Just a quick note to mention that there are still seven days left to win one of 3 copies of the TimeSplash audiobook that are being given away at Martha’s Bookshelf. And it’s not just the book. A short story prequel I wrote and recorded myself will also be given away with each of the three audiobooks.

TimeSplash is a time travel thriller, a fast-paced story about two young people who devote their lives to hunting down the time-travelling terrorist, Sniper. Sandra, his former girlfriend, is driven by fear for her life after a time trip turns into a nightmare of destruction and murder. With no resources and no friends, she doggedly tracks the dangerous and powerful killer. But it is only when she teams up with Jay, an MI5 agent whose best friend was killed in the aftermath of Sniper’s worst and most deadly timesplash, that either of them stand any chance of bringing Sniper down. But time is their enemy. They must stop Sniper before his team pulls off its biggest timesplash ever and destroys a major European city in the process.

The audiobook is published by Iambik Audiobooks and read by the amazing Emma Newman.

The prequel is called Party Time and features the moment when time travel is first demonstrated by two unemployed physicists in a slum in the north of England, and their friend who realises the true potential of what is being demonstrated. I read it myself and Iambik Audiobooks have kindly hosted the recording for this giveaway.

Treat yourself to an extra Christmas present this year.

A special treat today! I am very pleased to present a short story by talented author Emma Newman (yes, the very one who narrated the audiobook version of TimeSplash). Emma is engaged in a mammoth project this year, to write five novels set in her Split Worlds universe along with a new Split Worlds short story every week. She asked for volunteers to host each of those stories as they come out and I am lucky enough to have that honour today. So let me stop rambling and let Emma take over.

* * *

This is the fifth in a year and a day of weekly short stories set in The Split Worlds. If you would like me to read it to you instead, you can listen here. You can find links to all the other stories, and the new ones as they are released here.

Last Fare

 “How much to drive out to Pinner?”

The taxi driver looked at the drenched girl, mascara down her cheeks, shivering. Night on the town gone wrong.

“Forty quid love.”

He waited until she was strapped in before pulling off, glancing at her in the rear view mirror.

“Filthy weather,” he said.

She’d slumped down, resting her head on the back of the seat. “Yeah.”

“I’ll turn the heater up for you.”

“Thanks.”

Early twenties he figured, she reminded him of his daughter. He’d see her home safely then call it a night. Most of the pubs were empty now and he’d made good money from the sudden storm. “Funny thing happened the other day,” he said, hoping to take her mind off whatever was making her look so upset. “I’ve been cabbin’ since 1968, and I tell ya, I never seen a movie star queuing at Paddington for a cab.” She stopped biting her nails. “So I watched him move up the line as I was waiting for a slot, and he gets into mine! It was Morgan Freeman!”

“What was he like?”

“Nicest bloke you could meet. He’d come in to Heathrow, I said ‘Would’ve thought they’d pick you up in a limo.’ And he says ‘I try to be as normal as I can be. When I come to London I get a train, then a cab, just like anyone else’ in that lovely voice of his, you know?”

“Yeah.” She was twisting round to look out the back window. He wondered if she’d been taking something, she seemed twitchy and paranoid.

“You alright love?”

After a long pause she said “You must like being a cabby then, to do it for so long.”

“There are worse ways to earn a living. ‘Course there were less muppets on the road then.” He pulled onto the North Circular and saw her twisting round again. “You sure you’re alright?”

“I think that taxi is following us.”

“That only happens in films love,” he said with a smile, but started to keep an eye on it. He indicated to pull off and then didn’t at the last minute, it did the same. “You have some trouble in town tonight?”

In the dim orange light he could see her chewing her nails again. “I split up with my boyfriend.”

“Sorry to hear that. Not treating you right was he?”

“He was too full on. I liked him to start with, but then he wanted to know where I was all the time and… well, you know.”

“Sounds like you’re better off without him.”

“My Mum’ll be upset, she loved him because he’s rich. There’s more to life than that though, isn’t there?”

“Sounds like you’ve got your head screwed on. Still live with your Mum do you?”

“Yeah.”

Good, he thought. He was definitely going to see her to the door, and keep an eye on who came out of that other cab if it followed that far. “Plenty more fish in the soup,” he said, and winked at her via the mirror. He caught a gleam of white as she smiled through the gloom. “Nearly home, soon you’ll be warm and dry and it’ll all feel better, I’m sure.”

She kept quiet until they got to Pinner then directed him to her street. All the while he kept an eye on the cab following them, there was no doubt now.

“It’s number 20, up there on the right.”

He parked as close as he could. “Your Dad at home is he?”

