Tag: novella

The Wreck of the Emerald Sky – new novella in The Colored Lens

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

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My novella The Wreck of The Emerald Sky has just been published in The Colored Lens.

Filled with bright, imaginative speculative fiction, The Colored Lens is a quarterly, available on Kindle for $2.99.

The Wreck of the Emerald Sky is a sci-fi adventure story set in my Barris Space universe. If you’ve read my stories “Barris Debris” in Deep Space Terror or “Eltanin Hoop Anomaly Rescue” in Will It Go Faster If I Push This?, then you might be familiar with the setting.

Here are the first couple of paragraphs as a taster
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Chapter one

Derel Larsen sat bolt upright in the bed as his ear-roll chimed. He was halfway to Meriam’s room before he realized that the chime wasn’t her security alert. It was just a phone call.
“Larsen,” he said, thumbing the connect. He kept going towards Meriam’s door.
“Larsen?” a voice said. One of the controllers at flight. Jamie, Larsen thought. Nice woman, even if she did have to confirm his name right after he’d said it.
“Medical leave is over, sport,” Jamie said.

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On hitting the mark

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

May turned into my slowest month for the year – just creeping over the 40,000 word mark. A pretty busy time with tutoring kind of kept the lid on a little – in a good way: it’s useful to other things to focus on. I’ve sent off three contest entries, and some new magazine submissions, as well as resubmitting some stories that had been rejected elsewhere. My novella “The Wreck of the Emerald Sky” comes out in June in The Colored Lens, so that’s good news. June is going to be a much slower month, though, as tutoring really ramps up. I’m hoping to hit 15,000 words, which, while many fewer than any other month this year, will take me neatly to a quarter million words. I’ll post soon about some lessons I think I’m learning here as I aim for 300,000 words for the year (yes, I’m ahead of target – that’s one of the lessons).

Pan Am 617 Heavy – conclusion

~ Sean Monaghan ~ 2 Comments

And so my dieselpunk novella serialization comes to a close with part 2 of Pan Am Historic Flight 1. It’s been fun to watch this come out piece by piece over the last few weeks.
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Dominic ducked back in as a cloud of cinders and soot blew into the cabin. He looked out again. Keyshaa hadn’t moved. Tying the rope to the door handle, he dove into the water, letting the big plane cruise off alone.

“Keyshaa,” he called when he surfaced. She wasn’t far away, still leaning on the floatvest. He grabbed the sinking rope and kicked for her.
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If you’re looking to start at the beginning, then read through each of the parts, start here. Again, my thanks to Don Webb and the team at Bewildering Stories for taking the novella on, in particular their encouragement to develop what started out as a much shorter piece.

Pan Am 617 Heavy, parts 6 and 7

~ Sean Monaghan ~ 1 Comment

A bonus this week – two chapters of Pan Am 617 Heavy – Messerschmitt Dogfight and Pan Am Historic Flight 1 (pt.1). Just one more part after this.
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“They’re waiting,” Dominic said, pointing to the open door, lit by a blinding spotlight.

“Throw out your weapons,” someone shouted from outside. Dominic imagined a semi-circle of them, all with their guns trained on the door.

“Well,” Keyshaa said, “that’s it, then.”
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I know there’s no Messerschmitt in the picture, but these were the models I found. It’s been fun doing the illustrations for each part of the story – even if they sometimes feel a bit rough.

Pan Am 617 Heavy, pt. 5 (chapter 3, part 2)

~ Sean Monaghan ~ 2 Comments

Part two of chapter three “Particle Magnetron” is out now. Down in the tunnels below the atoll’s surface, Dominic and Keyshaa find more surprises.

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Dominic heard the sound of the flare striking the concrete floor. He glanced back and could see the outline of the tunnel roof. The flare crackled as it lit, throwing light around them.

“Come on,” Keyshaa said. She ran off.

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Pan Am 617 Heavy, pt. 3

~ Sean Monaghan ~ 3 Comments

Part Three is out now.

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The last red of the sunset echoed across the sky as Keyshaa pointed ahead. They’d been following the running lights from the glider, and beyond, Dominic could see brighter lights lower down, glinting on the surface.

“A ship?” Dominic said. He was cold. He guessed that they were already below three thousand feet. That didn’t give them much glide room before they splashed into the dark ocean.

“Maybe the atoll.”

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Pan Am 617 Heavy – novella serialisation at Bewildering Stories

~ Sean Monaghan ~ 2 Comments

My dieselpunk novella Pan Am 617 Heavy is being serialised on the Bewildering stories site. You can read Chapter One, Part One now, with future episodes coming weekly.

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Dominic knew Keyshaa wanted Miterall dead. She wanted the money back, and the patent documents and plans, but first she would be putting a gun to Miterall head to make him squirm.

Dominic prised the carry-on bag from her hand as the cab pulled up at the SFO terminal.

“How long has he been gone?” she asked.

“Less than a day.”

“It will go very badly.”

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