Tag: The Way Stories

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“Go Your Own Way” – forthcoming in Analog

New story klaxon!!!!

My story, Go Your Own Way, is due to be published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, in the January/February 2025 issue.

Analog (originally called Astounding*) has been going since 1930, and has published many of the greats – Heinlein, Asimov, Zelazny, George Martin, and a long list beyond them. I’ve had a lot of stories rejected by Analog, and I’m delighted at last to have snuck under the wire.

The new story is the fourth in my “Way” series. You can read about earlier instalments (and read one of them) here, in the sadly now defunct Intergalactic Medicine Show.

It concerns a young man called Ferdinand, who stumbles on a mechanism for travelling between different versions of reality, between worlds that are subtly or dramatically different from our own, depending on how far you go along a mysterious path called the Way. Eventually tired of wandering, he settles down. But his life is turned upside down when he encounters another version of himself, who proves troublesome in many ways.

More when it’s available.

(*Incidentally, if you’re interested in the story of the so-called Golden Age of SF, check out a marvellous book Astounding, by Alec Nevala-Lee. Highly recommended.)

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Hard Times in Nuovo Genova: available free in the IGMS Archive

Even the name – Covid-19 – is like something out of a science fiction story, and truly we are living in strange and dystopian times. We have to take our comforts where we can.

That being so, it’s great that so many organisations have stepped up and made content available free at a time when we’re locked down. The online magazine, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, sadly closed last year. But they have now posted all their stories online, free of charge. You can check out 14 years’ worth of stories and artwork here.

While you’re browsing, you might want to take a look at my story, Hard Times in Nuovo Genova, which featured in IGMS in August 2018, and was later included in the Newcon Press collection, The Best of British Science Fiction 2018.

I wrote about the story in my post of August 2018. It’s basically a boy meets girl story. Except the girl has the power to travel at will between alternative universes, and the boy doesn’t. A recipe for relationship trouble, if ever there was!

Go on – give it a read. You know you’ve got time. Here’s a taster:

Hard Times in Nuovo Genova (or How I Lost My Way)

I see them occasionally, wandering through Columbus Plaza or hanging around the lakefront. Always alone.

They’re obvious, if you know what to look for: something a bit off about their clothing; maybe the material or style sticks out–buttons on the shirt when everyone here has those tiny hook and eye things; blue denim worn tight when the men of Nuovo Genova favor baggy cotton pants.

It’s how they act, too. They drift up behind market traders on a cigarillo break and eavesdrop while pretending to tie a shoelace. They sit alone outside a café, pretending to read a newspaper. But they never turn a page as they listen to the talk at the table behind.

They’re passing through and they need to learn about the place fast. It’s not as if they can ask: Excuse me, what country is this? Was Roosevelt president in 1940, or was it Lindbergh?

I spot them easily because that was once me. Before I lost the Way.

Sian is waiting when I appear. She puts a finger to her lips and leads me off the beach. We sit with our backs against a tree, facing the lake.

The air is cold, with no sound except our breathing and the murmur of waves. I sniff the air. There’s something odd about the smell: metallic and smoky, like ash washed by rain. I look south toward Chicago, but there are no lights.

“It doesn’t feel good,” Sian whispers.

“How can you tell?”

“You develop an instinct. We should stay here until light.”

It’s hard to sleep on a cold beach when you have just arrived somewhere completely unknown. Several times, I am close to dozing off when a noise from the trees makes me stiffen and pull Sian close. There’s a screech like an animal in pain, followed by a low scraping sound, moving away inland. Another time, an eerie howling, like a pack of wolves a mile away.

“Maybe it’s a werewolf,” I say. “Full moon, after all.”

“You think you’re joking.”

Somehow, we sleep and wake to daylight the color of dirty dishwater. A bloated, rusty sun emerges from the lake. Oily cords of cloud paint stripes across the sky.

“Look at the city,” Sian says.

At first glance, the skyline is comforting in its familiarity. Then it comes into focus: stunted towers, like broken teeth; a wall of dark buildings, lit in places by sunlight on jagged remnants of windows. A rusted hulk of a ship half-submerged in the lake two miles south.

We stay on the beach all day, watching the dead city, but we see no movement. We leave with the moon...

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Once There Was a Way – Out Now on Starship Sofa

Those great folks at Starship Sofa have done an audio version of my story ‘Once There Was a Way’. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts, or on the Starship Sofa site. While you’re there, be sure to subscribe – they do some great stories.

The story first appeared last year, in the first anthology from Filles Vertes Publishing (who also published my novel, Fifty-One). The book – which features numerous other great stories – was called ‘Flicker: Stories of Inner Flame’, and you can check it out at Filles Vertes Publishing.

