The sheer variety of exoplanets is making us rethink science fiction. The variety of alien terrains that heroic space adventurers will now be subjected to is likely to be more bizarre than anything we’ve yet encountered, or at least that is what David Kernot and I think.
Therefore, in celebration of the recent release of our book Extreme Planets, the first anthology of exoplanet tales featuring carbon planets, water worlds, super-Earths and lava planets, we would like to draw your attention to eight classic SF novels that feature some of the strange worlds ever imagined.
Check out our guest post on SF Signal.
Showing posts with label science fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science fiction. Show all posts
Tuesday, 1 April 2014
Wednesday, 22 May 2013
New Kindle Book: The Entropy Conflict
My latest e-book, The Entropy Conflict has just gone up on line at Amazon around the world, with more of my science fiction short stories, including the never before publisher titular story.
"Conyers delivers inventive SF with a unique perspective on society and the human condition-well worth the read." - Jay Caselberg, author of Wyrmhole
"Emergency Rebuild" - on the frozen surface of Mars, Liam Richter barely survives a horrific accident, but does he deserve to live?
"The Advertising Imperative" - in a marketing-saturated Solar System, Natalya Serov seeks to distinguish her product, but is her solution also the problem?
"Soft Viscosity" - deep in the jungles of South America, Gloria McKenzie seeks to avenge a brother's death, but does retribution make her the terrorist?
"Three Shots" - in a corporate dominated future, Casey wants nothing more than to get ahead, but will falling in love jeopardize more than just her career?
"The Entropy Conflict" - on a distant world, Donna Kettner battles an alien invader she cannot defeat, but is it the universe that is her real enemy?
In the vein of Iain M Banks, Alastair Reynolds, Peter F Hamilton and Neal Asher, THE ENTROPY CONFLICT features five short stories from Australian science fiction author, David Conyers.
"Conyers delivers inventive SF with a unique perspective on society and the human condition-well worth the read." - Jay Caselberg, author of Wyrmhole
"Emergency Rebuild" - on the frozen surface of Mars, Liam Richter barely survives a horrific accident, but does he deserve to live?
"The Advertising Imperative" - in a marketing-saturated Solar System, Natalya Serov seeks to distinguish her product, but is her solution also the problem?
"Soft Viscosity" - deep in the jungles of South America, Gloria McKenzie seeks to avenge a brother's death, but does retribution make her the terrorist?
"Three Shots" - in a corporate dominated future, Casey wants nothing more than to get ahead, but will falling in love jeopardize more than just her career?
"The Entropy Conflict" - on a distant world, Donna Kettner battles an alien invader she cannot defeat, but is it the universe that is her real enemy?
In the vein of Iain M Banks, Alastair Reynolds, Peter F Hamilton and Neal Asher, THE ENTROPY CONFLICT features five short stories from Australian science fiction author, David Conyers.
Sunday, 5 May 2013
New Kindle Book: The Uncertainty Bridge
Following on from the last post, I've also released some of my 'cyberpunk' near future Earth tales on one collection on Amazon Kindle, The Uncertainty Bridge.
This will be the first of several of my science fiction works collected again, and my foray into the world on online publishing.
Here is the blurb:
Black Water — in a poverty stricken Africa, water specialist Joseph Nuwangi hopes to scam a corporation, but will his conscience be his own undoing?
Aftermath — in a continent at war with itself, Donna Young is forced by a neural implant to obey every command of her superior, but can she protect herself from him?
The Uncertainty Bridge — a world decimated by plagues, Geoff Harbin finds he has gained sudden and unexpected encyclopaedic knowledge, but what price does the information demand?
In the vein of Iain M Banks, Alastair Reynolds, Peter F Hamilton and Neal Asher, The Uncertainty Bridge features three novellas from Australian science fiction author, David Conyers.Click to add text, images, and other content.
This will be the first of several of my science fiction works collected again, and my foray into the world on online publishing.
Here is the blurb:
Black Water — in a poverty stricken Africa, water specialist Joseph Nuwangi hopes to scam a corporation, but will his conscience be his own undoing?
Aftermath — in a continent at war with itself, Donna Young is forced by a neural implant to obey every command of her superior, but can she protect herself from him?
The Uncertainty Bridge — a world decimated by plagues, Geoff Harbin finds he has gained sudden and unexpected encyclopaedic knowledge, but what price does the information demand?
In the vein of Iain M Banks, Alastair Reynolds, Peter F Hamilton and Neal Asher, The Uncertainty Bridge features three novellas from Australian science fiction author, David Conyers.Click to add text, images, and other content.
New Kindle Book: The Impossible Object
I've rebooted the Harrison Peel stories, with the first release The Impossible Object on Amazon Kindle. I want to revisit the series, and tighten it, add more tales, and basically build an overall story arc to develop Peel and his place in the Cthulhu Mythos. Think Lovecraft meets Clive Barker meets Ian Flemming meets Robert Ludlum, as Peter Clines nicely summed it up in his wonderful testimonial for the book.
Here is the blurb:
In a blend of cosmic horror with weird science fiction and action spy adventure, THE IMPOSSIBLE OBJECT recounts the adventures of Army Intelligence Officer, Major Harrison Peel, who travels the globe fighting the good fight against alien monsters wherever they appear threatening to destroy humanity.
Harrison Peel's first adventures are collected in four novellas:
"Made of Meat" - Terrorists hiding out amongst the hill tribes of Cambodia have accurate intelligence on Western covert operations, and Peel works to break the network before more agents are killed in the line of duty.
"Driven Underground" - An ancient alien city is unearthed in the deserts of Outback Australia, and Peel leads a team of soldiers into its catacombs where no living thing has existed for millions of years, or so they believe.
"Impossible Object" - Peel is assigned to a top secret facility studying an alien artifact, an object that cannot be measured or recorded by any means, that promises to offer up the secrets of the universe, or destroy it.
"False Containment" - After witnessing a mass grave of fused human bones, Peel travels to California to investigate a zero waste technology program using wormholes to dispose of rubbish in alien dimensions.
More in the rebooted series will follow.
Here is the blurb:
In a blend of cosmic horror with weird science fiction and action spy adventure, THE IMPOSSIBLE OBJECT recounts the adventures of Army Intelligence Officer, Major Harrison Peel, who travels the globe fighting the good fight against alien monsters wherever they appear threatening to destroy humanity.
Harrison Peel's first adventures are collected in four novellas:
"Made of Meat" - Terrorists hiding out amongst the hill tribes of Cambodia have accurate intelligence on Western covert operations, and Peel works to break the network before more agents are killed in the line of duty.
"Driven Underground" - An ancient alien city is unearthed in the deserts of Outback Australia, and Peel leads a team of soldiers into its catacombs where no living thing has existed for millions of years, or so they believe.
"Impossible Object" - Peel is assigned to a top secret facility studying an alien artifact, an object that cannot be measured or recorded by any means, that promises to offer up the secrets of the universe, or destroy it.
"False Containment" - After witnessing a mass grave of fused human bones, Peel travels to California to investigate a zero waste technology program using wormholes to dispose of rubbish in alien dimensions.
More in the rebooted series will follow.
Tuesday, 11 December 2012
Greg Egan Interview
I've been meaning to post this for a while. Here is a link to an interview I conducted with Greg Egan several years ago, now on the Albedo One website, "Virtual Worlds and Imagined Futures". It came out just before the release of his novel Zendegi.
Saturday, 3 November 2012
Jupiter 38: Pasithee
The latest issue of Jupiter magazine is out, issue 38 with my illustration on the cover. The issue features fiction by Alex Weinle, Lou van Zyl, Jon Wallace, Colum Paget, Rosie Oliver and Allen Ashley, and a poen by Ian Sales.
Available for your Kindle direct from Amazon. Also available from Jupiter in pdf mobi, epub format and print format.
