Freeborn and Family

Another novelette has been released in the saga of Batu and Baray in the Beyond the Gates of Antares universe. This time, we discover how Batu got his terrifying drone and how the cloud of bionanocytes he carries – and fears – was awakened, as well as why he is considered such a threat to the Isorian Senatex.

The novellete is called Freeborn and Family and is in PDF format accessible from this overview page. If it’s difficult to see, it can be downloaded directly from the Warlord Games website.

I’ve also built a Kindle .mobi format file that can be downloaded to a kindle directly or emailed to your amazon kindle account from your your own, approved emailed address.

Batu and Baray’s adventures started in The Claiming of Shamasai, continued in the Open Signal anthology and on the Beyond the Gates of Antares website (coming soon: to be assigned). Other stories include the series in Plaguespore, set in the timei between Shamasai and Family.

The Chryseis Shard: Plaguespore

I’ve recently written a new serial and an accompanying short in preparation for Warlord Games’ new supplement, The Chryseis Shard. Once more, the series involves Batu and Baray, both key characters in The Chryseis Shard, and introduces readers to some of the capabilities of Batu’s annoying nano drone – now a sort of personal daemon.

All parts of the serial and the Chryseis prequel are now available on the Warlord website. I sincerely hope you enjoy reading this development in a small part of the Antares universe.

• Plaguespore Part I – Batu is ordered to investigate the disturbing disappearance of a Concord colony
• Plaguespore Part II – Further details are uncovered of a devastating new threat to the Concord: the Plaguespore
• Plaguespore Part III – Batu and Baray uncover some sinister truths about the Plaguespore and suspect a military mind is behind it all
• Plaguespore Part IV – The pair interrogate the colony survivors and travel to the surface to investigate
• Plaguespore Part V – The plaguespoe attacks and Batu’s Shamasai Shard is forced to respond
• A Heads Up – After being kdinapped by the Isorians – and escaping – Batu is forced into exile but he and Baray are contacted by a NuHu Mandarin over an uncomfortable turn of events in the Chryseis system. A meeting is arranged…

The Claiming of Shamasai

I’ve mentioned a few of these on the ‘Published’ section but it’s worth mentioning them again. The Claiming of Shamasai is an episodic novelette (ie a short novella) that’s been published by Warlord  over the last six months. It’s now at an end but it has been great fun to write. It tells the tale of two individuals, both of whom are outsiders to their own kind, and shows how both are forced to react to the discovery of a a new – and dangerous – planet.

Basic tips for a short story competition

I run Shipton Shorts, a local short story competition. It’s meant to encourage writing talent and expression in an area 10 miles around our village.* Because it’s meant for non-professionals and those exploring their talent, I put together a few hints & tips, a template and some guidelines in the rules that help presentation. However, after reading through a number of short stories recently I thought a more consolidated ‘how to’ handout might be appreciated.

Developmental Shorts: Beyond Reasonable Doubt

I’ve just added another page to the Developmental Shorts menu, this time Beyond Reasonable Doubt, the winner of the 2014 Orwell Society Dystopian Short Story competition. The prize is a good one for students and is judged by some key figures in the academic world. The guide for the competition went somewhere along the lines of ‘write something that Orwell would have approved of’.

There are deliberate nods to 1984 throughout, including one I thought was really obvious but which no-one has spotted or yet commented upon.

Developmental Shorts: Time for Rachel Bride

Another short has had an outing and come back home. 🙂

I was never too sure as to the title of this piece: Care Returns for Rachel Bride or Time for Rachel Bride. I ended up settling on the latter as time is a recurring theme throughout and ‘care’ is a sticky subject nowadays in competitions, apparently, due to overuse. Nonetheless, this is also about the final care and why.