Tag: science fiction

Bergamot Silhouetted – Flash Fiction in Unquiet Earth from Static Movement

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

My hard (?) sci-fi story “Bergamot Silhouetted” is out now in the Static Movement anthology Unquiet Earth. Yes, this is collection of zombie stories (just look at that cover), and yes, mine includes zombies, eventually. At $17 from Amazon, with dozens of stories – it’s a collection of flash fiction, ie, all under 1000 words (mine is 998) – it’s a bargain. Here’s the opening paragraphs of my story:
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Corey stared through the Astoria’s viewport at the battered Bergamot. Years amongst explosion debris, and tidal stresses from the gas giant system, and from swollen and pocked Bellatrix, made her look like a lump of dead coral. The ship seemed modular though the briefing said she was a bulk carrier.

“Lover,” Luese said. “Nearly time for the briefing.”

“I never thought you’d notice me,” he said, staring at the shard that had once been a spaceship.

“Well, you are blocking the viewport.”

Corey dropped back to the bunk. “I meant the whole trip. I’ve been watching you since we left Mintaka.”
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My thanks to editor Chris Bartholomew

Ganglion Trains – new sci-fi at The Fringe Magazine

~ Sean Monaghan ~ 2 Comments

This is another odd piece – not set in any previous universe, but perhaps in something I’d like to explore more. What if there was an analogue transport network, linked like the synapses in the brain, and spanning the globe, making transport quicker the way jet planes altered the way we travel? Ganglion Trains is my little caper story where I begin having fun in this concept.

Thanks to Scott at The Fringe for taking this story, quirky as it is.

Hard Suit Lock – hard sci-fi in Planet Magazine

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

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 Rotated part five, and a new short story – on Infinite Windows

~ Sean Monaghan ~ 2 Comments

Part five of my serialized novel The Rotated is now up in the November issue of Infinite Windows. Car chases, flashbacks, even a little more explanation of ‘rotating’. It’s all very fiery and fast.

This month’s issue also includes my story Pipes and Bones – a hard sci-fi adventure set in the same world, with some of the same characters, as my story Skinny Joe, which came out in the June 2009 issue. I have more stories to come in the same location – gradually I hope it unfolds and more about the world – Daron – is revealed over time.

Giant Mushroom Envelops Small WA Town – flash fiction in Antipodean Science Fiction, November

~ Sean Monaghan ~ 2 Comments

Another action-adventure Sci-Fi piece in Antipodean Science Fiction. Giant Mushroom Envelops Small WA Town is a quick shoot-em-up set in Western Australia (not Washington), which seems appropriate in AntiSF. Giant fungal invasions remain high on my list of fears, and it’s cool to smother Western Australia too, though I have another story on the backburner, with nasty fungus further east.

Antipodean Science Fiction publishes 10 stories monthly, each story around 500 words long.

The Path to Centauri in October 10Flash

~ Sean Monaghan ~ 4 Comments

My quirky sci-fi flash “The Path to Centauri” is in the October issue of KC Ball’s quarterly flash fiction magazine. 10Flash publish ten flash fiction pieces in each issue, all around a common theme. October’s theme is “stop me if you’ve heard this one” – as it implies, the issue is filled with some pretty humourous stories.

I seem to have a lot of publication announcements at the moment – one of those convergence things. I have a couple more to announce next week too, but then I should be back to my usual self of ranting about politicians and global warming.

Sunset Photographer – flash fiction at 365Tomorrows

~ Sean Monaghan ~ 2 Comments


As the name suggests, 365Tomorrows publish a new science fiction piece every day.

My flash story Sunset Photographer has just been published.

“Tony Willits scrambled up the scree slope looking for the Leica on hands and knees. The sun, tapping the horizon, glistened through airborne particles. Deimos in the sky and some heavy terraforming dust-devils lurched along the far canyon edge. He’d taken some great photos, but this was too extraordinary to miss…”

A calamity, a tough choice and a gorgeous sunset, all set in the fabulous hills of Mars. 365T publish only flash fiction and their limit is 600 words, so this is pretty tight.

Redcord… flash fiction in Antipodean Science Fiction

~ Sean Monaghan ~ 2 Comments

Antipodean Science Fiction is an online Australian speculative magazine which publishes flash fiction up to 500 words. They’ve published a couple of my stories over recent years – ‘Puncture Wound’ and ‘How Things Fall’ (both archived at The National Library of Australia’s Pandora Web Archive) – and this new piece is kind of interrelated to both of those, using the character (such as a character can be in a 500 word piece) Bayliss. She also appears in my story ‘Xuento’ in the Lame Goat Press book Kings of the Realm – A Dragon Anthology (yes, that’s a hard sci-fi story in a book about dragons).

The story, Redcord MacroNano Engine in Error State in the September issue is a hard-sci adventure. It’s fun taking these characters out for a spin in the depths of vacuum and I think I’ll keep on writing about them.