Sunday, 30 September 2012
Extreme Planets Cover Illustration
Extreme Planets is slowly coming together. Most of the stories have been selected and are now being edited. The news I can share is the cover, by the very talented Paul Drummond:
Here is the blurb for the anthology:
A Science Fiction Anthology of Alien Worlds
Edited by David Conyers, David Kernot and Jeff Harris
Cover Illustration by Paul Drummond
Two decades ago astronomers confirmed the existence of planets orbiting stars other than our Sun. Today more than 800 such worlds have been identified, and scientists now estimate that at least 160 billion star-bound planets are to be found in the Milky Way Galaxy alone. But more surprising is just how diverse and bizarre those worlds are turning out to be.
Extreme Planets is a science fiction anthology of stories set on alien worlds that push the limits of what we once believe is possible in a planetary environment. Visit the bizarre moons, dwarf planets and asteroids of our own Solar Systems, and in the deeper reaches of space encounter super-Earths with extreme surface gravity, carbon planets featuring mountain ranges of pure diamond, and ocean worlds shroud with seas hundreds of kilometres thick. The challenges these worlds present to the humans that explore and colonise them are many, and are the subject matter of these tales.
Here is the blurb for the anthology:
A Science Fiction Anthology of Alien Worlds
Edited by David Conyers, David Kernot and Jeff Harris
Cover Illustration by Paul Drummond
Two decades ago astronomers confirmed the existence of planets orbiting stars other than our Sun. Today more than 800 such worlds have been identified, and scientists now estimate that at least 160 billion star-bound planets are to be found in the Milky Way Galaxy alone. But more surprising is just how diverse and bizarre those worlds are turning out to be.
Extreme Planets is a science fiction anthology of stories set on alien worlds that push the limits of what we once believe is possible in a planetary environment. Visit the bizarre moons, dwarf planets and asteroids of our own Solar Systems, and in the deeper reaches of space encounter super-Earths with extreme surface gravity, carbon planets featuring mountain ranges of pure diamond, and ocean worlds shroud with seas hundreds of kilometres thick. The challenges these worlds present to the humans that explore and colonise them are many, and are the subject matter of these tales.
Sunday, 1 April 2012
"Expectant Green" reviewed on SF Crowsnest
Rod MacDonald over at SF Crowsnest gave my latest short story publication, "Expectant Green", a rather cool review:
The opening piece, ‘Expectant Green’ by David Conyers and John Kenny, was very well written. The attention of the reader was hooked by the first couple of paragraphs and from then on it was compelling stuff right through to the end of this adventure story. Francesca's youthful spirit had been deflated because her mother's death had forced her to leave home on Mars to join her father on the planet Morrocoy. Not only was this a rather steamy hot world, uncomfortable even on a mild day, the religiously imposed restrictions on technology meant that there wasn't much in the way of entertainment.
Her father was absent-minded but focused on alien anthropology. Convinced that there was a form of insect life on the planet, his efforts to find it had been squashed over the years by all manner of setbacks. With his goal in sight, Francesca was being dragged into the jungle. Unfortunately, there seemed to be plenty of shady characters on Morrocoy and, as luck would have it, they became involved in the search. Atmospheric and engaging, this well told story is a delight to read.
Edited and published by Ian Redman, issue 35 of Jupiter can be purchased here and here on Kindle, or here in print format.
The opening piece, ‘Expectant Green’ by David Conyers and John Kenny, was very well written. The attention of the reader was hooked by the first couple of paragraphs and from then on it was compelling stuff right through to the end of this adventure story. Francesca's youthful spirit had been deflated because her mother's death had forced her to leave home on Mars to join her father on the planet Morrocoy. Not only was this a rather steamy hot world, uncomfortable even on a mild day, the religiously imposed restrictions on technology meant that there wasn't much in the way of entertainment.
Her father was absent-minded but focused on alien anthropology. Convinced that there was a form of insect life on the planet, his efforts to find it had been squashed over the years by all manner of setbacks. With his goal in sight, Francesca was being dragged into the jungle. Unfortunately, there seemed to be plenty of shady characters on Morrocoy and, as luck would have it, they became involved in the search. Atmospheric and engaging, this well told story is a delight to read.
Edited and published by Ian Redman, issue 35 of Jupiter can be purchased here and here on Kindle, or here in print format.
Monday, 19 March 2012
Prometheus
Prometheus, it's Ridley Scott doing science fiction, so I'm excited about this movie. There aren't many good sci-fi films, the last one was Inception. Hopefully this one is just as good, but going by the trailer, and Scott's classic sci-fi movies Alien and Bladerunner, this one has lots of promise:
Monday, 20 February 2012
Eldritch Chrome featuring "Playgrounds of Angolaland"
Every now and then editors come up with fantastic ideas for anthologies that resonate with the tones of ‘why hasn’t someone done this before’, so when Brian M Sammons and Glynn Barrass came up with the idea for a cross-genre of Cyberpunk and Cthulhu Mythos stories, Eldritch Chrome, I had to submit something. Thankfully my story, “Playgrounds of Angolaland” was accepted. Set in Antarctica, my tale involves a cyberteam out to scam a corporation that has made one too many unwholesome deals with elder alien beings. Oh, and it is kind of a Harrison Peel tale.
Here is the table of contents, in no particular order:
Eldritch Chrome
Here is the table of contents, in no particular order:
Eldritch Chrome
- “Playgrounds of Angolaland” by David Conyers
- “The Blowfly Manifesto” by Tim Curran
- “SymbiOS” by William Meikle
- “Obsolete, Absolute” by Robert M. Price
- “Open Minded” by Jeffrey Thomas
- “The Battle of Arkham” by Peter Rawlik
- “The Wurms in the Grid” by Nickolas Cook
- “Of Fractals, Fantomes, Frederic and Filrodj” by John Shirley
- “The Gauntlet” by Glynn Barrass and Brian M. Sammons
- “Indifference” by CJ Henderson
- “Dreams of Death” by Lois Gresh
- “Inlibration” by Michael Tice
- “Immune” by Terrie Leigh Relf
- “Hope Abandoned” by Tom Lynch
- “Sonar City” by Sam Stone
- “The Place that Cannot Be” by D.L. Snell
- “Flesh and Scales” by Ran Cartwright
- “Real Gone” by David Dunwoody
- “CL3ANS3” by Carrie Cuinn
Thursday, 26 January 2012
Always Good to Get a Nice Review
A story I wrote over five years ago, "Soft Viscosity", got a rather nice review from sf writer, Guy Salvidge on his website. In fact, it was his favorite story in the anthology:
"Soft Viscosity” by David Conyers is the longest story in 2012 and it’s probably my personal favourite. Set in South America, it features Ecuadorian terrorists, an oil war, the machinations of the CIA, and more. Told from multiple points of view, the story weaves together disparate narratives that are all nevertheless infused with dark and gritty violence. "Soft Viscosity” demonstrates a level of realism greater than in some of the other stories in this volume, and indeed in speculative fiction in general. There’s enough material for a novel in here, and yet Conyers packs it into twenty or so incendiary pages. - Guy Salvidge
Always nice to get a good review.
When I was asked by the editors to write a story for the 2012 anthology, I thought it was going to be a collection of science fiction, but most of the stories selected were fantasy or weird speculative fiction, so my tale feels a little out of place. That said, there were excellent stories in the book from Sean McMullen and Dirk Flinthart who wrote strong sci-fi pieces. Still, I must have done something right because my story got a 2009 Ditmar Award nomination.
I'm not sure if the anthology is still in print or not. Perhaps I should post "Soft Viscosity" on my website.
"Soft Viscosity” by David Conyers is the longest story in 2012 and it’s probably my personal favourite. Set in South America, it features Ecuadorian terrorists, an oil war, the machinations of the CIA, and more. Told from multiple points of view, the story weaves together disparate narratives that are all nevertheless infused with dark and gritty violence. "Soft Viscosity” demonstrates a level of realism greater than in some of the other stories in this volume, and indeed in speculative fiction in general. There’s enough material for a novel in here, and yet Conyers packs it into twenty or so incendiary pages. - Guy Salvidge
Always nice to get a good review.
When I was asked by the editors to write a story for the 2012 anthology, I thought it was going to be a collection of science fiction, but most of the stories selected were fantasy or weird speculative fiction, so my tale feels a little out of place. That said, there were excellent stories in the book from Sean McMullen and Dirk Flinthart who wrote strong sci-fi pieces. Still, I must have done something right because my story got a 2009 Ditmar Award nomination.
