The Whalefall in The Colored Lens

cl 13My novelette “The Whalefall” has just appeared in the Autumn 2014 issue of The Colored Lens. The story of a woman searching for her father lost at sea, on a distant planet where the sea life comes somewhat larger than here on Earth.

Cool to be sharing the contents page with, among others, David Kernot from across the ditch. David’s also one of the editors for issues of Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine – in fact edited the issue that came out a couple of months ago with my story “Alecia in the Mechwurm”.

Free Fiction – “Aerobrake” now available online.

CLW2014 My short story “Aerobrake”, originally published in The Colored Lens Winter 2014 issue, is now available free at The Colored Lens website.
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Claire’s got more than a few problems on her hands as she tries to wrestle errant satellites and ships into safe orbits. When she encounters a ship with a surprising occupant she’s going to do everything it takes to put things right.
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The whole issue is available on

Kindle, for $3.60,

or read the story free on their

website.

Thanks to editors Dawn and Daniel – this is one of my personal favourites.

Six week break

Here’s what happened on my break away from just about everything electronic:

* Eleven rejection letters. Two personal (one from TOR, which almost feels like a handshake and a congratulations, without any monetary exchange).
* One acceptance.
* One publication (see below).
* An Honorable Mention for Writers of the Future Q3 (though I didn’t get listed on the page [because I was away when Joni emailed and she didn’t get a reply]. * I’ll take a photo of me holding the certificate when it arrives just to prove that one).
* Stood, once again, on the edge of the Grand Canyon.
* Found my favorite diner has closed and been boarded up.
* Arrived home to thunderous downpours after 30 days of virtually no rain in the American south west. Kind of want to be back in Phoenix.

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Colored lens autumn 2013

New story – “Let’s Go Find Karl” in The Colored Lens.

The Colored Lens have published a few of my stories now, the latest, which came out while I was away, is in the Autumn 2013 issue. It’s available for

The Wreck of the Emerald Sky

The Wreck of the Emerald SkyMy science fiction novella, The Wreck of the Emerald Sky, originally published in The Colored Lens magazine, is out now as an ebook and a print book. This is one of my Barris Space stories, following several others – “Barris Debris”, “Eltanin Hoop Anomaly Rescue”, published in Static Movement anthologies, as well as the recent story “Turtles” (featuring one of the same characters) published in Encounters Magazine.

Blurb:
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Light years from Earth, the liner The Emerald Sky is trapped in a Barris Space rift. No one’s ever seen anything like it. Derel Larson’s the go-to guy for Barris anomalies, but he’s on compassionate leave. The only way he’s going to rescue the passengers is if he takes his daughter along with him.
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ebook – $5.99
Smashwords
Kindle

Print – $9.99

Amazon

The Flower Garden in The Colored Lens

clsp2013

My story “The Flower Garden” (under a pen name – Michael Shone) has just come out in the Spring 2012 issue of The Colored Lens. Available now on Kindle for $2.99, along with numerous other stories by some very fine writers.

“The Flower Garden” is a kind of a mix of my literary and sci-fi writings. Here’s the first page as a taster
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Greg Winden saw the living machine thing from the Lockheed’s window as the aircraft made its final approach into Garnet Hill. He’d always enjoyed seeing his father’s house from the plane whenever he flew in from Newark, but it was weird seeing a mechwurm just across the highway. He remembered his father grumbling about being so close to a flight path when planes came over. Garnet Hill was so small that there were only a couple a day, and nowadays the aircraft were so quiet you barely noticed them anyway. Really, his father had little to complain about.
The alien machine changed that. His house and garden were in its path. Both would be crushed under the thing.
Greg stared at it as the plane went by. His earset snapped off some photos.
The thing was like some ancient whale-sized bottom-dwelling sea creature. Bigger than whale-sized. Its black, segmented body would have looked little bigger than a snail, from the altitude, but the passing cars on the highway almost straight below belied its real expanse: they looked like toy cars. Like a kid’s micro-slot car set, with a fascinated frisky cat about to pounce on them. It had to be two hundred yards wide, and more than three times that in length.

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

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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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