Category Archives: News

Holiday Reading

Anthologies, General, News, Short Fiction

For your reading pleasure this Holiday season.

Just Like Being There
My first collection of short fiction featuring fifteen of my hard SF and alternate history stories including the Aurora Award winning “Crimson Sky”.

Brave New Worlds
Edited by S.C. Butler and Joshua B. Palmatier featuring fifteen original stories that follow humanity’s long dream of travelling to the stars including my story “A New Brave World”. [Reading Copy (for SFWA members)]

Extraordinary Visions
The first-ever fiction anthology presented by the North American Jules Verne Society featuring thirteen stories inspired by Verne’s work including my story “Raise the Nautilus”.

Other Covenants
Edited by A.D. Lobel and Mark Shainblum, this alternate history collection features stories and poems by thirty authors and includes my novelette “A Sky and a Heaven”. [Reading Copy (for SFWA members)]

20% Discount on Orders of Just Like Being There

Anthologies, General, News

Until October 20th, use the promo code CHOI2022 and get a 20% discount when you order my short story collection Just Like Being There from the Springer Nature website:

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978–3‑030–91605‑3

The collection features fifteen of my hard SF and alternate history stories including the Aurora Award winning “Crimson Sky” and the new novelette “A Sky and a Heaven”. Story topics include space exploration, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, cryptography, quantum computing, online privacy, mathematics (statistics), neuroscience, psychology, space medicine, extraterrestrial intelligence, undersea exploration, commercial aviation, and the history of science. Each story is followed by an afterword that explains the underlying engineering or science.

For more information, please visit the Just Like Being There page or download the brochure. Also check out my author Q&A on the Edelweiss blog, the review on AmazingStories.com, my interviews in Space.com and OverDrive: In the Know, or my conversation on the official podcast of the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering. 

Story Announcements

General, News, Short Fiction

“Beware the Glob!”, a new story about a dangerous extraterrestrial creature that is unleashed from its frozen Arctic slumber by climate change, will be appearing in a future issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact. Thank you Trevor Quachri for my fifth appearance in Analog as well as Julie Czerneda and Peter Watts for the biology help, and thank you to my beta readers Kate Story, Gillian Clinton, and Cordell Grant.

“Raise the Nautilus”, about a salvage mission to retrieve Captain Nemo’s submarine, appears in Hungarian translation in the July 2022 issue of Galaktika magazine. The story was first published in 20,000 Leagues Remembered edited by Steven R. Southard and Kelly A. Harmon, and the July issue of Galaktika also features translations of “Water Whispers” by Gregory L. Norris and “The Silent Agenda” by Mike Adamson from the same anthology. Thank you Attila Németh for my third appearance in Galaktika and thank you Schubert András for the translation.

Just Like Being There...Is Here!

General, News

I am thrilled to announce that Just Like Being There, my first collection of short fiction, has been released and is now available in trade paperback (Amazon, !ndigo, Barnes & Noble, Waterstones) and ebook (Amazon, Barnes & Noble). The collection features fifteen of my hard SF and alternate history stories including the Aurora Award winning “Crimson Sky” and the new novelette “A Sky and a Heaven”. Story topics include space exploration, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, cryptography, quantum computing, online privacy, mathematics (statistics), neuroscience, psychology, space medicine, extraterrestrial intelligence, undersea exploration, commercial aviation, and the history of science. Each story is followed by an afterword that explains the underlying engineering or science.

For more information, please visit the Just Like Being There page or download the brochure. Also check out my author Q&A on the Edelweiss blog, the review on AmazingStories.com, or my interview in Space.com.

“Raise the Nautilus” to appear in Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne

Anthologies, General, News, Short Fiction

I am pleased to announced that my story “Raise the Nautilus”, which was first published in 20,000 Leagues Remembered edited by Steven Southard and Kelly A. Harmon, will be reprinted in the upcoming anthology Extraordinary Visions: Stories Inspired by Jules Verne from the North American Jules Verne Society. This will be the first collection of short fiction ever sponsored by the Society.

“Raise the Nautilus” describes an attempt by the Royal Navy to salvage Captain Nemo’s submarine and retrieve an artefact that could turn the tide of the First World War. You can read an abridged excerpt from the story here.

Seasons Between Us

Anthologies, General, News

I am delighted to have received my contributor copy of the new anthology Seasons Between Us edited by Susan Forest and Lucas K. Law and published by Laksa Media Groups Inc. featuring new stories by Maurice Broaddus, Vanessa Cardui, C.J. Cheung, Joyce Chng, Divya Srinivasan Breed, Alan Dean Foster, Bev Geddes, Maria Haskins, Tyler Keevil, Rich Larson, Karin Lowachee, Brent Nichols, Heather Osborne, Y.M. Pang, Karina Sumner-Smyth, Amanda Sun, Patrick Swenson, Bogi Takács, Hayden Trenholm, Liz Westbrook-Trenholm, Jane Yolen, Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, and yours truly.

This picture is of course totally posed. The cat cared less for the book than the box it came in.

“The Greatest Day” is a Finalist for the 2020 Analog Analytical Laboratory (AnLab) Award

Awards, General, News, Short Fiction

I am honoured that my short story “The Greatest Day”, an alternate history about the Space Shuttle Columbia accident that appeared in the January/February 2020 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine, is a finalist for the 2020 Analytical Laboratory (AnLab) Award in the category of Best Short Story as voted by readers of Analog. Thank you to Trevor Quachri and Emily Hockaday for publishing the story, and thank you to all the Analog readers who voted. The winners will be announced in the July/August issue of Analog.

[Story] [Podcast] [Q&A] [Review]

50th Anniversary of the Toronto Public Library’s Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation, and Fantasy

General, News

Congratulations to the Toronto Public Library’s Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation, and Fantasy on its 50th anniversary. As part of its celebrations for this important milestone, the Merril has compiled some recollections from a number of writers, editors, and scholars of speculative fiction including Leah Bobet, John Clute, Julie Czerneda, Alyx Dellamonica, Cory Doctorow, Ed Greenwood, Paula Johanson, Shirley Meier, Pippa Wysong, Melissa Yuan-Innes, and yours truly. Best wishes to the Merril on its first half century, and may it prosper into the coming centuries so vividly portrayed in the works of the collection.