I'm not sure if the anthology is still in print or not. Perhaps I should post "Soft Viscosity" on my website.
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
SF Crowsnest Reviews Midnight Echo 6
Midnight Echo 6: The Science Fiction Issue is reviewed on SF Crowsnest:
The overall quality of the fiction was of a high standard, professional in its delivery and command of the English language. A pleasing range of styles and subject matter, sufficient to keep you interested all the way through the magazine.
Read the rest of the review here.
The overall quality of the fiction was of a high standard, professional in its delivery and command of the English language. A pleasing range of styles and subject matter, sufficient to keep you interested all the way through the magazine.
Read the rest of the review here.
Sunday, 11 December 2011
Midnight Echo 6 Interviews: Paul Drummond
With Midnight Echo 6: The Science Fiction Horror Issue now in circulation, we’ve decided to interview Paul Drummond, who provided the very exciting cover for the issue. Paul is a rising talent in the speculative fiction field of future illustrations, and we’re sure we’ll be seeing more of his work on book covers in the future.
David Conyers: You work as a web designer, e-book design, commercial illustrator and graphic designer, but you are probably best known as a science fiction illustrator. Where does your interest in this genre stem from, and what appeals to you about the SF in the illustrated form?
Paul Drummond: Most of my illustration work involves product visuals and non sci-fi, but I can understand why people prefer the spaceships and robots. I've always been a big reader and developed the sci-fi habit as a teenager. I remember Larry Niven's 'Known Space' series making a strong impression on me because of the interstellar-scale settings, memorable characters and big dumb objects. It's satisfying to read stories set in a consistent, tightly plotted universe, and while you can get that from all genres, sci-fi seems to scratch the itch for me. I'm also fond of 70s sci-fi book covers because they're so evocative of that time, even though they often have nothing to do with the story inside!
It was only when I got to know other artists that I considered sci-fi illustration commercially, but I'm glad I made the jump. I enjoy translating authors' ideas into images and creating worlds that contain odd or surprising elements. If I can produce something that clearly doesn't exist in the real world but looks as if it could I've done my job properly. A good tagline would be 'making the unreal believable', although that sounds like something from a marketing agency. At the same time I have to fight my tendency to make things low key. I'm happy to read about fantastic events but not so good at portraying them. Perhaps I should just throw in a few exploding planets and half-naked women to liven things up.
David: Your illustration for the cover of Midnight Echo 6, "Strange Behaviour" has proved to be immensely popular. It depicts a robot holding a severed human eye. Can you tell us about this image and where you got your idea for this piece?
Paul: This image was created several years ago as an entry for a competition run by the CG Society. At that time I was unsure how to get started as a commercial illustrator, so a high profile competition seemed like a good idea. I didn't win because the other entries were so much better, but it was good practice for working to a deadline. The theme of the competition was 'strange behaviour', hence the title, and my aim was to create an image where the odd or horrifying element isn't immediately apparent. I also liked the idea of a disturbingly blank face, in this case with the features reduced to a single eye.
David: Which artists influenced you and what do you like about their works?
Paul: Is this where I list obscure Baroque painters to make myself look clever? Starting with commercial illustration I admire concept & FX artists such as Scott Spencer, Neville Page, Ryan Church and Dylan Cole. They combine artistic talent and technical mastery to produce incredibly detailed, large scale illustrations of fantastic subjects. Digital design is difficult because the tools are so complex they can interrupt the flow of ideas. It's very hard to create expressive art while trying to get your head around the intricacies of ZBrush or Cinema4D. I'm still fumbling through this process so look up to artists who've managed it.
Considering art in general I tend to go for landscapes and portraits. Artists who come to mind include Caspar David Friedrich, who was not a cheery chap but created wonderfully dramatic paintings such as "The Sea of Ice / The Wreck of Hope". I wasn't joking about the Barogue painters because I'm influenced by chiaroscuro, or the technique of using strong contrast between light and dark to suggest volume and shape. Look at paintings by Velázquez and Caravaggio for examples of this. I also admire American landscape artists of the 19th century such as Thomas Cole, but should probably stop now before I end up in Pseuds Corner!
David: What are some of your favourite pieces of your own work?
Paul: I'm very critical of my own work, but 'Flicker', the 'Bot' series, the 'Dreadnaught' concepts and architectural images such as 'Helix' seemed to work out.
David: Where can we next expect to see Paul Drummond's illustrations in print?
Paul: Other than advertisement and concept work, very little is in print. Most of my illustration work is now for ebook covers.
Biography - Paul Drummond
Paul Drummond is a stray from north of the border who was taken in by the good folk of Lancashire, England. He now lives there and divides his time between commercial illustration, design and working through a long list of things to do. His clients include TTA Press, publishers of Interzone for which he has provided many images, including covers. You can see more of his work at www.pauldrummond.co.uk.
David Conyers: You work as a web designer, e-book design, commercial illustrator and graphic designer, but you are probably best known as a science fiction illustrator. Where does your interest in this genre stem from, and what appeals to you about the SF in the illustrated form?
Paul Drummond: Most of my illustration work involves product visuals and non sci-fi, but I can understand why people prefer the spaceships and robots. I've always been a big reader and developed the sci-fi habit as a teenager. I remember Larry Niven's 'Known Space' series making a strong impression on me because of the interstellar-scale settings, memorable characters and big dumb objects. It's satisfying to read stories set in a consistent, tightly plotted universe, and while you can get that from all genres, sci-fi seems to scratch the itch for me. I'm also fond of 70s sci-fi book covers because they're so evocative of that time, even though they often have nothing to do with the story inside!
It was only when I got to know other artists that I considered sci-fi illustration commercially, but I'm glad I made the jump. I enjoy translating authors' ideas into images and creating worlds that contain odd or surprising elements. If I can produce something that clearly doesn't exist in the real world but looks as if it could I've done my job properly. A good tagline would be 'making the unreal believable', although that sounds like something from a marketing agency. At the same time I have to fight my tendency to make things low key. I'm happy to read about fantastic events but not so good at portraying them. Perhaps I should just throw in a few exploding planets and half-naked women to liven things up.
David: Your illustration for the cover of Midnight Echo 6, "Strange Behaviour" has proved to be immensely popular. It depicts a robot holding a severed human eye. Can you tell us about this image and where you got your idea for this piece?
Paul: This image was created several years ago as an entry for a competition run by the CG Society. At that time I was unsure how to get started as a commercial illustrator, so a high profile competition seemed like a good idea. I didn't win because the other entries were so much better, but it was good practice for working to a deadline. The theme of the competition was 'strange behaviour', hence the title, and my aim was to create an image where the odd or horrifying element isn't immediately apparent. I also liked the idea of a disturbingly blank face, in this case with the features reduced to a single eye.
Paul: Is this where I list obscure Baroque painters to make myself look clever? Starting with commercial illustration I admire concept & FX artists such as Scott Spencer, Neville Page, Ryan Church and Dylan Cole. They combine artistic talent and technical mastery to produce incredibly detailed, large scale illustrations of fantastic subjects. Digital design is difficult because the tools are so complex they can interrupt the flow of ideas. It's very hard to create expressive art while trying to get your head around the intricacies of ZBrush or Cinema4D. I'm still fumbling through this process so look up to artists who've managed it.
Considering art in general I tend to go for landscapes and portraits. Artists who come to mind include Caspar David Friedrich, who was not a cheery chap but created wonderfully dramatic paintings such as "The Sea of Ice / The Wreck of Hope". I wasn't joking about the Barogue painters because I'm influenced by chiaroscuro, or the technique of using strong contrast between light and dark to suggest volume and shape. Look at paintings by Velázquez and Caravaggio for examples of this. I also admire American landscape artists of the 19th century such as Thomas Cole, but should probably stop now before I end up in Pseuds Corner!
David: What are some of your favourite pieces of your own work?
Paul: I'm very critical of my own work, but 'Flicker', the 'Bot' series, the 'Dreadnaught' concepts and architectural images such as 'Helix' seemed to work out.
David: Where can we next expect to see Paul Drummond's illustrations in print?
