“I have no objection to truth,” I said, “but I enjoy untruths too, they’re the building blocks of human culture. Actors pretending to be kings, singers faking heartbreak or elation, novelists inventing heroes in their heads to escape the mindless dullards around them. Reality is a vast sea of tedium interrupted by brief flashes of the repugnant – why would anyone chain themselves to that?”
Coming out on 17 November, Lies We Will Tell Ourselves is the latest, and for now last, of my anthologies pulling together my previously published stories. This time it’s the turn of science fiction…
A spin doctor forced to deal with aliens who loath lies.
A squad of soldiers torn apart by the fiction in their midst.
A hunting submarine with its dead captain strapped to the prow, the crew promising that one day they’ll revive him.
We all tell lies to get through the day, some of them to ourselves, some to other people. Now read the extraordinary lies of the future in these nine short science fiction stories.
Includes:
- How We Fall – trapped behind enemy lines, faith and duty clash for Sergeant Grund’s squad.
- So Cold It Burns – long cut off from home, Gandpa Jo must decide the future of his frozen wife.
- Distant Rain – the submarine Promethean hunts a mutant whale through a polluted Pacific.
- Our Man In Herrje – Julius Atticus lives by lies, but can he defend them to the alien Gatherers?
- Day Labour – a dark secret waits for the farm labourers of a distant world.
- Digits – a robot finds his humanity in a hand.
- The Extra Mile – race driver Geordie proves how far he’ll go to win.
- Second Skin – stock trader Eddy’s symbiont has all the latest apps, including one no-one told him about.
- The Harvest – as aliens devour the Earth, an anthropologist recognises an unsettling truth.
As an experiment in book marketing I want to try to get some reviews of this book up on Amazon on the day of release. So if you think you’ll have time to read around 20,000 words by 17 November (maybe a quarter of a novel’s worth) and you’re willing to write an honest review in return for free stories then drop me a line or leave a comment and I’ll send you a free copy of the ebook. All I ask in return is that you do your best to read the book and leave a review and rating on Amazon on 17 November.
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NaNoWriMo update:
5306 words so far, so I’m on target. The detectives have their first lead, and I have to plan chapter two before I write any more.