“Yeah, but he’ll be in bed.”

“How about you call him? Don’t want to worry you love, but that cab has followed us, and if that ex of yours sees your Dad at the door, he’ll think twice about making any trouble.”

“My Dad’ll freak if I phone at this time in the morning.”

“Let me walk you to the door then,” he said. “I’ll give him what for if he starts anything.”

“Thank you,” she paid him with a generous tip.

He grabbed his jacket from the front passenger seat and got out, making a point of giving the other cab a hard stare as he shrugged it on. Its engine was idling, the windscreen wipers working hard. He escorted her down the street, both of them glancing back at the taxi frequently, but nobody had got out. They passed the high hedges, all neatly clipped, many of the houses with large gates. It was a nice area, they weren’t short of a bob or two.

“I really do appreciate this,” she said.

“It’s nothin’ love. I got a daughter about your age, I’d like to think a cabby’d do the same for her if she needed it.”

She fished in her bag for keys, he checked back on the taxi. Still there. Her gasp made him snap around, a figure had stepped out from round the corner of her parent’s hedge.

“Christ! How did he get here before me?” she said, clutching the cabby’s arm.

“We didn’t finish our conversation,” the ex-boyfriend said.

“She don’t want to talk to you,” the cabby cupped his hand over the top of hers protectively.

The man peered at him. “This is none of your business.”

“It’s late, she’s wet through and she don’t need this right now,” the cabby persisted, feeling her trembling.

The ex-boyfriend came closer, prodded him in the chest. “You, be quiet.” His breath smelt sweet, like he’d been eating Parma Violets. “Rebecca, come back to London with me now.”

The cabby felt her arm slip from his and she stepped towards her ex, when he tried to ask her what she was doing, he just couldn’t work his tongue.

The ex stroked the girl’s wet hair. “Why run out into the rain? Silly girl.” He was definitely a weirdo; the cabby resolved to go and get her parents, no way he could go home after leaving her with him.

A car door slammed, he turned to see a man in a long rain-coat approaching, collar turned up and shoulders hunched against the rain. His eyes were close-set, it looked like someone had smashed his nose into putty and he’d let it set in a malformed lump.

“Mr Viola!” the ugly man called out and the ex swore under his breath, noticing him for the first time. “Step away from the girl and state your business here.”

“Arbiter,” the ex’s voice was trembling. “I was simply… returning a pair of gloves.”

“Which implies previous fraternisation with an innocent, that’s a poor defence.” The man came closer and peered at the cabby. “Are you alright sir?”

He tried to speak again, but nothing emerged.

The putty nose wrinkled as he sniffed. “You need to come with me, Mr Viola. I’ve seen and smelt enough.”

“Is that really necessary? Couldn’t-“

“Don’t bother. There’s a taxi waiting over there, the one with a driver. Get in it. And don’t try anything, I’ve already informed my superiors of your movements this evening. I’m not the only one watching you right now.”

The ex left in silence. “Sorry about that,” he said to the shivering girl. “He won’t bother you again. Stay away from him and his family, they’re dangerous.”

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Police,” he replied, and handed her a card. “Any more problems with him, call that number right away.” He looked at the cabby. “You should get home now, you need some rest.”

“I need to see her to her door,” he said, delighted to find he could speak again. The policeman nodded and went back to the waiting cab.

The girl thanked him on the doorstep, when the front door was shut and locked, he went back to his taxi. As he flopped into his seat, he realised he hadn’t asked the policeman for any ID, and the arrest was far from normal. “Leave it,” he muttered to himself and set off for home.

—

Thanks for hosting Graham! I hope you enjoyed the story. If you would like to find out more about the Split Worlds project, it’s all here: www.splitworlds.com. If you would like to host a story over the coming year, either let me know in the comments or contact me through the Split Worlds site. Em x

I’ve been looking forward to this launch, partly because the book contains some of my favourite Australian SFF writers, partly because the whole point of the book is to raise awareness of suicide, and partly because it contains the first story of mine ever to be published that features one of my favourite creations, Broome.

Broome is a robot that will be assembled some three hundred years from now. It will appear in two space opera trilogies of mine (only two and a half volumes of which have been written so far). At the time of the story in Hope (called The God on the Mountain), Broome is 11,000 years old and many light years from Earth. It’s had various names during that long time, but it chose the current one because of the old joke about the broom that’s lasted for years, and has only had three new heads and two new handles.