Paul: Other than advertisement and concept work, very little is in print. Most of my illustration work is now for ebook covers.
Biography - Paul Drummond
Paul Drummond is a stray from north of the border who was taken in by the good folk of Lancashire, England. He now lives there and divides his time between commercial illustration, design and working through a long list of things to do. His clients include TTA Press, publishers of Interzone for which he has provided many images, including covers. You can see more of his work at www.pauldrummond.co.uk.Saturday, 10 December 2011
Submissions Sought: Extreme Planets
I'm editing a new anthology with David Kernot and Jeff Harris, Extreme Planets. It is a science fiction anthology about extrasolar planets that will be published by Chaosium. The submission guidelines are found here, and updates will be posted on my website.
Wednesday, 30 November 2011
Midnight Echo 6 Interviews: Cody Goodfellow
With the release today of Midnight Echo 6: The Science Fiction Horror Issue in e-format, we’ve decided to interview two authors from the issue. The first is Cody Goodfellow, a rising star on the global horror and weird fiction scene. Cody’s style is always captivating and his story “Earthworms” demonstrates his skill. It was so good, it opens the issue.
1. What is your favorite Sci-fi horror novel or short story?
Blood Music by Greg Bear. I read it shortly after discovering Lovecraft in junior high school, and it perfectly dovetailed with the unacceptable revelations of At The Mountains Of Madness. It was an utterly new vision of the apocalypse in its truest sense, as revelation rather than mere disaster. Also, it cleverly disposed of cliche cleft-jawed heroes and sexy scientists fighting to avert the coming change.
2. Tell us about your story and what your influences are?
For "Earth Worms", I delved into cherished memories of pulp sci-fi from Fredric Brown and Theodore Sturgeon, as well as cheesy Golden Age sci-fi comics, where the undoing of all human aspirations come as the punch line of a twisted cosmic joke. To push those hoary old tropes in the service of a deadly earnest issues like environmental and spiritual apocalypse scenarios just seemed like a natural fit, with the unspeakable alien zookeeper obligingly explaining how, from our earliest origins as multicellular life on Earth, we'd been conned.
3. Tell us something about yourself as a writer that isn't common knowledge?
Not much of international interest... I used to write for a local music and culture magazine in San Diego, and was one of the first (if not the first) to unmask guerrilla artist Shepard Fairey as the man behind the Andre The Giant sticker and banner campaign back in the 90s. I used to compose electronic scores for porno videos in college, and am currently working on the soundtrack for a short monster movie I wrote called Stay At Home Dad.
Gary Caldwell awoke from a dream he couldn’t remember, except for the sound of his own voice telling him to be fruitful and multiply.
Cold golden light poured like sand into his eyes, but he could not close them. Could not move at all. He could see nothing but the light, feel only a vague, universal aching which brought him to the edge of panic. He was still in his body, or he seemed to be. The sensations he felt were nothing like the deep meditation or the OOBE training that was supposed to prepare him for the end.
Something his wife said came to him, just then: the End isn’t when we die… it’s when we all get what we deserve…
Was this what he deserved, then? Was this the Limbo reserved for infidels and unbelievers? It would be far better, if he could panic; if he could feel exultation, fear… anything.
Because the end had come, and what he believed had come true.
This thought cast his discomfort and confusion into a whole new light. He had seen them come down out of the sky with his own eyes. When the whole human race had succumbed to despair, he and the others who shared the vision had held out long enough to see them come.
He was with Joyce in the communications bunker, watching the torrential acid rain. The telescopes and pirate satellite feeds had found nothing, but their Big Ear had been pinging with anomalous radio signals for weeks. Someone had to be listening out there, and might finally be trying to speak.
Caldwell was the only one well enough to stand watch. A Grey Grids infection had wiped out half the group in the last week. Joyce was well into the terminal phase, the livid, circuitry-shaped rash branding every pallid inch of skin, but she came topside to bring him soup and spend her last breaths on accusations.
“Just admit it, darling,” she whispered, like begging for medicine. “Admit you were wrong.” It was unworthy of her, but it was easier than facing the real betrayal. She had followed him out here, and she was dying, and he was not.
“What did I do, now?” He busied himself with rebooting the sweeping radio receivers, but no outsiders broke into their argument. The constant atmospheric disturbances caused by the roving tri-state cyclone-cluster they called the Funnel, now a permanent feature of the Great Plains, had snuffed out all terrestrial communications.
No one on Earth had anything to say that was worth hearing, anyway. Night and day, the group tended their telescopes, their radio transmitters and their lasers, and sent out Dr. Scriabin’s message to the universe.
“All of this was a mistake. All the calculations, the predictions, the pilgrimage out here… just laser-guided prayer. Just another cargo cult pipe dream.”
That stung. The world had called them a cult, but what did they believe, that was not written in the poisoned earth, the tainted skies and the rising, dying seas? Their leader was not a wild-eyed crankcase, or a glad-handing evangelist, but a soft-spoken retired college professor.
Dr. Scriabin predicted the end based on Malthusian charts and greenhouse gas curves, while the rest of the world clung to their fantasies of a universal Daddy who gave them the earth to eat like a pie in an eating contest. Was their retreat into the Montana badlands to try to contact an extra-terrestrial intelligence any more insane than the infantile belief of a solid majority of Americans that they would be raptured away from the end by angels?
It was hard to look at her, but he forced himself. “You’d rather we stayed in LA, when it fell into the sea, then? You’d prefer to have died in the food riots?”
“We didn’t just come out here to survive,” she spat. “You staked our lives on the premise that someone out there was watching. And that they would save us.”
The distress signal had been going out, in some form or other, for almost twenty years. The endless string of binary laser-light pulses and more esoteric codes were a barrage that anyone who could make sense of mathematics would surely decipher to learn the location of Earth, the dire state of its environment and, if they were as merciful as they were advanced, they would come running to save the few humans left from imminent destruction.
“We could have gone out with our families,” she sobbed, “with people who mattered to us… we could’ve gone somewhere and just tried to live…”
Biography – Cody Goodfellow
Cody Goodfellow has written three solo novels––Radiant Dawn, Ravenous Dusk and Perfect Union––and three more––Jake's Wake, The Day Before and Spore––with John Skipp. His short fiction has been collected in Silent Weapons For Quiet Wars and All Monster Action. As editor and co-founder of Perilous Press, he has published illustrated works of modern cosmic horror by Michael Shea, Brian Stableford and David Conyers. He lives in Los Angeles.
1. What is your favorite Sci-fi horror novel or short story?
Blood Music by Greg Bear. I read it shortly after discovering Lovecraft in junior high school, and it perfectly dovetailed with the unacceptable revelations of At The Mountains Of Madness. It was an utterly new vision of the apocalypse in its truest sense, as revelation rather than mere disaster. Also, it cleverly disposed of cliche cleft-jawed heroes and sexy scientists fighting to avert the coming change.
2. Tell us about your story and what your influences are?
For "Earth Worms", I delved into cherished memories of pulp sci-fi from Fredric Brown and Theodore Sturgeon, as well as cheesy Golden Age sci-fi comics, where the undoing of all human aspirations come as the punch line of a twisted cosmic joke. To push those hoary old tropes in the service of a deadly earnest issues like environmental and spiritual apocalypse scenarios just seemed like a natural fit, with the unspeakable alien zookeeper obligingly explaining how, from our earliest origins as multicellular life on Earth, we'd been conned.
3. Tell us something about yourself as a writer that isn't common knowledge?
Not much of international interest... I used to write for a local music and culture magazine in San Diego, and was one of the first (if not the first) to unmask guerrilla artist Shepard Fairey as the man behind the Andre The Giant sticker and banner campaign back in the 90s. I used to compose electronic scores for porno videos in college, and am currently working on the soundtrack for a short monster movie I wrote called Stay At Home Dad.
Earthworms
Cody Goodfellow
Cody Goodfellow
Gary Caldwell awoke from a dream he couldn’t remember, except for the sound of his own voice telling him to be fruitful and multiply.
