A Dream Wants Waking by Lydia Kwa My rating: 2 of 5 stars A Dream Wants Waking is a speculative fiction novel set in the ancient city of Luoyang, China, ostensibly in the year 2219 CE. This is a complicated story, with a considerable cast of characters, and a mythology woven around genetic AI beings and modifications. There’s a lot going on here. You’d better stay sharp when reading. This isn’t a story written for…
One of my Favourite Magazines In the latest issue of On Spec, one of my favourite speculative fiction magazines, and a publication for which I review, one of my flash fiction stories makes a debut appearance: “The Keening of the Sparrow”. I’m rather pleased with this short, sharp, shocking story which was inspired by the Industrial Revolution child-labourers known as chimney swifts. And given the human predilection for using and abusing their own, I transplanted…
Dublin Creative Writers launch fourth Anthology I’m very pleased to present the cover reveal and launch date of November 28, 2023 for the Dublin Creative Writers‘ fourth anthology: Untold Stories: an Anthology. I’m further pleased because one of my stories makes an encore, “For A Cup of Tea”, originally published in On Spec, Issue 23, Winter 1995. It’s an alternative history, and a bit of a romp, examining the famed race between the tea clippers, Cutty Sark…
A collection of funny experiences we can all relate to Do you ever feel like life’s a joke and you’re the punchline? The Bad Day Book is for people looking for a solution to life’s many bad days; one that doesn’t include curling up in fetal position while crying, or pretending it never happened. You know the days we’re talking about. When your plans get ruined. You think you’re a superhero, and you’re not. Or you…
Two exciting bits of news! Just in time for the close of September, two exciting occurrences here. The first Is I’ve been asked by Diane Walton, managing editor at On Spec Magazine, to be a reviewer for this award-winning quarterly periodical of Canadian fantastica. My short stories have appeared in On Spec previously, and I am thrilled to be part of the reviewing team. The second bit of news is my story, “Remember”, appears in…