The story is one of three first published last year in the ‘Way’ series. It features a young man called Siggy, who meets a woman called Ellie. They fall in love, and she shares with him a fantastic secret: she has stumbled upon a mechanism for traveling between different versions of reality, between worlds that are subtly or dramatically different from our own, depending on how far you go along a mysterious path called the Way.

Siggy has a wanderlust, and showing him the Way is like giving him the keys to the sweetshop. He can’t resist using it without Ellie, only to get lost in parallel worlds, forever searching for the version of reality he left behind, the one with his lover in it.

It’s always nice to hear a story interpreted by someone else, and Andrew Leman does a fine job with the narration (including some suitably English dropped aitches!).

Here’s a taster of the story. For more, check out the podcast or buy ‘Flicker’ (and support a super independent publisher).

Once There Was A Way

I had known Ellie a month. We were at a party near the coast. It was after midnight when we kissed in the dark under the trees at the bottom of the garden.

Ellie said, “There’s something I want to show you.”

“Will I like it?” I assumed we were talking about sex, which was fine with me.

“I’ve never shown anyone else. I think you’re ready.”

She took my hand and led me through a gate, into a cliff-top meadow overlooking the Atlantic. A full moon stood sentinel over the sea, laying a shimmering trail across the water.

“Do you want me to show you something amazing?”

“Right here?” I admit, I was still thinking about sex.

“It only works at full moon.” She stepped closer and kissed me again.  “Close your eyes and relax.” Her hands were on my shoulders. She eased me backwards, a step at a time. “Tell me what you feel under your feet,” she whispered. “Each step.”

“Grass, of course. Grass again. Wait -.” A change in the texture of the ground, some kind of artificial surface.

“Open your eyes.”

I had one foot on a layer of mist, which was not there a few seconds before. It glowed faintly in the moonlight, making a ghostly path that snaked away from us, rippling along the cliff top. I thought at first it was some trick of the moonlight and a trace of sea mist, abetted by the wine we had drunk. But, however impossible it seemed, there was no denying that I stood on a thin strip of light a couple of inches above the grass.

“What is it?”

“It’s called the Way.”

“But what is it?”

“You can find out by trying it,” Ellie said. “You’re always keen to travel. But you have to do exactly as I say. Don’t go far, just a few minutes and then come back. Count the number of steps you take and make them even. You have to take the exact same number on the way back. And also, take this.” She reached up and unclasped the silver necklace she wore. “When you come back, give it to me before you do anything else.”

“Why?” The chain had a tiny silver dolphin on it.

“I’ll explain later. Now go, but hurry back.”

***

Is this two hundred trips, or maybe more? I’ve lost count. This time, her house isn’t even there. Instead, a brutalist 1970s apartment block squats on a patch of grass. Two teenage boys sit on the roof of a wrecked car. They watch me as I approach. I keep walking.

Once out of sight, I take the turning that should lead to the pub. But that isn’t there either. There is a row of narrow houses, some with boarded windows.

No house, no pub. No way of knowing if Ellie ever lived here or ever will. I should be used to this. I should have learned by now not to hope. But every time it’s a punch in the gut.

The full moon remains high and I walk back to where I left the Way. I step on it without a backward glance, and the buildings around me fade away.

I move on.

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Best of British Science Fiction 2018

As trailed earlier in the year, I’m pleased that my story ‘Hard Times in Nuovo Genova’ is included in the latest collection of the Best of British Science Fiction. You can find the book here.

Best Of British Science Fiction 2018 cover – image is Les Edwards’ Chasing the Lightship

The book is out now. If you want to buy it (and you should, you know), consider getting it direct from the publisher – NewCon Press. Whenever anyone supports an independent publisher, another fairy is saved.

I was gutted that I couldn’t make it to the book’s launch, at the science fiction WorldCon in Dublin. But I hear the event went well, and the book sold out on the day (so that’s good news for Tinkerbell and friends).

Hard Times’ was first published in August 2018 in Orson Scott Card’s sadly now-defunct Intergalactic Medicine Show. It’s one of three stories published last year in the ‘Way’ cycle of tales of love and loss in alternate universes. To see it nestling alongside such great British Sf writers as Alastair Reynolds, Aliya Whitely and GV Anderson is such a thrill.

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‘Hard Times’ in Best British SF 2018

The contents list for the latest collection of the Best of British Science Fiction has just been published. You can see it here.