Cold golden light poured like sand into his eyes, but he could not close them. Could not move at all. He could see nothing but the light, feel only a vague, universal aching which brought him to the edge of panic. He was still in his body, or he seemed to be. The sensations he felt were nothing like the deep meditation or the OOBE training that was supposed to prepare him for the end.
Something his wife said came to him, just then: the End isn’t when we die… it’s when we all get what we deserve…
Was this what he deserved, then? Was this the Limbo reserved for infidels and unbelievers? It would be far better, if he could panic; if he could feel exultation, fear… anything.
Because the end had come, and what he believed had come true.
This thought cast his discomfort and confusion into a whole new light. He had seen them come down out of the sky with his own eyes. When the whole human race had succumbed to despair, he and the others who shared the vision had held out long enough to see them come.
He was with Joyce in the communications bunker, watching the torrential acid rain. The telescopes and pirate satellite feeds had found nothing, but their Big Ear had been pinging with anomalous radio signals for weeks. Someone had to be listening out there, and might finally be trying to speak.
Caldwell was the only one well enough to stand watch. A Grey Grids infection had wiped out half the group in the last week. Joyce was well into the terminal phase, the livid, circuitry-shaped rash branding every pallid inch of skin, but she came topside to bring him soup and spend her last breaths on accusations.
“Just admit it, darling,” she whispered, like begging for medicine. “Admit you were wrong.” It was unworthy of her, but it was easier than facing the real betrayal. She had followed him out here, and she was dying, and he was not.
“What did I do, now?” He busied himself with rebooting the sweeping radio receivers, but no outsiders broke into their argument. The constant atmospheric disturbances caused by the roving tri-state cyclone-cluster they called the Funnel, now a permanent feature of the Great Plains, had snuffed out all terrestrial communications.
No one on Earth had anything to say that was worth hearing, anyway. Night and day, the group tended their telescopes, their radio transmitters and their lasers, and sent out Dr. Scriabin’s message to the universe.
“All of this was a mistake. All the calculations, the predictions, the pilgrimage out here… just laser-guided prayer. Just another cargo cult pipe dream.”
That stung. The world had called them a cult, but what did they believe, that was not written in the poisoned earth, the tainted skies and the rising, dying seas? Their leader was not a wild-eyed crankcase, or a glad-handing evangelist, but a soft-spoken retired college professor.
Dr. Scriabin predicted the end based on Malthusian charts and greenhouse gas curves, while the rest of the world clung to their fantasies of a universal Daddy who gave them the earth to eat like a pie in an eating contest. Was their retreat into the Montana badlands to try to contact an extra-terrestrial intelligence any more insane than the infantile belief of a solid majority of Americans that they would be raptured away from the end by angels?
It was hard to look at her, but he forced himself. “You’d rather we stayed in LA, when it fell into the sea, then? You’d prefer to have died in the food riots?”
“We didn’t just come out here to survive,” she spat. “You staked our lives on the premise that someone out there was watching. And that they would save us.”
The distress signal had been going out, in some form or other, for almost twenty years. The endless string of binary laser-light pulses and more esoteric codes were a barrage that anyone who could make sense of mathematics would surely decipher to learn the location of Earth, the dire state of its environment and, if they were as merciful as they were advanced, they would come running to save the few humans left from imminent destruction.
“We could have gone out with our families,” she sobbed, “with people who mattered to us… we could’ve gone somewhere and just tried to live…”
Biography – Cody Goodfellow
Cody Goodfellow has written three solo novels––Radiant Dawn, Ravenous Dusk and Perfect Union––and three more––Jake's Wake, The Day Before and Spore––with John Skipp. His short fiction has been collected in Silent Weapons For Quiet Wars and All Monster Action. As editor and co-founder of Perilous Press, he has published illustrated works of modern cosmic horror by Michael Shea, Brian Stableford and David Conyers. He lives in Los Angeles.Saturday, 19 November 2011
Midnight Echo 6 Interviews: Helen Stubbs
Our fourth interview with the contributing authors of Midnight Echo 6: The Science Fiction Horror Issue is with upcoming Australian weird speculative fiction author, Helen Stubbs. Her contribution “Surgeon Scalpelfingers” is as weird and wonderful as it sounds.
1. What is your favourite Sci-fi horror novel or short story and why?
My favourite Science Fiction horror novels are The Visitor and The Margarets by Sheri Tepper. She deals with futures where humankind endures drastic interventions by extra-terrestrial entities. Tepper writes girls who can do whatever they must to survive horrific events, rituals and weapons. The novels are disturbing, beautiful and believable. I would love to be able to create worlds and universes as massive and convincing as hers.
I also love John Wyndham's novella Consider Her Ways, and Kafka's Metamorphosis, which are both subtle horror working with the concept of waking in vastly changed circumstances. Whether you become a breeder or a cockroach, that has to suck.2. Tell us about your story and what your influences are?
My story, “Surgeon Scalpelfingers”, draws on one of my greatest childhood fears...ending up on an alien work bench. Initially, my protagonist observes what has happened in a cool detached manner. I love the narration of John Wyndham and that influenced my style in this piece. Jeff Lindsay's Darkly Dreaming Dexter inspired me in part (to take my character apart), while the robot from Lost in Space was definitely in the back of my mind as I designed the final product. There are some delightfully icky images in this story. Yay.
3. Tell us something about yourself as a writer that isn't common knowledge?
My first attempt at constructing a book was non-fiction. It was about my pet chicken, Chatterbox, who hatched one Christmas day then met an untimely end mere months later. Rest in peace, Chatterbox (1985-1986). This story is for you, who will ever be my favourite adolescent rooster, for whom I never found even a torn dappled feather. Was it alien abduction? Perhaps you are free ranging through far off galaxies, making single-legged featherless hens very happy.
I woke and wondered if I was still me, then decided probably not. While I had no memory of what I had been, I was certain I’d been a single thing, with a few or more limbs and zero coils.
I was strewn around the dim lab. I still had a sense of my body-parts, though we were no longer directly joined. Some sat tall and alone, on quietly vibrating dishes—that arm for example. It used to have a hand on top, now it had a metallic disc.
A brown organ with a curved back was encased in a glass canister of orange jelly. It had an aerial on top and wires trailing from the base. Yet other parts of former me inhabited small robots, for example, one finger had become the body of a metallic seven-legged beetle...an insect? Insept, I supposed.
Its rubbery neck supported a half-sphere, which turned toward me.
Oh, hello—it held my other eye. That other eye looked back at me, to where this eye and my thoughts were based... in my head? No, not at all. My other eye had a clear view and told me I no longer had a head.
The majority of me was collected on a green operating table. One eye had been set into a circle of skin that was stretched over a cylinder. It looked similar to a drum. I couldn’t see my mouth, but other parts of me lay along the bench, integrated with a lot of hardware. Limbs, organs and a few toes were set into glass and metal casing. The connections between them included cable, wire and some tubing.
I had no skeleton—not bone and not metal. My scaffolding was missing. I could not stand up.
My independent eyes looked about a little more, rolling around their new settings. Beyond the circle of light that surrounded the green bench, it was hard to make out details. But there were my bones; lined up, from shortest to longest, in a slim tank that stretched along a wall. It didn’t look like it included all 206, but approximately a hundred.
My nose sat on top of a tripod. If I had an eye above it, that eye would have quite a view. Perhaps the insept could crawl up and take a look? Actually, it was good vantage point for smelling. My nose sniffed... it smelled blood and Betadine. And something more animal. Something that could do with a wash.
I was a work in progress. If I could have found my tear-ducts I would have cried.
To distract myself, I focused on locating my missing fingers, recalling that there should be another nine of those, along with two arms and two ears. These things were coming back to me. And so was a tall wobbling form, backlit by a bright light beyond the corridor. He was a two-metre tall, hill-shaped blob.
“Surgeon,” said a voice above me, in an unfamiliar language—yet I understood.
The voice belonged to a triangular robot face on a snake-like arm. Its long neck originated from somewhere above, lost in the darkness. It had spoken through a triangular speaker which lit up when it spoke. This mouth was set beneath its round camera eye.
The snake-bot turned to face the surgeon.
The surgeon burped and farted as he moved closer, and his rolls of pale fat came into view. His white face seemed to glow against the dimly lit background. He had bruise-blue lips, just like raw sausages.
