Feyon is the voice of wealth and pampered privilege in DAWN RISING, my epic fantasy novel. She has never had to work a day in her life; rather she is treated like a porcelain doll by an army of maids and retainers, dressed and primped endlessly, and looks on Dawn and the others in the Abbey as if they are her playthings to toy with. However, there is steel at Feyon’s core, and a horrible secret even she has struggled to forget- centred around the grand doll room in her mansion in the Roy, where all the figures of her …
Bone Diamond @ Beneath Ceaseless Skies
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 …
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 …
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 …
Dawn in the Gravery
Dawn is the central character of DAWN RISING, my epic fantasy novel. He is an orphan boy living in the last Abbey to the Heart, insulated from the caste-driven chaos in the city outside, his life regulated by the Sisters who have been his only family since his mother died. It’s a lonely life, and Dawn spends his days lost in imagination, dreaming of adventure and ancient heroes from the Book of Saint Jabbler, wondering when his turn will come. Here Dawn clutches the Book to his chest while looking up at his heroes in the stars: This is the …