You can join in the launch on Facebook, if you’re quick, and you can find details of the book on the Kayelle Press website. Whatever you do, please buy the book. It’s got terrific stories and useful information about suicide but, more than that, it’s in a good cause and the people who put this together have all given their time and energy to try to help. And pass on the message to everyone you know. Someone in your circle of family and friends may be glad that you did.

Here is a summary and something about the stories:

I used to be jealous of William Wordsworth, not just because the guy could write poetry and I suck at it, but because I read once of him conceiving the opening of The Prelude, word-for-word, and later writing it down. It struck me at the time that it was similar to things I’d heard about Mozart (another bloke who was good at something I suck at) that he could imagine a whole symphonic movement, note-for-note.  The very idea that people can perform such feats of imagination and memory seems magical to me. Of course, both reports are untested, unverified, and may be apocryphal, but I see no particular reason for doubting them, especially since I recently caught a glimpse of what it must be like.

I’m taking part in another one of Jodi Cleghorn’s madcap, crowdsourced anthology projects: a thing called Tiny Dancer. The process is unlike anything else you’ll see in publishing and takes about six weeks from go to woe. To cut a long story short, you end up with what is, essentially, a writing prompt – a line from the lyric of a popular song – and you write a 1500-word spec. fic. story based on that and a theme Jodi provides. I got my line just before bedtime and went to sleep mulling it. Then, BAM, I was wide awake at 4 am with the story in my head. And I don’t just mean an idea for the story, the feel of the story, a plot for the story, the way it usually happens. I mean I had the story – words and all. I fought it for a while, trying to get back to sleep but, in the end, realising how crazy I’d be to look this gift-horse in the mouth, I got up and wrote it down.

It turned out I didn’t have all the words I needed and the detailed structure of the piece required some work, but by the time I’d finished writing it and revising it, I’d say about half the original story survived – including whole paragraphs transcribed verbatim from the original inspiration.

I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself. Not only did I write a story in a couple of hours that I might have agonised over for weeks, but I have slain my personal dragons of Wordsworth and Mozart. In your faces, brilliant geniuses! My story may not be The Prelude, or Don Giovani, but it helped me share one of those astounding experiences I have hitherto only read about. The experience wasn’t as perfect as it might have been, either. Indeed, as some dead geezer once wrote, “an ill-favored thing, sir, but mine own.”

Yes, it’s that time of year again. For the many people who weren’t around on May 4th 2008 when I posted my first “hello world” from my brand new writing blog – that is, all of you – May 4th 2008 is the date from which I reckon my writing career began. So as 3 GWC (Graham’s Writing Career) draws to a close, it’s time to take stock once more and reflect on all that has happened since 2 GWC drew to a close.

Well, maybe not. Oh, alright, but just one paragraph. It was a busy and complicated year – essentially the first year of my first novel – and it ended (near enough) with me having found a wonderful literary agent (Ineke Prochazka) to call my own. There were a few story sales along the way and lots of other writerly stuff. In all, it was a year of good, solid progress. I started writing three novels in 3 GWC too – and finished one of them. I hope to finish the other two in the coming year. It was also the year that Jodi Cleghorn and eMergent Press came into my life and Big Bad Media came and went (literally – it has now wound up). I went to Worldcon. I went to Supanova. A couple of my friends did amazing (publishing-related)  things (that’s you, Emma, Marianne, Joanna and Joanne) and I got two new computers!

And all the other things that I forgot to mention.

On the agenda for next year are another novel sale – or two – (which is now your department, Ineke), more shorts sales, finishing my comedy sci-fi novel “Cargo Cult” and possibly a couple of other books, maybe going to the Brisbane Writers Festival (haven’t quite decided yet), and seeing “TimeSplash” finally appear in print (and maybe audio – how’s that going, Em?) I think it will be another busy and complicated year. At least I hope so.

There are a couple of shorts of mine appearing soon in anthologies for you to look out for (please!)

In Situ – a spec fic anthology from Dagan Books, ed. Carrie Cuinn. It contains my story “Salvage”. Expected publication date is 15th May – pre-order it via Goodreads.

Hope – a spec fic anthology from Kayelle Press, ed. Sasha Beattie, with a great cast of Aussie writers. It contains my story “The God on the Mountain”. Expected publication date is “real soon now”! I am especially stoked that two of the other contributors are friends who shared the QWC/Hachette retreat with me in May 2008 – the event that I believe kicked off my professional writing career.

Nothing but Flowers: Tales of Post Apocalyptic Love from eMergent Press, ed. Jodi Cleghorn. It contains my story “Two Fools in Love” – the first time I ever sat down to write a love story and actually did it. This is already available as an ebook but should hit the streets as a paperback any second now.

You all have a good 4 now. Happy New Year.