His pale yellow eyes were rimmed with red inflammation.
Biography – Helen Stubbs
Helen Stubbs loves the beautiful weird, especially fiction about the future and alternate realities. Her writing usually includes tough heroines and terrible things. Her unpublished novel, Black Earth, is a quarter-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Award. She’s currently working on a novel called Verdan’s Marsh. Helen’s short stories have appeared in the Aussiecon Four Souvenir Booklet (competition winner “The Perforation”) and the Australian vampire anthology Dead Red Heart. She’s a member of Queensland Writers Centre, Vision Writers and Prana Writers. Her interests include chatting to strangers, travelling, bike riding, the environment, art and innovation. Contact Helen at twitter.com/superleni and helenstubbs.wordpress.com.
1. What is your favourite Sci-fi horror novel or short story and why?
My favourite Science Fiction horror novels are The Visitor and The Margarets by Sheri Tepper. She deals with futures where humankind endures drastic interventions by extra-terrestrial entities. Tepper writes girls who can do whatever they must to survive horrific events, rituals and weapons. The novels are disturbing, beautiful and believable. I would love to be able to create worlds and universes as massive and convincing as hers.
I also love John Wyndham's novella Consider Her Ways, and Kafka's Metamorphosis, which are both subtle horror working with the concept of waking in vastly changed circumstances. Whether you become a breeder or a cockroach, that has to suck.My story, “Surgeon Scalpelfingers”, draws on one of my greatest childhood fears...ending up on an alien work bench. Initially, my protagonist observes what has happened in a cool detached manner. I love the narration of John Wyndham and that influenced my style in this piece. Jeff Lindsay's Darkly Dreaming Dexter inspired me in part (to take my character apart), while the robot from Lost in Space was definitely in the back of my mind as I designed the final product. There are some delightfully icky images in this story. Yay.
3. Tell us something about yourself as a writer that isn't common knowledge?
My first attempt at constructing a book was non-fiction. It was about my pet chicken, Chatterbox, who hatched one Christmas day then met an untimely end mere months later. Rest in peace, Chatterbox (1985-1986). This story is for you, who will ever be my favourite adolescent rooster, for whom I never found even a torn dappled feather. Was it alien abduction? Perhaps you are free ranging through far off galaxies, making single-legged featherless hens very happy.
Surgeon Scalpelfingers
Helen Stubbs
Helen Stubbs
I woke and wondered if I was still me, then decided probably not. While I had no memory of what I had been, I was certain I’d been a single thing, with a few or more limbs and zero coils.
I was strewn around the dim lab. I still had a sense of my body-parts, though we were no longer directly joined. Some sat tall and alone, on quietly vibrating dishes—that arm for example. It used to have a hand on top, now it had a metallic disc.
A brown organ with a curved back was encased in a glass canister of orange jelly. It had an aerial on top and wires trailing from the base. Yet other parts of former me inhabited small robots, for example, one finger had become the body of a metallic seven-legged beetle...an insect? Insept, I supposed.
Its rubbery neck supported a half-sphere, which turned toward me.
Oh, hello—it held my other eye. That other eye looked back at me, to where this eye and my thoughts were based... in my head? No, not at all. My other eye had a clear view and told me I no longer had a head.
The majority of me was collected on a green operating table. One eye had been set into a circle of skin that was stretched over a cylinder. It looked similar to a drum. I couldn’t see my mouth, but other parts of me lay along the bench, integrated with a lot of hardware. Limbs, organs and a few toes were set into glass and metal casing. The connections between them included cable, wire and some tubing.
I had no skeleton—not bone and not metal. My scaffolding was missing. I could not stand up.
My independent eyes looked about a little more, rolling around their new settings. Beyond the circle of light that surrounded the green bench, it was hard to make out details. But there were my bones; lined up, from shortest to longest, in a slim tank that stretched along a wall. It didn’t look like it included all 206, but approximately a hundred.
My nose sat on top of a tripod. If I had an eye above it, that eye would have quite a view. Perhaps the insept could crawl up and take a look? Actually, it was good vantage point for smelling. My nose sniffed... it smelled blood and Betadine. And something more animal. Something that could do with a wash.
I was a work in progress. If I could have found my tear-ducts I would have cried.
To distract myself, I focused on locating my missing fingers, recalling that there should be another nine of those, along with two arms and two ears. These things were coming back to me. And so was a tall wobbling form, backlit by a bright light beyond the corridor. He was a two-metre tall, hill-shaped blob.
“Surgeon,” said a voice above me, in an unfamiliar language—yet I understood.
The voice belonged to a triangular robot face on a snake-like arm. Its long neck originated from somewhere above, lost in the darkness. It had spoken through a triangular speaker which lit up when it spoke. This mouth was set beneath its round camera eye.
The snake-bot turned to face the surgeon.
The surgeon burped and farted as he moved closer, and his rolls of pale fat came into view. His white face seemed to glow against the dimly lit background. He had bruise-blue lips, just like raw sausages.
His pale yellow eyes were rimmed with red inflammation.
Biography – Helen Stubbs
Helen Stubbs loves the beautiful weird, especially fiction about the future and alternate realities. Her writing usually includes tough heroines and terrible things. Her unpublished novel, Black Earth, is a quarter-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Award. She’s currently working on a novel called Verdan’s Marsh. Helen’s short stories have appeared in the Aussiecon Four Souvenir Booklet (competition winner “The Perforation”) and the Australian vampire anthology Dead Red Heart. She’s a member of Queensland Writers Centre, Vision Writers and Prana Writers. Her interests include chatting to strangers, travelling, bike riding, the environment, art and innovation. Contact Helen at twitter.com/superleni and helenstubbs.wordpress.com.Tuesday, 15 November 2011
Midnight Echo 6 Interviews: Cat Sparks
Our third interview with the contributing authors of Midnight Echo 6: The Science Fiction Horror Issue is with Australian speculative fiction short story writer and editor, Cat Sparks, who penned a space opera horror fantasy with pirates, “Dead Low”.
1. What is your favourite Sci-fi horror novel or short story and why?
I'm not sure I have an absolute favourite, but I was really taken by Jeff Long's The Descent when I read it a few years ago. The novel concerns a vast, labyrinthine world of tunnels and caverns below the subsurface of the world and the troglodyte hominid cultures that inhabit them; tribes humans have interpreted as demons throughout history. This is a violent novel rich with character and detail. Many scenes remain indelibly imprinted on my mind.
Other favourites include Stephen King's The Stand and Patricia Highsmith's collection of short stories Tales of Natural and Unnatural Catastrophes.
2. Tell us about your story and what your influences are?
“Dead Low” is inspired by elephants' graveyards and abandoned children raised by wolves, only instead of elephants there are space ships and in place of wolves run malfunctioning surplus military hardware. Did I mention there are pirates? What's not to like?
3. Tell us something about yourself as a writer that isn't common knowledge?
Most of my writing, one way or another, tends to be about the search for identity: either mine, my protagonists', or perhaps that of the entire human species. I didn't realise this fact until an astute editor pointed it out after reading a bunch of my stories. “Dead Low”, however, is about SPACE PIRATES!
They were seven all up if you counted the pilot—and Clancy always did. Qamar had the smarts to demand a fee in lieu of a share of the plunder. Smarts enough to get paid regardless. He never went in but he’d always got them out. More than once by the skin of their back teeth. He cut things close but close was good enough for Clancy. She wouldn’t have swapped him for all the jewels on Europa.
The Sargasso Drift was not for the faint hearted. Not for greenhorns either. She knew she should have left the kid at base. Konte was excited for all the wrong reasons. Busting out and itching for a fight. Trouble was the last thing Clancy needed. The Sargasso Drift was trouble enough on its own.
“Looks like an elephants’ graveyard,” said Kyah, picking at her fingernails as Clancy enhanced the view. Before them, a sea of debris meshed with frozen rocks. Shattered hulls slept nestled amongst them, their once shiny surfaces pockmarked by centuries of micro impacts. Booster cylinders, photon drives, modular components battered into new and unrecognisable shapes. All jammed together to form a large amorphous mass, like a cancer or a blood clot. And something else; a substance registering as a brown-grey shadow that looked as though it should have been rock, but wasn’t.
