Tag: Analog

Locus Poll – Read “Places You Have Never Been” for free!

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I was thrilled when my Analog story “Places You Have Never Been” made the Locus Recommended Reading List (which you can find here). I’ve never made the Locus Reading List before, so this is a new experience for me. It also means my story automatically appears on the listings for the Locus Award Poll – which I’m preserving for posterity here. (See? I said I was excited, didn’t I?):

However, If you missed it first time round, you can now read “Places You Have Never Been” for free! The publishers of Analog have kindly put their award-eligible 2024 stories up on their website for all to read. If you go here, you’ll find not only my story (eligible in the Best Novelette category) but also the wonderful “The Handmaiden-Alchemist” by Marie Vibbert (eligible in the Best Short Story category) which, coincidentally, was published in the same Jan-Feb 2024 issue of Analog as my story.

(Note: at the time of writing, the links to the two stories seemed to have been swapped over but you can still access both stories in full. I’m sure Analog’s web-master will fix this soon.)

And if you are thinking of voting in the Locus Poll you can do so via this link. Obviously, I’d be thrilled if you wanted to add “Places You Have Never Been” to your ballot in the Best Novelette category but there are still lots of great stories and books to vote for even if not. But don’t delay! Voting closes in just over a couple of weeks on April 15th.

The Locus Awards are voted on each year by readers of the science fiction and fantasy magazine Locus, although you don’t have to be a subscriber in order to vote; it’s open to anyone if you go here. There’s a brief survey to complete and then you’ll be emailed a link to the voting page. You don’t have to vote in all the categories if you don’t want to, and you can nominate up to five choices in order of preference in each category.

It’s a fun thing to do! So what are you waiting for?

Awards Eligibility Post!

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Well, this is a first!

I’ve never written an awards eligibility post before – not because I haven’t had any eligible stories (I must be pushing on close to fifty publications by now) but mostly because of chronic authorly reticence when it comes to self-promotion. I understand this is something shared by many writers and that it’s simply necessary to push on through and just do it. So I’ve given myself a stern talking to and ordered the brain weasels who are always whispering But who cares? to take a back seat just for once.

I’m proud of all my stories. I think anyone who gets anything published in this day and age should feel proud. But pick of the bunch this year has to be Places You Have Never Been published right back at the start of the year in the Jan/Feb issue of Analog. Placing a novelette-length story with Analog felt special (and was a first for me). Reader reviews that I happened across were all positive which was nice. (Confession time: turns out it’s not hard to ‘happen across’ reader reviews if you google your name and story title. I know I shouldn’t but…) Places You Have Never Been also got a very positive review mention by A. C. Wise and made the Locus recommended reading list for that month. Here’s what she said:

I’m also sitting on some exciting anthology news regarding this story which I’ll share just as soon as I get the green light.

What else? What Remains of the Rainbow was a little short story published in Offshoots: Humanity Twigged, one of the Third Flatiron anthologies which are always fun collections full of stories which span the whole SF/F genre and loosely centred around a particular theme. This one amuses me because it has its genesis in a running joke with my wife. She came up with the title years ago while we were on holiday driving and saw a beautiful rainbow in the distance. Ever since, she likes to claim she has ‘basically written the story for me having gifted me the title – and please, why have I not finished it off and published it?’ Ideas swirled around for a year or two before I finally came up with something that worked and the editors at Third Flatiron took it for this anthology. So now I have ‘finished it off.’ So this one is for you, Vanessa!

In passing, I’ll note that this year also saw a couple of anthology reprints: Blue Shift, Passing By in the Best of British SF 2023, edited by Donna Bond and How Does My Garden Grow reprinted in Journeys Beyond the Fantastical Horizon (a Galaxy’s Edge Anthology). The latter counts as my most successful story so far, having been picked up for two best-of anthologies in addition to the original publication. However, neither of the above stories saw first publication in 2024 so are unlikely to be eligible for any award other than an anthology-related one.

So there it is. If you happen to have read Places You Have Never Been or What Remains of the Rainbow (details of where to find them are on my Fiction page) and like them enough to consider nominating them for an end of year award, I would be most honoured. (E.g. the Nebula Award ballet is open until Feb 28th 2025 here: https://www.sfwa.org/forum/ballots/)

There. Did it! Now I need to go lie down in a darkened room and recover.

Analog blog-post and a Q&A with me!

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So alongside my story “Where the Buffalo Cars Roam” about make-do-and-mend survival in a post-apocalypse world where a few autonomous vehicles still run wild – you have read it, right? – the Analog blog site (aka the Astounding Analog Companion) have very kindly published a blog I wrote and a Q&A session with me.

The blog-post revisits the thorny old debate about which is better: physical books or e-books? Of course, what’s best for an individual partly depends on what you’re hoping to gain from the reading experience, your circumstances and surroundings, and in no small part, personal preference. There is no right or wrong answer – but I had fun looking at some of the pros and cons and exploring my own feelings on the matter.

The Q&A explores the many influences (science fictional and otherwise) on my reading down through the years, my author heroes and some of the things which triggered the writing of “Where the Buffalo Cars Roam.” It was a fun exercise answering Analog’s questions and I’m absolutely thrilled to be featured on the Analog Companion website. Who would ever have thought it!

You can check them both out here:

https://theastoundinganalogcompanion.com/2022/08/02/the-humble-book-reimagined/
https://theastoundinganalogcompanion.com/2022/08/04/qa-with-david-cleden/

Published in Analog!

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“Where the Buffalo Cars Roam” in the July/August 2022 issue of Analog

I’m thrilled to have had my first ever story published in Analog Science Fiction & Fact magazine. It’s called “Where the Buffalo Cars Roam” and is set in a post-apocalyptic future where small enclaves of people live a rural, make-do-and-mend kind of existence. It’s a long way from the technological wonders of times gone by. The oldest generation can still remember how it used to be, back when there were things like semi-sentient, autonomous, solar-powered vehicles driving people around. While much of that society has crumbled and decayed, it’s rumoured a few autonomous vehicles have survived and run wild along the deserted roads. Joel remembers his father’s stories about what such cars were capable of: dangerous, feral machines, not afraid to kill. In trying to live up to his father’s memory as a talented engineer and practical handyman, Joel is forced to confront his fears once more in order to survive.

The story has been out for a couple of weeks so I’m also delighted to have received such positive feedback on it from various readers and reviewers. I think it’s always quite difficult for authors to be impartial about a story’s qualities (or lack thereof) so feedback from others is so vital.

I’ve been reading Analog for more years than I care to remember. Right from my earliest days of dreaming of being a writer, I’ve always played a particular what-if game. What if one day I managed to get a story published in Analog – a magazine that has published so many of my favourite authors over the years – and now I have!

I’m hoping this will be the start of further publications in Analog and other high prestige venues but that rather depends on me getting off my backside and putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). But first I’m going to take a brief moment to enjoy this feeling – because I think that’s what life’s all about after all, making the most of the here and now.