Engn Launch Blog Tour - Fancy Taking Part?

December House and I are currently setting up a blog tour as part of the terribly exciting Engn launch (which is on July 15th). We're going to put together various posts - interviews, sample chapters, discussions on the ideas that went into the novel, that sort of thing.

Fancy joining in? A few folks have already expressed an interest, for which many thanks. But the more the merrier! If you're interested in hosting a post on the 15th or in the weeks/months afterwards, please let me know in the comments or via email or Twitter or whatever suits and we'd be thrilled to have you on board...

Meanwhile, chapter 2 of Engn has been released today as a free read on Wattpad. You can read it - along with chapter 1 - here.

Cover Reveal: Taking Time by Ellie Garratt

I'm delighted to be taking part in Ellie Garratt's cover reveal for Taking Time, her collection of science fiction stories. It's another great cover, and one that complements her cover for Passing Time beautifully:

Taking Time and Other Science Fiction Stories

 Science fiction stories of time and space...

The future of humanity must be decided in Next Phase. Winning the Planetary Lottery is not as lucky as it first seems in Schrodinger's Gamble. An apocalypse and its aftermath threaten to tear one couple apart in Daiker's Children. In Life As I Know It a reclusive man finds both his heart and home invaded during an alien harvest. In Taking Time a demon seeking shelter on a distant planet finds himself facing a very different kind of demon, after answering a frontier settlement's plea for help.

Stories range from flash fiction to novelette in length.

Publication Date: 15th July 2013.

 

About The Author
A life-long addiction to reading science fiction and horror, meant writing was the logical outlet for Ellie Garratt’s passions. She is a reader, writer, blogger, Trekkie, and would happily die to be an extra in The Walking Dead. Her short stories have been published in anthologies and online. Passing Time: Nine Short Tales of the Strange and Macabre was published in March 2013 and contains nine previously published stories. Her first nine-part science fiction serial will start in September 2013.

Website : Twitter : Facebook : Goodreads

Bards and Sages Quarterly Triple Play

As chance would have it, myself and my two good writer friends Milo James Fowler and Jeff Chapman have stories appearing in the June 2013 edition of the wonderful Bards and Sages Quarterly. And what's more, if you sign up for the Bards and Sages newsletter you can get the stories (along with eleven others) for free as an emailed PDF. The sign-up link is here.

To celebrate this curious feat, we thought we'd interview each other and answer a set of questions about our respective stories: Sins of the Father by Milo, The Facts in the Case of M. Hussman by Jeff and my own Threads.


Q. How would you describe your story in one sentence?

Simon: The barbarian horde is at the gates of the city, but young Queen Myrgiane sits with her courtiers working on her embroidery, calmly waiting for her plans to unfold...

Milo: It's a weird western, and there's some time travel involved. (SPOILER ALERT!)

Jeff: Let the dead die.


Q. What inspired you to write it?

Simon: I like the idea of stories that turn on some apparently insignificant, commonplace thing rather than powerful magical artefacts or great heroes (although they're cool, too). So, a snatch of a song or a chance remark; something that anyone could know or do. I had the idea of the embroidery that features in the story and I thought it would be interesting to contrast it with a rampaging barbarian horde. That, in itself, amused me, but also, how can a mere embroidery save a city from such an onslaught? The answer really comes down to the two characters, Queen Myrgiane and Bloody Argan. The queen, especially, was fun to write. Anyone underestimating her is making a big mistake...

Milo: I was watching a really bad spaghetti western (can't even remember the name of it), and my mind wandered...

Jeff: The prompt "love beyond the grave" and Edgar Allan Poe's story "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar."


Q. Are you a bard or a sage? Why?

Simon: Well, not a bard, given my singing voice, so I'll have to go Sage. There's a long flowing cloak to go with it, right?

Milo: I'm not wise enough to be a sage, but I could possibly quoth some bardish scifaiku.

Jeff: Definitely a bard. I make up stories to entertain and stimulate the little gray cells. I still have all my wisdom teeth, but I make no claims regarding the wisdom imparted by my tales...


Q. Anything else you'd like to add?

Simon: Without giving the ending to Threads away, I can't help thinking there are more stories to be written about what happens next. Perhaps I will write them one day...

Milo: Cade, the albino samurai from "Sins of the Father," has shown up in a couple of my other tales, and I have a feeling he will keep doing so. He's like that.

Jeff: This is my first steampunk effort and my first attempt at an epistolary story. It's a powerful and flexible form that allows for a level of detachment and brevity that would be awkward in a standard narrative. It was a lot of fun to write.


Thanks, guys! You can read all three stories and the rest of the issue here.

Malware Published by Perihelion - Free to Read!

SF cybercrime thriller Malware has just been published by the lovely Perihelion magazine - and you can read it for free here.

“DAMN.”

Jay sat back from his screen, fingers paused over his keyboard. A window with the words Unknown Process Detected overlaid his screen. Details filled the window: memory usage, I/O, CPU load. The numbers blurred as they counted up.

So much for his new algorithms. This wasn’t supposed to be possible...

Read the rest of the story here. Just be careful what you do while you're reading. That's all I'm saying...

Engn Chapter 1 Available For Free

Over the next six weeks, the first six chapters of Engn are going to be exclusively released as free reads on the Wattpad site/app. Chapter one of the book is now available to read here.

We're going to release a fresh chapter each Monday, with chapter six seeing the light of day on July 15th - the day the full ebook hits the stores.

I think this is a wonderful way of giving people a free taster of the novel - and also of interacting with readers using Wattpad's comment system.

The number of reads is already clocking up nicely. Do please take a look if you'd like to start exploring the world of Engn. Comments and votes gratefully received...

Engn: The Paperback

Had to share these pictures with you all. December House have been experimenting with covers for a possible print version of Engn. They look pretty darn cool...

See that? An actual paperback novel with my name on. Just, wow.

No definite plans for all this yet but I'll keep you posted...

The Crystalline Eye Published

So my SF story The Crystalline Eye now appears in the Dark Expanse online space strategy game. Which is a pretty cool thing, I think.

The story appears as discoverable content within the game universe, so you'll have to play to be able to read it. For anyone who does play, let's just say the story involves the Chitter and the Vilicus. And an ancient Zyxlar artefact...

This is also another pro sale, my second this year, so I'm pretty delighted about it. I'm currently mulling over further ideas for Dark Expanse stories...