Category: Fiction

Best of British– Again!

More good publishing news. My story “Every Little Star” (the one line summary of which is, “Like Gerry Anderson’s UFO, but with virtual reality, the Baader-Meinhof gang, and lesbians”) will appear in this year’s Best of British SF from Newcon Press– the second year running that I’ve had a story in the collection! Pre-order this great volume at the link.

BSFA Vector Solidarity Salon #7

I’m going to be giving a reading this Thursday in the BSFA Vector’s Solidarity Salon! I’m on at 8:45, following Chinelo Onwualu at 8:15. The Facebook event page is here, and I’ll provide a link to the video after the event.

I’ll be reading “The Little Car Dreams of Gasoline,” which is my first published self-driving car story, and is a stand-alone prequel to my novel Driving Ambition.

 

Praise for “Jolene”

Nicholas Whyte has kind things to say about “Jolene” in his BSFA rundown!

“Somehow this just ticked my boxes – the shortest of the stories on the list, a noir tale involving a near-future London woman detective and a rogue intelligent car; it achieves just what it has to do in the space it has to do it in. Gets my vote.”

You can read “Jolene” for free here.

(PS– book bundle)

 

 

Book bundle!

Exciting book news:
 
Driving Ambition is one of many great books in the Bundoran Buddies book bundle! For just $15, less than the price of a trade paperback these days, you get 12 books, by the likes of Robert Sawyer, Tanya Huff, Brad C Anderson and Madeline Ashby, and, well, I’m in there too.
 
Also, self-driving-car bonus: one of the anthologies in the bundle, Lazarus Risen, includes “Seal”, my story about sentient care-home robots going horribly wrong.
 
Beat the lockdown blues with books!

Link here:

 
Venusian Job Cover

Jolene is shortlisted for the BSFA Award for Shorter Fiction

My short story “Jolene”, published in Interzone 284 (the one about the cowboy whose wife, dog and truck have left him), has been shortlisted for the BSFA Award for Shorter Fiction! It’s lovely to see Jolene in such distinguished company.
This is the skull I bought for the sale of “Jolene”; it’s heat-treated agate, in the same colours as the titular pickup truck, and I think it looks rather like Fordite.

The Stepford App

My short story “The Stepford App” is in the final issue of Mad Scientist Journal.  Fans of Driving Ambition might want to know that, although it’s a stand-alone piece about the perils of looking for love in an age of AI, it’s also a prequel which explains Liz’s allusion to her former job as a chatbot. Buy a print or e-book at the link.