One of the shortest stories included in my upcoming anthology was written for an Edgar Allan Poe competition in 2021, in which my work came Runner-Up, and is titled The Clockmaker . Edgar Allan Poe is most famous for his works of Gothic Horror, but it is easy to forget that he also dabbled in Science Fiction, as did many of his Gothic contemporaries. Indeed, a quick Google search has informed me that there are anthologies which solely contain his Science Fiction. The Clockmaker was designed to marry these Horror and SciFi elements to create the sort of story which Poe himself might have written. I won’t deny it: I was pleased with the outcome. At only 500 words, it tells the story of a man who pays a visit to an old schoolfriend (you will realise, if you read much of my Gothic Horror, that old school/university friends play vital roles!) who is an inventor, and spends some time admiring a clock which he has made. I won’t spoil by telling you the ending, but I will say that he does...
First of all, thank you to everyone who got in touch about the Science Fiction in Historical Fiction blog a few weeks ago. It is great to have such feedback and super to hear that these two genres are rubbing along so well! At the moment, I'm doing very little writing. It's not intentional, it's just other things have been taking me in other directions. I'm truly honoured to have been asked to be a critical reader on a book set in 1490s Florence. I can't even begin to describe how much it means to have been asked! I finished it earlier this week and you can expect a post on it when it hits the bookshelves! I've also been spending time in the Realm of Family Tree. This landscape is justly given its capital letters and, historical writers, I cannot tell you how important this is to your research. It is worth having access to genealogy sites just for the information, whether the people there are your ancestors or not. It's the looking beyond the names which su...