My story Bone Diamond – a sweeping tale of greed, madness, and murder in alt. Egypt – has just gone live at Beneath Ceaseless Skies. This is my first ever pro-rated sale, so I’m utterly proud and pleased with it. It’s the first step towards three pro-sales, which leads to SFWA (Science- Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) membership, which is another big stepping stone towards getting my work more widely out there. Here’s an excerpt- “Shh,” I whisper. I lift my bone shears and disconnect his left clavicle at the articular process, snap it at the foramen. He is …
Ice-Flock Gulls @ Kizuna Anthology
Kizuna: Fiction for Japan is a charity anthology of 75 stories from authors all around the world, with all proceeds going to benefit the orphans of the disaster-stricken Tohoku area, through the charity Smile Kids Japan. It includes a story by me- The Ice-Flock Storks of Soroya – one by Michael Moorcock, and 73 others ranging across all genres- Horror, humor, human drama, science fiction, fantasy, absurdist, bizarro, weird, new wave, bugpunk, Cthulhu, Sherlock Holmes, historical fiction, and more. Purchase At the moment it’s available only on ebook- here are the links: – Kizuna: Fiction for Japan > US – …
Killin Jack $0.99 on Kindle
I’m launching my short story Killin Jack on Kindle!! It’s a story of revenge and dark morality in the ramshackle fantasy city of Jabbler’s Mons, available now for $0.99 Killin Jack Killin Jack is a man-made monster stalking the blood-slicked warrens of Jabbler’s Mons, a brutal city where back-street mogrifers sculpt living flesh into twisted zoo-morphized contortions. Jack hunts the Bunnymen, lascivious cross-breeds that once rutted the city to the point of oblivion. But when his last victim proves to be a baby, Jack’s moral certainy falls away, and the final leg of his long-wrought revenge begins. Contains KILLIN JACK …
Sky Painter @ Something Wicked
My story Sky Painter – an epic fable about a fallen king and the love he left behind – has just gone live at Something Wicked, the South African magazine that also published Freemantle Mons a while back. SW was on hiatus for a while as editor Joe Vaz moved the production to ebook format. You can check the new style and subscribe here. Here’s Joe’s introduction to the issue- We start the issue off with ‘The Silver City and The Green Place’, by Abi Godsell, which tells the tale of a breakthrough scientific experiment in artificial intelligence. Next up …
Celibate Jayne the Hammerhand
by Michael John Grist It was nearing high-tide on the Sheckledown Sea when Celibate Jayne the Hammerhand finally bashed his way out of the belly of the whale. Ashen face covered with gobbets of blubber and gut, he slithered down the black rubber side of the beached leviathan, a river of purple slime showering down on his head. He gasped, coughed up a wad of bloody kelp and brine, then slumped himself starfish-splayed on the beach. Soon enough the jubilant cries of his crew carried raucously over the sand, as they moored the 6-oar gully, hefted up the smelting cauldrons, …
Killin Jack the Malakite
by Michael John Grist It was gone All Hallows by the Grammaton’s gong when Killin Jack the Malakite mobbed down the last of the Bunnymen. He was stalking spires up the Seasham cathedral that night, hopping from ladder-top to gargoyle round the copper-roofed cloisters, swerving in to the dome-top graveyard in the middle. The Bunnyman was knelt in a moonlight lozenge midst the marble gravestones, shovel in his hand and a clothy bundle at his feet, white glow bathing his silver fur pristine. Killin Jack padded cross the open cobblestone courtyard, shadow-casting, watching. The Bunnyman’s long velveteen ears twitched, and …
Clay Head
by Michael John Grist There’s a giant head in my living room. It’s made of grey clay and it sings through the night. It sings songs about America. Sometimes boogie-woogie or the Big Bopper. It sings Buddy Holly. It sings about the plane that crashed and sometimes the song about the crash. It sings about whiskey and rye. I don’t know why the head sings. I don’t know why the head is in my room, or why I let it stay. The head doesn’t wake me up when it sings. It sings so low and so slow and so deep …
Gellick in the Hax
Gellick is the rock at the heart of DAWN RISING, my epic fantasy novel. He is the lightest, most fun character, the one least touched by all the chaos outside in the city- though there is plenty of darkness lurking within his stone chest. He is a Balast, a race that calcify with time, losing all fluctility until they are just motionless blocks of stone, unable to think, speak, or move. It’s a terrible fate, one that comes young and never lets up, that all Balasts seek to stave off through the Hax- an endless recounting of their life stories …
story craft #15 Acts of Invention
26. That’s how many acts of invention a story needs. We can look at any story, any story that is a story, at least, and reel them off. Without fail, they’ll be there. They are all discreet. They all require a new idea, or the development of an old idea into a new idea. They are the ingredients in the cake, mixed and baked according to recipe, flavored with the writer’s voice, that build a living breathing story out of a bunch of bits and stuff. 26. Why is this interesting? Why should we sit up and take notice? Well, …
Mare in Indura
Mare is the most powerful voice of resilience and independence in DAWN RISING, my epic fantasy novel. She is by far the toughest character, who has been through the worst childhood imaginable- her parents were beaten to death in the street by drug-money collectors and she was sold into body-slavery, where mogrifers cut out the left side of her brain and threw her back into the slums of Indura expecting her to die. But she didn’t die. She pulled herself together and taught herself to survive in the filth and rot of the world. As a result she relies on …