Thursday, June 25, 2020

Lockdown Tales

As I said in the previous post, during lockdown I wrote a few novellas. Well, I’ve been sporadically writing novellas for a while – very often when I sit down with the intention of writing a short story it grows in the telling. Two of them have in fact turned into the first two books in my next contract with Macmillan.


I’ve published some of these over the last year or so. One was Monitor Logan in World War Four edited by Sam M. Phillips and Adam Bennett in March last year. Another is Moral Biology in a magazine I once read copies of when a teenager, and even then they were old. Analog Science Fiction has been running since 1930 and to me, just like Asimov’s, is a legendary publication so it was great to be published there. And another called The Bosch I published myself to Amazon Kindle and POD.

But still I had plenty more yet to find a home and, trying to be tidy about this, I decided to publish them as a collection. That I’d written a few during lockdown and come to the decision to publish them at this time, Lockdown Tales seemed like the perfect title. Happily I can announce that the collection will be published by Ian Whates of NewCon Press in the UK, so that means stuff like limited signed editions and other good stuff. 

Lockdown Tales consists of six novellas and novelettes (depending on what your definition of those are) and amounts to about 150,000 words (about the length of The Skinner). These stories are:

The Relict is found buried in old lava in what is coming to be called ‘Far Future Polity’.  The first part exposed is a huge metal claw. . .

Monitor Logan was published in WWIV and not. Call this the director’s cut if you like. In this I tell the backstory too. Science fiction High Plains Drifter.

Bad Boy is what, with their tendency to understatement, the Hoopers of Spatterjay have named a giant whelk, which has come up from the ocean floor to denude islands and sink ships.     

Plenty is the name of this ‘Far Future Polity’ world where Ben has been stranded. He is surviving, just, despite the Night Stalker. And he too discovers the utility of old technology dug out of the ground.

Dr Whip is the only survivor of a virus aboard a space station. He has been changed, irrevocably – not by the virus but by the one who brought it to the station: Penny Royal.

Raising Moloch sees the return of Jonas Clyde the hooder expert so, of course, hooders are involved. Raising a monster can be a risky occupation. . .
     
There you go. I’ve written an introductions to these as a whole and individually. Publication date is to be decided – maybe towards the end of this year. I hope you’ll enjoy them!

6 comments:

Grant Bourdot said...

Really looking forward to this 'un!

Neil said...

Good to hear you have been going well in lock down. Hopefully see you soon ... new year maybe at the Angel?

I was just re rereading Dark Intelligence last week, in preparation to finish the transformation series, yes I am that far behind with your books. I keep buying the hardbacks, putting them into my to read stack, and flip back to reading my kindle. So I buy them again on the kindle, when the price is good and end up reading them on the kindle.

So I wasn't sure if I had read book 2, but thought it best to start again so that all the characters were fresh.

Given the free time I seem to have since the pubs are closed, I choose 2 authors, and alternate between their books in one of their collections.

So at the moment it's Neal Asher and Max Gladstone. Just about to finish book 2 in the Craft series, then back to Transformation Book 2, which I also think I have read before, but again unsure :) Then back to Max, then onto yourself etc.

Only question is ... do I push onto into the Jain trilogy? Maybe a bit of Peter Hamilton and the salvation sequence, then back to the Jain ???? I do like to change the style of books I read :) It also allows things to be appreciated a bit more instead of rushed through.

Thoughts on a postcard :)

Neal Asher said...

Neil, do what pleases you!

I probably won't do a signing next year. I'll head of to Crete before someone tells me I can't go.

Neil said...

Neal,

Not a bad idea to do a runner before/if things get crazy again. Hopefully one of the many corvid virus dna/rna projects on the go, will provide a reasonable boast by then.

Out of interest, what has the virus been like out where you live normally during the summer, is that data available?

Will you have a full novel out next year?

Neil

KRex said...

First question; is Crete a viable quarantine location. In NZ, team of 5 million. Almost all of whom are respecting the danger of the situation. In 'Merica, 250 million yahoos, all of whom are out for what they can get, and the answer to 'zoonotic viroform' is "shoot till the gun barrel glows". Actually, the answer would probably be "Whut?!?"

Your judgement; do you stand a better chance of surviving in England, than you do in Crete. My sole interest in your survival is of course that you continue to produce the best SF. So, if part of your writing process is a curmudgeonly refusal to face reality, then "On with the show" sez I. Better that you produce top class material, and less of it; than you end up on the Pratchett track, of regular, repeated, but diluted and diminished output.

But I am old enough to remember an interviewer talking to an ancien' "Induhvidualist" who lived on the slopes of Mt StHelens, just before it blew, and he wasn't moving for no Varmint Volcanoe! They didn't find his remains, or even his neighbourhood after the eruption. And I have been reading YOU long enough to see you pass from "I'll damn-well smoke if I want to, Nanny state be damned" to a 'slightly' more reasoned approach to your health.

Just think of it as a zombie invasion, where are there fewer and better zombies?

David Nix said...

So happy to see there's a Penny Royal story in this collection. I can't wait for the day PR crawls out of that singularity...