It would be an understatement to say I’m thrilled that my story ‘Hard Times in Nuovo Genova’ is included. It’s always a pleasure when an editor wants your story, but doubly so when it nestles alongside tales from such a crowd of great British SF writers, in a collection pulled together by Donna Scott. Can’t wait to read them.

‘Hard Times’ was first published last August in Orson Scott Card’s sadly now-defunct Intergalactic Medicine Show (I didn’t break it, honest). It’s one of three stories published last year in the ‘Way’ cycle of tales of love and loss in alternate universes.

This is two years in a row that I’ve had a story in the Best of British anthology. Last year it was ‘When I Close My Eyes.’ You’ll have to wait until August for the launch of the 2018 anthology, but you can still buy the 2017 version (and you really should). Preferably direct from NewCon Press.

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Once There Was A Way: new story in FVP’s ‘Flicker’ Anthology

I do so love the folks at Filles Vertes Publishing. They brought my novel Fifty-One into the world, and now they’ve gone and published a delightful anthology of short stories.

Called ‘Flicker’, the collection includes stories from FVP writers and winners of a recent competition run by the publisher to find new voices. You can buy it here:

From Filles Vertes Publishing
Amazon UK
Amazon US

 

Full disclosure – one of my stories is in the book (more on that below), but even if it wasn’t I’d be recommending you read the book, for its variety of voices and styles.

I particularly enjoyed K M Pohlkamp‘s ‘Physicists in Petticoats’, maybe because I’m currently reading a book on quantum physics (light early autumn reading!)

As for my story, it’s another from the ‘Way’ series, following on the heels of ‘Sigmund Seventeen’ , published by Electric Spec in May. It features a young man called Siggy, who meets a woman called Ellie. They fall in love, and she shares with him a fantastic secret: she has stumbled upon a mechanism for traveling between different versions of reality, between worlds that are subtly or dramatically different from our own, depending on how far you go along a mysterious path called the Way.

You can read more about the writing of the Way stories in this Electric Spec blog post. And here’s the opening of ‘Once There Was A Way’:

Once There Was A Way

I had known Ellie a month. We were at a party near the coast. It was after midnight when we kissed in the dark under the trees at the bottom of the garden.

Ellie said, “There’s something I want to show you.”

“Will I like it?” I assumed we were talking about sex, which was fine with me.

“I’ve never shown anyone else. I think you’re ready.”

She took my hand and led me through a gate, into a cliff-top meadow overlooking the Atlantic. A full moon stood sentinel over the sea, laying a shimmering trail across the water.

“Do you want me to show you something amazing?”

“Right here?” I admit, I was still thinking about sex.

“It only works at full moon.” She stepped closer and kissed me again.  “Close your eyes and relax.” Her hands were on my shoulders. She eased me backwards, a step at a time. “Tell me what you feel under your feet,” she whispered. “Each step.”

“Grass, of course. Grass again. Wait -.” A change in the texture of the ground, some kind of artificial surface.

“Open your eyes.”

I had one foot on a layer of mist, which was not there a few seconds before. It glowed faintly in the moonlight, making a ghostly path that snaked away from us, rippling along the cliff top. I thought at first it was some trick of the moonlight and a trace of sea mist, abetted by the wine we had drunk. But, however impossible it seemed, there was no denying that I stood on a thin strip of light a couple of inches above the grass.

“What is it?”

“It’s called the Way.”

“But what is it?”

“You can find out by trying it,” Ellie said. “You’re always keen to travel. But you have to do exactly as I say. Don’t go far, just a few minutes and then come back. Count the number of steps you take and make them even. You have to take the exact same number on the way back. And also, take this.” She reached up and unclasped the silver necklace she wore. “When you come back, give it to me before you do anything else.”

“Why?” The chain had a tiny silver dolphin on it.

“I’ll explain later. Now go, but hurry back.”

***

Is this two hundred trips, or maybe more? I’ve lost count. This time, her house isn’t even there. Instead, a brutalist 1970s apartment block squats on a patch of grass. Two teenage boys sit on the roof of a wrecked car. They watch me as I approach. I keep walking.

Once out of sight, I take the turning that should lead to the pub. But that isn’t there either. There is a row of narrow houses, some with boarded windows.

No house, no pub. No way of knowing if Ellie ever lived here or ever will. I should be used to this. I should have learned by now not to hope. But every time it’s a punch in the gut.

The full moon remains high and I walk back to where I left the Way. I step on it without a backward glance, and the buildings around me fade away.

I move on.

(To read more, you’ll need a copy of Flicker – buying links above!)

STOP PRESS: A third ‘Way’ story has just been published in Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show magazine. You can find that here. The story is called Hard Times in Nuovo Genova.