shoved the car right across the road to around about where the photo is taken from. Please excuse the cellphone-ness of the picture quality.
Car (actually, normally blue):
I’ll carry on as normal on Monday …
Flash! – the table of contents
After my previous post where I messed up who is in the book (sorry Angel), here is a full table of contents, as I have verified from the printed book:
Introduction by Martin Zeigler
Tea Time With Warthog by Jodi MacArthur
Always Read the Instructions! by A.E. Churchyard
Angel’s Trumpet by Patricia La Barbera
Answers by Mark Taylor
Are We There Yet? by George Wilhite
The ATM by Bob Eccles
A Bad Hand by Aurelio Rico Lopez III
The Ballad of the Kid by Paul Brazill
Blow the Snow-Bird by Maggie Veness
The Bullet by Chris Bartholomew
Blue by Carrie Clevenger
Choices by C. Douglas Birkhead
Choices by Mark Taylor
Cold by John C. Mannone
Cupid, Playing by Kenneth C. Goldman
The Dark Side by Jim Bronyaur
Date of the Old Goat by Deborah Walker
Demon by A.J. French
A Dream of Peonies by Chris Allinotte
Dolce Pauline by R.W. Watkins & Robin Tilley
Even Zombies Have to Shop by Ellie Garratt
A fairy Tale by Ryan Lawrence
Family Ties by Matt Nord
First, Second, and Third by Lee Hughes
Fly Away Butterfly by Kia Storm
For Your Loss by Cynthia D. Witherspoon
From the Belly of the Beast by Francesca Angelique Carrillo
The Garden Tea Party by John C. Mannone
The Greater Hand by James P. Wagner
The Growth by Erik T. Johnson
Haunted houses aren’t free by Ryan Lawrence
Haven’t You Heard That I’m The New Cancer? by William Wolford
Mud in Your Eye by Chip O’Brien
How Does Beauty Come About? by William Wolford
Hunter by Laura Eno
The Immortal’s Lecture by Daybert Linares
Injured Us by Luanna Azzarito
Innocent Until Proven by Marion Sipe
Itch by Jack Roth
Just Imagine by Iain Pattison
The Last Clown by Lee Hughes
Leper by A.J. French
Living With Dying by Kevin Brown
The Long Walk by Billy Burgess
M by Paul Brazill
Man With Shark Teeth Walks Into Jake’s Diner by Sean Monaghan
Meeting Frieda by Martin Zeigler
Midnight Lemonade by Abigail Beal
Monotony by Kathryn Slavik
A New Life by A.E. Churchyard
New Year’s Resolution by Brad Nelson
No Deposit, No Return by Bob Eccles
No. 102 by R.W. Watkins
The Oak Tree by Col Bury
OnScar by Brad Nelson
Par One by Gregory Miller
The Partner by C. Douglas Birkhead
A Peaceful Solution by Jason Barney
Pride and Joy by Emma Kathryn
Proving Ground by Mark Anthony Crittenden
A Quick Break by Gregory Miller
Recruitment’s End by Jason Barney
Right is Right by Luanna Azzarito
Seven by Jamie K. Schmidt
Shades of Black by Kevin Brown
Shiny Places by Maggie Veness
The Snitch by Ryan Lawrence
A Soldier’s Last Stand by Jordan Fuselier-Gardner
Something Different by Chris Allinotte
Rust by Fred Venturini
The Stick Pony by Chris Bartholomew
A Strange Means of Suicide by Robert Essig
Sweet Heart by Christina Murphy
To Whom It May Concern by Ryan Lawrence
Two Heads Aren’t Better Than One by Laura Eno
Under the Bed by Kevin Wallis
The Unicorn by Steven Barrie
The Waking Death by Luke Campen
Willpower by Lily Mulholland
You Never Know by Daniel Fabiani
3 O’Clock in the Midnight World by Charles Muir
Unavailable by Karen Schindler
University Park by Jessy Marie Roberts
Once Bitten by Mark Taylor
Salvation by Iain Pattison
Wow, that’s a lot of stories. Props to all the writers, and Martin for his intro, and Chris for editing (and Christopher for initiating the project to begin with).
Triple V Publishing 