Today is a very special day!
After seven months of hard graft in partnership with co-editor Dave Schofield I’m pleased to say that Cutaway Magazine is now available for sale.
From the shiny colour cover to the slightly experimental, sometimes genre, often literary content, I can’t describe how chuffed I am at how the magazine has turned out!
This week sees the launch of ‘Rocket Science: Science Fiction and Non-Fiction’ a collection of hard science fiction stories and non-fiction essays on near-future space exploration. I have a short story featured in the anthology and I’m still reeling from the positive review we received on Friday in the Guardian with my story being picked out for a mention . . .
The strength of the collection is that the best of the stories – and the standard is very high – are about the human condition. Standouts include Craig Pay’s “Incarnate”, a harrowing account of a mother and father’s response to their cloned daughter’s desire for suicide on Titan; “A Biosphere Ends” by Stephen Palmer, a complex and moving examination of ecological breakdown on a Martian colony; and Deborah Walker’s poignant “Sea of Maternity”, about the conflict between motherhood and scientific ambition on the moon. Superb.
Ian Sales has done a fantastic job of editing this anthology. I can’t wait to read the other stories and articles. Copies available to buy here.
Since I returned from my trip to Hong Kong my mind has been buzzing with ideas for new stories. Here’s some short fiction (or perhaps rather more of a travelogue) I’ve just had published with Female First, an online magazine . . .
http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/books/Bamboo+Curtain-233211.html
Quick blog post today as I’m now back at my hotel and waiting for the airport transfer to arrive.
I mentioned yesterday that I had wanted to visit the Big Buddha at Lantau Island, but with the announcements on the MTR that the cable car was out of action I decided to wait. This morning I walked along to Causeway Bay, my local MTR station, to see if the situation had changed. It hadn’t. Mmm, what to do with my last day…
Well I decided to go anyway, chancing that I might be able to take a taxi instead–or just enjoy whatever else Lantau Island had to offer.
Yesterday I promised I’d be taking to the MTR today. The MTR is Hong Kong’s underground railway system and a couple of people had strongly recommended that I give it a whirl.
Well I’m glad I took their advice, because the MTR is a fantastic way to get around both Hong Kong Island and Kowloon: quick, cheap, clean and very easy to use. For just HKD$55 (about £5.50) I bought a ‘Tourist Day Pass’ which allowed me to travel pretty much anywhere on the MTR network. It’s active for 24 hours, so it should still be OK for some trips tomorrow morning.
I bought my pass from my local MTR station only a couple of minutes away at Causeway Bay. They’re apparently available from all stations, though you sometimes have to travel inside the station and down an escalator or two before you find the desk. They don’t seem to be available from the automatic vending machines used to top up Oyster cards or buy standard one-way or return tickets.
