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My sci-fi short story Climbing Olympus has been reprinted by Fabula Argentea. It’s a free read here.

As they say, “This wonderfully resonant piece combines multiple emotions with the strength and courage of the human spirit.”

One of the things I’ve been working on recently is the curation of a fantastic Magic Noir bundle, in collaboration with the fine folks at storybundle.com. There are lots of awesome books and an incredible bundle price. Check it out!

The Magic Noir bundle is available from today until April 2nd. You choose how much you want to pay for these awesome books. If your purchase price is $25 or more, you get 11 more books, for a total of 14 fantastic magic noir works. Find out more here.

What happens when the bad guy that lurks in the shadows of the street actually is one of the shadows?

Welcome to a collection of works that fall under the magic noir umbrella: gritty worlds full of supernatural danger and mystery. And rain. Quite a bit of rain. These are stories about investigators solving mysteries, uncovering dark truths and facing impossible odds. Here you’ll find worlds where magic works, but where it isn’t always the sparkly, easy sort of sorcery that sets everything conveniently right. You’ll find fascinating, twisted worlds aplenty – such as the gloriously dark and gritty Mushroom Blues with its unique and cool world-building.

Quite a few of these books contain cynical and world-weary magic-wielders, or investigators who fear the very powers they wield. They’re cynical or wisecracking characters, battling demons that are sometimes in their heads – but which are sometimes, you know, demons. For them, magic can be as destructive to the spell-worker as its target. You’ll find characters who operate in the grey areas between right and wrong – and whose idea of right and wrong may itself be debatable. Quite often, like Mennik Thorn in Shadow of a Dead God, our hero has a heart of gold, but somehow things never seem to work out as intended.

Some of the worlds these characters inhabit will be familiar, because they’re our world: the towns we live in, or familiar cities set in different times, places whose history isn’t at all what we thought it was – for example in Resurrection Men, set in 19th century Glasgow, or New York Minute set in an alternate vision of that city. Some books involve present-day supernatural investigative organisations – such as those found in The Dark Elf Dynasty or The Eye Collectors.

Other books, meanwhile, are set firmly in a fantasy world, where the rules of magic might be different, and the world may be full of wonder, but where the challenges and dangers the characters face are just as terrifying. Maybe more terrifying. And some of the books are set in worlds that may or may not be our own, where everything we thought we understood turns out to be misguided delusion – such as the deliciously dark Madame Antic’s Hotel Grotesque.

We have grimdark works – The Hallows or Legacy of Brightwash – and steampunk worlds, such as those found in Dexter and Sinister: Detecting Agents – but there are glimmers of light in the darkness, too, for example with the more light-hearted Duckett & Dyer: Dicks for Hire.

Whatever your tastes, you’re sure to find something to relish and intrigue in this fantastic collection of magic noir.

The Twisted Road is a murder mystery and a political thriller. Its protagonist, Mab Winter, is an ex-cop and a refugee from Earth, hiding out on battered and anarchic Möbius Station while she battles her own demons. Reluctantly, however, she gets dragged back into her old life…

The book also a story about truth – and how we know what’s true.

The manipulation of the objective truth by bad actors – generally politicians with an ulterior motive – is a very familiar problem to us early in the 21st century. The Internet has allowed communication to proliferate far beyond anything our ancestors would have been able to imagine. We have so much information at our fingertips that it borders on the miraculous.

Our problem is, it’s hard to know what’s true and what isn’t. It’s a huge issue that we’ve barely even considered addressing. At the time of The Twisted Road, these problems have largely been overcome: “canonical” AIs guarantee that information is accurate – or at least accurate to what is believed to be true. Data is cryptopgraphically signed when it is an accurate representation of reality.

There are, inevitably, loopholes, and there are people who go to great lengths to get round the restrictions in order to portray their own (twisted) version of reality. The struggle between truth and illusion, it’s fair to say, plays a central role in the action and background of the book.

Find out more about the book on my site or on the Elsewhen Press site.

The Twisted Road is a murder mystery and a political thriller. Its protagonist, Mab Winter, is an ex-cop and a refugee from Earth, hiding out on battered and anarchic Möbius Station while she battles her own demons. Reluctantly, however, she gets dragged back into her old life…

The book also a story about a clash between anarchsim/libertarianism and authoritarianism.

Prior to this book, Möbius Station has been wrested from Earth control by the people who live upon it. It becomes the Free Republic of Möbius Station – an anarchy in both senses of that word. It’s sometimes violent and chaotic – but it’s also free from any sort of hierarchy of control. There is no government; the functioning of the station depends entirely on the willingness of its people to co-operate. It’s an anarchy in the sense meant by political thinkers such as Pierre-Joseph Proudhon or Emma Goldman (ideas I studed at University long ago!)

The station works – more-or-less. Given that the set up for the book is a murder mystery, Möbius is clearly not paradise, but it’s also not as dangerous as people assume it will be. The place functions without a government. People from Möbius like to play up to the “lawless” myth, but they mostly love living there, relish its freedoms and tolerate its downsides.

So, in its own small way, The Twisted Road explores some of the same themes as one of my favourite science fiction books: Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed.

Find out more about the book on my site or on the Elsewhen Press site.