“This here’s what you call a dead low,” Clancy explained. “Everything adrift in this part of the system ends up here sooner or later.”
Corvettes, cutters, blockade runners, battle cruisers, satellites, zips and flails, and all the other junk detritus illegally dumped from freighters.
“Elephant?” asked Konte, the kid in battle fatigues so new, the fabric was still stiff and shiny.
“An ancient kind of ship,” said Pace. “Freighter. Pre-Empire. Reckon this is where the Horgis generals sent their ships to die.”
“No way!” said the kid, his eyes as wide as saucers. He turned to Clancy. “Can’t we get in closer?”
“Not until we have to.” The grim tone to Clancy’s voice gave them all an early warning. All except the kid, of course, this being his first time out. Nobody wanted him along for the ride. Virgin heroes were generally the first to fall, usually dragging some other poor bastard down with them.
“First in, first serve for salvage rights,” said Kyah. Her hands were trembling, which meant she was on the juice again. Not good.
“Hon, we’re far from being the first. A good many of those shattered hulls belonged to salvage crews.”
“Not good ones, though. If they were good, they would never have bought it so easy.”
Clancy decided to let it go. Regret was already gnawing at her edges. The lies it had taken to get them all this far. After all, the ship belonged to Pace. His ship, Barbuda’s map, but the heartache was hers and hers alone. If she was wrong then none of it was going to matter.
“So what does the scan say?”
DeVere was already on it. “Highly mineralised,” he offered.
Biography – Cat Sparks
Cat Sparks is fiction editor of Cosmos Magazine. She managed Agog! Press, an Australian independent press that produced ten anthologies of new speculative fiction from 2002-2008. A graduate of the inaugural Clarion South Writers’ Workshop and a Writers of the Future prize winner, she has edited five anthologies of speculative fiction and more than fifty of her short stories have been published since 2000. She’s won thirteen Aurealis and Ditmar awards for writing, editing and art. She is currently working on a dystopian/biopunk trilogy and a suite of post-apocalypse tales set on the New South Wales south coast. www.catsparks.net (Photo credit: Selena Quintrell)
1. What is your favourite Sci-fi horror novel or short story and why?
I'm not sure I have an absolute favourite, but I was really taken by Jeff Long's The Descent when I read it a few years ago. The novel concerns a vast, labyrinthine world of tunnels and caverns below the subsurface of the world and the troglodyte hominid cultures that inhabit them; tribes humans have interpreted as demons throughout history. This is a violent novel rich with character and detail. Many scenes remain indelibly imprinted on my mind.
Other favourites include Stephen King's The Stand and Patricia Highsmith's collection of short stories Tales of Natural and Unnatural Catastrophes.
2. Tell us about your story and what your influences are?
“Dead Low” is inspired by elephants' graveyards and abandoned children raised by wolves, only instead of elephants there are space ships and in place of wolves run malfunctioning surplus military hardware. Did I mention there are pirates? What's not to like?
3. Tell us something about yourself as a writer that isn't common knowledge?
Most of my writing, one way or another, tends to be about the search for identity: either mine, my protagonists', or perhaps that of the entire human species. I didn't realise this fact until an astute editor pointed it out after reading a bunch of my stories. “Dead Low”, however, is about SPACE PIRATES!
Dead Low
Cat Sparks
Cat Sparks
They were seven all up if you counted the pilot—and Clancy always did. Qamar had the smarts to demand a fee in lieu of a share of the plunder. Smarts enough to get paid regardless. He never went in but he’d always got them out. More than once by the skin of their back teeth. He cut things close but close was good enough for Clancy. She wouldn’t have swapped him for all the jewels on Europa.
The Sargasso Drift was not for the faint hearted. Not for greenhorns either. She knew she should have left the kid at base. Konte was excited for all the wrong reasons. Busting out and itching for a fight. Trouble was the last thing Clancy needed. The Sargasso Drift was trouble enough on its own.
“Looks like an elephants’ graveyard,” said Kyah, picking at her fingernails as Clancy enhanced the view. Before them, a sea of debris meshed with frozen rocks. Shattered hulls slept nestled amongst them, their once shiny surfaces pockmarked by centuries of micro impacts. Booster cylinders, photon drives, modular components battered into new and unrecognisable shapes. All jammed together to form a large amorphous mass, like a cancer or a blood clot. And something else; a substance registering as a brown-grey shadow that looked as though it should have been rock, but wasn’t.
“This here’s what you call a dead low,” Clancy explained. “Everything adrift in this part of the system ends up here sooner or later.”
Corvettes, cutters, blockade runners, battle cruisers, satellites, zips and flails, and all the other junk detritus illegally dumped from freighters.
“Elephant?” asked Konte, the kid in battle fatigues so new, the fabric was still stiff and shiny.
“An ancient kind of ship,” said Pace. “Freighter. Pre-Empire. Reckon this is where the Horgis generals sent their ships to die.”
“No way!” said the kid, his eyes as wide as saucers. He turned to Clancy. “Can’t we get in closer?”
“Not until we have to.” The grim tone to Clancy’s voice gave them all an early warning. All except the kid, of course, this being his first time out. Nobody wanted him along for the ride. Virgin heroes were generally the first to fall, usually dragging some other poor bastard down with them.
“First in, first serve for salvage rights,” said Kyah. Her hands were trembling, which meant she was on the juice again. Not good.
“Hon, we’re far from being the first. A good many of those shattered hulls belonged to salvage crews.”
“Not good ones, though. If they were good, they would never have bought it so easy.”
Clancy decided to let it go. Regret was already gnawing at her edges. The lies it had taken to get them all this far. After all, the ship belonged to Pace. His ship, Barbuda’s map, but the heartache was hers and hers alone. If she was wrong then none of it was going to matter.
“So what does the scan say?”
DeVere was already on it. “Highly mineralised,” he offered.
Biography – Cat Sparks
Cat Sparks is fiction editor of Cosmos Magazine. She managed Agog! Press, an Australian independent press that produced ten anthologies of new speculative fiction from 2002-2008. A graduate of the inaugural Clarion South Writers’ Workshop and a Writers of the Future prize winner, she has edited five anthologies of speculative fiction and more than fifty of her short stories have been published since 2000. She’s won thirteen Aurealis and Ditmar awards for writing, editing and art. She is currently working on a dystopian/biopunk trilogy and a suite of post-apocalypse tales set on the New South Wales south coast. www.catsparks.net (Photo credit: Selena Quintrell)Saturday, 5 November 2011
Midnight Echo 6 Interviews: Alan Baxter
In our second interview as part of the lead up to Midnight Echo 6: The Science Fiction Horror Issue, we have an interview with Alan Baxter. His contribution tackles the fears faced by space travellers far form home and very deep into the void.
1. What is your favorite Sci-fi horror novel or short story and why?
This is a really tough one to answer. Some of the best sci-fi horror is in the movies as it's sadly under-represented in written fiction, but there is a lot of good stuff out there. However, while it's not necessarily classified as horror, I would have to say Peter Watts's novel, Blindsight. It's a hard SF first-contact novel, and not really a horror novel in the commonly accepted sense. But Watts does such an amazing job of creating a truly alien entity for first contact and develops such horrifying reality around what such an encounter would really be like, that I find it hard to go past. It's an outstanding book, and perhaps the most horrifying element for me is the way the aliens move. Seriously, read it and you'll see what I mean.
2. Tell us about your story and what your influences are?
My story involves a few influences. Firstly, my science fiction tends to be heavy on the fiction and light on the science. I'm not scientifically educated enough to make the scientific elements of a story really convincing, but I love the scope for exploring ideas that SF gives a writer. There's certainly way more out there than we can comprehend, let alone prepare for, as the example of Blindsight above so ably demonstrates. On top of that, the experiences of humans in deep space would be very different to any experience available on Earth and I like to play with those ideas too. So my story explores the nature of very deep space exploration, the inexplicable things that might be out there, and the psychology of the people in those situations. I like my sci-fi to have a bit of a wild frontiers element, with the technological and human challenges that would bring. For example, the main character, Peevy, has a condition called deepfear, like a galactic agoraphobia, which was a lot of fun to play with.
