Short Story: Rock Bottom (2026)
You put on the headset before you jump.
There are so many people who will tell you not to jump, but they’re handing you a poisoned chalice, and the poison won’t be slow to act: you’ll feel everything on the way down; you’ll feel it all.
Ignore the ones who tell you to fall. They’re rooting you out, and I’m rooting for you. I leave you this note and swear my allegiance to you purely because we have never met, and I wish to pay my own fortune forward. Any others you read are a form of calculated malice. You must not FALL.
Novella: The Shinbone Shadowhunter (2024)
It was midnight in Shinbone and a fine rain peppered the streets, disturbing the pale reflection of the crescent moon in puddles the size of lakes and gently soaking the crowds of drunks that gathered in tavern doorways all over town.
In an ancient study at the top of a rickety house on the edge of one of the oldest streets in the rich district, Fulbert Fairwhack removed his spectacles and pinched the bridge of his nose as he strained to examine the document on the candlelit table before him. He’d been concentrating on it for the best part of an hour, pausing only once to usher away three large and exceedingly ugly birds that had landed on his windowsill.
Short Story: Inside (1999)
It’s a Saturday night of the old-fashioned sort, mum staring out of the kitchen window and dad drinking as heavily as he always does before the church clears him of any wrongdoing in the morning. He’d dropped his lottery ticket during happy hour at The Den, comes home to find it’s worth a sure tenner. It’s not my fault, what difference that makes. A sharp slap across the face and it’s up to bed, drum some responsibility into me. No punches tonight, no kicks – I’m off easy.
Don’t look back.
Tears running down my cheeks, I climb the stairs, pausing only to lick the steady flow of blood from my aching nose. A loud bang interrupts my thoughts, but it’s probably mum’s head hitting the wall. He’ll kill her, one day: I swear he will.
Short Story: Retrosex (1998)
I'm having intercourse with Sar23. She's been in Kentucky for two weeks attending the annual Nuclear Disarmament Convention, and I couldn't wait any longer. I think she's enjoying herself - I certainly hope she is - but I can't really tell now I've dropped the radar.
I still haven't got used to retro-conduit copulation, you see: it's a strange old concept. I guess the mental buzz is terrific, but you can't help feeling that any physical pleasure gets a bit lost in the transfer. And somehow it doesn't seem worth it. You can only moan and groan for so long, and at the end of the day, what do you have to show for your efforts? A bucket of sweat and leg-ache from the suction pads.
So how did I become involved in this voluntary pastime? Well, I'll tell you.
Novelette: The Swallowfalls Spinecaster (2015)
It was high summer, a season inexplicably translated by the environmental lunacy of Fogrise into thick, meandering mists, a fine coat of rain dust and the sort of chill you only get when a small handful of snow is suddenly deposited in your underpants. Everyone was miserable, but arguably no one more so than visiting Princess Envy of Rappohallodran.
'This place makes me weep,' she said, staring despondently from the windows of Fogrise Keep at a village square that, judging by the clutter of ugly architecture, it seemed several different builders were to blame for. Even the ornamental well looked ready to collapse, but this hadn't stopped the local children from playing a variety of difficult and dangerous games around it. The one going on now involved two of the bigger, more rotund teenagers trying to dangle a skinny ginger one over the side without dropping him. A short scream signalled that they had failed.