Galactic Truth
The two sets of aliens had met on a third planet. The crews had been very surprised to discover the other. All thoughts of setting up a colony had been put aside, each trying to ask the other who’d got here first.
sci-fi
Always Popular
Duos was on shore leave and ready for some action. The deep space engines on the cargo hauler he worked on had developed a problem and the journey had taken longer than usual. He knew exactly where to go, had money to spend and a whole week to enjoy it.
Finding Freya
The story was inspired by a typical scene in a typical Hollywood film. A man and a woman are running away from a killer. The woman is wearing high heels, tripping over and falling. Instead of jumping up and running, she is reaching out her hand. The man is grabbing it, and she is suddenly able to get up and run again. I know several women personally and every one of them can get up and run unaided, particularly when being chased by a killer robot, a hungry dinosaur, or a psychotic assassin.
It all began the morning her kitchen went mad
Of all my novels, Armageddon Girl took the longest to write. The version that made it out into the world was number four, that’s far more than my usual one. I’m talking about major rewrites here, not drafts and partial edits. Unusually for me, I didn’t keep those early documents but deleted huge sections and started again. Modern technology allows anyone who’s creating documents to save as many versions as they want, which is what I always do, with this one exception. So, most of this is going to come from memory.
Earth’s Finest
Graham Langdon was nervous for the first time in years. He was head of PR at a very prestigious technology company, had many years of experience and was good at his job. He’d met kings and queens, presidents and prime ministers, and once, an emperor. But he’d never met an alien.
All in the Timing
Where the idea for this story came from, I don’t know. I was sitting in front of my computer with a blank document open trying to create some short story ideas when this one arrived. It’s a near-future SF story about a young man who is something of an artist. It’s not to be taken seriously, but it does predict the future.
Biological Warfare
This story was inspired by what Elon Musk has apparently said about the need for humans to expand to other planets in order to guarantee our survival. That is, if something happened to Earth.
Genetic Programming
The common link here, and some would say the weakest, is the human being at the centre of it all. At this point my mind, as it often does, dropped into the gutter and I began thinking about all that genetic baggage we humans have to drag around with us.
The Joys of Dating in the Twenty-Second Century
I was about halfway through another story, when I noticed my neighbour’s cat that likes to sleep in one corner of my shed roof. You might think these two events are unrelated, but to a writer, there’s no such thing. So, story in progress, cat on roof, a glazed look and a slight smell of burning and k-ching! Another story. I hope you like it.
The Rat Trap
When people asked Lydia what she did for a job she told them she was a robotics engineer. She was responsible for testing the new models to make sure they did everything they were supposed to. What she didn’t tell anyone but her closest friends was she tested sex robots.