3. Tell us something about yourself as a writer that isn't common knowledge?
I'm such an online whore that I doubt there's much people don't already know. But here's a couple of things. I wrote a sequel story to "Trawling The Void", called "Salvage In The Void", which picks up exactly where the first story ends, and that sequel just placed as a semi-finalist in the Writers Of The Future competition. So now I need to find somewhere to publish it. Also, I used to be a fishmonger. How's that?
Trawling the Void
Alan Baxter
The incoherent voices in Peevy’s mind were more insistent. The ghostly dragging at his clothes and skin stronger, though he knew nothing was there. He ground his teeth, staring at the diagnostics panel.
I’m not going mad. I’m not going mad. The thought was becoming his mantra.
He reached one hand down and scratched the soft, furry head of LaVey. The SimHound looked up, gave him a doggy smile. Peevy frowned at engine efficiency readouts. “Look at this, Jack.”
The Duty Engineer, an old ship hand, rough around the edges, shrugged. “Looks all right to me.” His grizzled old face showed no signs of worry.
Peevy glanced up, surprised. “Really? Look at the energy fluctuation across the coils.”
“It’s not much.”
“Maybe not, but as we don’t know what’s causing it we have to find out.”
“You’re the boss.”
Peevy smiled at the Duty Engineer. He was getting lazy in his old age.
#
“This array seems fine.” Peevy twisted in the cramped space to look the other way. “What about there?” The presence surged and he stiffened, wincing as he tried to ignore it.
The tech opposite gave a thumbs up. “Yep, this one’s fine too.”
Peevy made a sound of annoyance. LaVey watched with heavy-lidded disinterest as Peevy and the tech emerged from the service bay. Jack’s eyebrows raised. “Nothing.”
The old eyebrows sank as he smiled. “There you go then.”
“No. The engines are still out of whack. You should care about this. I think we should do a full restart.”
“The Cap will not be happy about that.”
“The Cap will have to suck it up.”
Biography – Alan Baxter
Alan Baxter is a British-Australian author living on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia. He writes dark fantasy, science fiction and horror, rides a motorcycle and loves his dog. He also teaches Kung Fu. His contemporary dark fantasy novels, RealmShift and MageSign, are out through Gryphonwood Press, and his short fiction has appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies in Australia, the US and the UK, including the Year’s Best Australian Fantasy & Horror. Alan is also a freelance writer, penning reviews, feature articles and opinion. Read extracts from his novels, a novella and short stories at his website: www.alanbaxteronline.com
1. What is your favorite Sci-fi horror novel or short story and why?This is a really tough one to answer. Some of the best sci-fi horror is in the movies as it's sadly under-represented in written fiction, but there is a lot of good stuff out there. However, while it's not necessarily classified as horror, I would have to say Peter Watts's novel, Blindsight. It's a hard SF first-contact novel, and not really a horror novel in the commonly accepted sense. But Watts does such an amazing job of creating a truly alien entity for first contact and develops such horrifying reality around what such an encounter would really be like, that I find it hard to go past. It's an outstanding book, and perhaps the most horrifying element for me is the way the aliens move. Seriously, read it and you'll see what I mean.
2. Tell us about your story and what your influences are?
My story involves a few influences. Firstly, my science fiction tends to be heavy on the fiction and light on the science. I'm not scientifically educated enough to make the scientific elements of a story really convincing, but I love the scope for exploring ideas that SF gives a writer. There's certainly way more out there than we can comprehend, let alone prepare for, as the example of Blindsight above so ably demonstrates. On top of that, the experiences of humans in deep space would be very different to any experience available on Earth and I like to play with those ideas too. So my story explores the nature of very deep space exploration, the inexplicable things that might be out there, and the psychology of the people in those situations. I like my sci-fi to have a bit of a wild frontiers element, with the technological and human challenges that would bring. For example, the main character, Peevy, has a condition called deepfear, like a galactic agoraphobia, which was a lot of fun to play with.
3. Tell us something about yourself as a writer that isn't common knowledge?
I'm such an online whore that I doubt there's much people don't already know. But here's a couple of things. I wrote a sequel story to "Trawling The Void", called "Salvage In The Void", which picks up exactly where the first story ends, and that sequel just placed as a semi-finalist in the Writers Of The Future competition. So now I need to find somewhere to publish it. Also, I used to be a fishmonger. How's that?
Trawling the Void
Alan Baxter
The incoherent voices in Peevy’s mind were more insistent. The ghostly dragging at his clothes and skin stronger, though he knew nothing was there. He ground his teeth, staring at the diagnostics panel.
I’m not going mad. I’m not going mad. The thought was becoming his mantra.
He reached one hand down and scratched the soft, furry head of LaVey. The SimHound looked up, gave him a doggy smile. Peevy frowned at engine efficiency readouts. “Look at this, Jack.”
The Duty Engineer, an old ship hand, rough around the edges, shrugged. “Looks all right to me.” His grizzled old face showed no signs of worry.
Peevy glanced up, surprised. “Really? Look at the energy fluctuation across the coils.”
“It’s not much.”
“Maybe not, but as we don’t know what’s causing it we have to find out.”
“You’re the boss.”
Peevy smiled at the Duty Engineer. He was getting lazy in his old age.
#
“This array seems fine.” Peevy twisted in the cramped space to look the other way. “What about there?” The presence surged and he stiffened, wincing as he tried to ignore it.
The tech opposite gave a thumbs up. “Yep, this one’s fine too.”
Peevy made a sound of annoyance. LaVey watched with heavy-lidded disinterest as Peevy and the tech emerged from the service bay. Jack’s eyebrows raised. “Nothing.”
The old eyebrows sank as he smiled. “There you go then.”
“No. The engines are still out of whack. You should care about this. I think we should do a full restart.”
“The Cap will not be happy about that.”
“The Cap will have to suck it up.”
Biography – Alan Baxter
Alan Baxter is a British-Australian author living on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia. He writes dark fantasy, science fiction and horror, rides a motorcycle and loves his dog. He also teaches Kung Fu. His contemporary dark fantasy novels, RealmShift and MageSign, are out through Gryphonwood Press, and his short fiction has appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies in Australia, the US and the UK, including the Year’s Best Australian Fantasy & Horror. Alan is also a freelance writer, penning reviews, feature articles and opinion. Read extracts from his novels, a novella and short stories at his website: www.alanbaxteronline.comWednesday, 2 November 2011
The Eye of Infinity available for Purchase
The Eye of Infinity is now available for purchase, at the Perilous Press website. Here is the blurb:Cover by MIKE DUBISCH
Interior illustrations by NICK GUCKER
ISBN 0-9704000-4-8
Trade Paperback, 84 Pages
At a remote radio telescope facility in New Mexico, an astrophysicist commits suicide after contracting a hideous mutative plague caused by something he saw...and he won't be the last.
Major Harrison Peel has witnessed his share of cosmic atrocities before, but now he faces a threat worse than death and a powerful enemy that hides behind a human face.
When a top-secret NASA program refuses to heed his warnings, Peel is catapulted into a nightmarish government conspiracy that takes him from Fort Meade's Puzzle Palace to the launchpads of Cape Canaveral; from the desolate Atacama Desert of Chile to the very heart of the universe itself, all in a desperate bid to close... THE EYE OF INFINITY.
The Eye of Infinity is a new novella in the epic series that began in The Spiraling Worm and is a spellbinding fusion of cosmic horror, quantum physics and espionage action.
"The Advertising Imperative" on Ticon4.com
I'm excited to announce my short story "The Advertising Imperative" has been published by the good folk at Ticon4.com, or more specifically, Liz Grzyb. This story combines my love of space opera with my professional experience in marketing communications. Satrical I know, and one of those stories that only approaches an issue from one viewpoint, but I'm still really happy with the finished product.
Also thanks to Damien Broderick who gave me some great editorial advice on this one.
If you want to read it (and vote for it), go here.
Also thanks to Damien Broderick who gave me some great editorial advice on this one.
If you want to read it (and vote for it), go here.
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