>>Nostalgia For Infinity

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a piece of Friday flash fiction. I hope to post another entry later in the day explaining why. For the time being, here is another story that is technically too long to be flash, clocking in at 1,171 words.

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FUNERAL

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Contains lots of comics. It’s been a jolly long time since I did one of these. Read on to find out why (hint: it wasn’t because of comics).

Disclaimer: these aren’t formal reviews so much as musings on what I’ve read. Full reviews can be found here.

Previously: Books 1-2, Books 3-4.

5 – Marc Ellerby & Jamie Rich – Love the Way You Love Vol. 4, 5 & 6

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Here’s this week’s F3, which is another music-based rather than genre story. I’m not happy with this one but I’m not going to have any time to rewrite it or write an alternative piece, and I’m determined to stick to publishing one story a week. Some of my thoughts in the comments – I wouldn’t recommend reading those until you’ve read the story, of course.

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Breaking the Circle

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Taking my cue from Gareth L. Powell, here are my top ten Friday flash fiction stories of 2008.

1. Our Bright Horizons – A deliberate stylistic and thematic departure from much of what I’d written before. Difficult, but fun.
2. We’re Never Going Home! – the first of a series of latter-’08 tales with titles stolen from my favourite bands, and an attempt to fuse my love of punk rock with my love of surreal fantasy/horror.
3. Interdiction Zone – a mildly amusing – and slightly inhumane – piece of post-apocalyptic SF set in the same dying world as several other F3 tales.
4. Love Story – an experimental piece of fiction that tries to bind language directly into the narrative, a trick I freely admit I stole from Ellis Sharp (who does it much better than me).
5. My Mother the Robot – yet another stylistic experiment, this was written in the style of a young girl’s diary. You can either take it literally, or regard it as the sort of fantasies children develop to deal with parental divorce.
6. Watching the Valves – another post-apocalyptic SF piece which is inspired by both Mad Max 2 and The World Without Us (specifically the chapter about the Texas oil refineries).
7. This Urban Aesthetic – probably one of the few F3 stories I wrote that works well as a stand-alone story. One of only a few of my stories to receive a positive response in Zinos-Amaro’s review of Illuminations.
8. Bitterness the Star – it’s very recent but, to paraphrase Neil, I like the macro/micro scale juxtaposition. Has some thematic similarities with ‘Love Story’, above. I wonder why that might be!
9. Earthbound – the other F3 writers who commented like this quite a lot, perhaps more than I did. Just goes to show that writers oughtn’t listen to themselves too often.
10. Releasing Moments – a flawed 2nd-person perspective experiment that revisits the concept central to Carry These Songs Like a Comfort Wherever You Go.

I think the calibre of my writing has improved greatly over the last 12 months, especially where flash fiction is concerned. I’m proud of these stories.

This year I’ve written 23 pieces of fiction, which is a bit less than one every fortnight. I think my poor output over the last three months has really dragged this figure down. So it goes. Still, ‘Bitterness The Star’ last Friday brought my overall total to 39 pieces (or 40 if you include Excerpts from Eastercon as two, or 39 again if you exclude the over-long Half-day of the Dead). Roll on F3 ’09.

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear meeee. Happy birthday to me. Now here’s  some Friday flash fiction, courtesy of the birthday boy/old man.

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SIGNS

In one direction, the road stretches out towards a dust-hazed horizon. From the other, a walker approaches. It’s a woman, evident from the contours of the thick coat she is wearing, but her face is hidden beneath a fur-lined hood and large tinted goggles. A faded scarf is pulled up over her mouth and nose.

There is no sound but the crunching of grit beneath her boots, and even this ceases as she halts, fists clenched around the straps of her rucksack.

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Here’s this week’s Friday flash fiction: enjoy! I think it’s thematically a bit too similar to We’re Never Going Home! I’m a bit too caught up in the musical side of my life right now for much else to penetrate; so it goes. Oh, and my good friend Greg H may be joining the F3 posse… I’ll keep you posted! No links as yet, because the absent-minded indie fop doesn’t remember where his own blog is. See, he was born to be a writer.

Hopefully over the weekend I will be bringing you some live and recorded music reviews; we’ll see how that goes. Also, somewhere out there are two book reviews for Vector. I’m puzzled that the latest issue hasn’t appeared yet. Semper fi, eh?

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CARRIED OUT TO THE SEA

The moon is high in a cloudless sky, and the reflected light of that thin crescent jostles with the hundred thousand twinkles of citylight to illuminate the streets below. Some of the competing light bounces off the surface of the river that splits the metropolis in two, wavering as the water is stirred by a chill night breeze.

The Axeman is walking across the great bridge, instrument slung diagonally across his back by the shoulder strap. Its strings are naked and cold in the night air. The pickups glow momentarily as the instrument’s bearer walks beneath a streetlight. People used to call him FR. People used to shout his name.

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Once again I’ve tried to produce something a bit different to what I normally write. I’m not sure if it succeeds – I think I hammered it out too quickly for that – but I quite like the style at points, if nothing else. If you have a read please let me know what you think; feedback is always appreciated.

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I’m quite disappointed in myself. I’ve posted just a couple of pieces of flash in the last… what, four or five weeks? That’s pretty poor form (just like flash, the naysayers cry). All I can say is that I’ve been busy lately. I’m sure most of you reading this know what it’s like to have work kicking your ass for weeks on end, leaving you a drained and empty shell at the end of the day. Fun times, eh?

All effort to connect my laxity to the release of little-known independent title Grandiose Thieving of Automobiles the Fourth is misguided, seditious and punishable by death (unless you buy more copies of our book).

I’m pleased to say that we may have a couple of new Friday flash fictionists amongst us: Gaie Sebold, who to the best of my knowledge is the first of our Orbital ’08 panel attendees to join us in posting flash online, and Sarah Ellender. They’ll be posting on alternate weeks; the first piece, from Gaie last Friday, is titled Folie A Deux.

My F3 for this sunny and glorious week is a continuation of Turning Point, following on from Gareth and Justin’s additions in the comments thread. Last time around I imitated Gareth’s voice, so it’s only appropriate that this time I try at Justin’s. We’re metafictional, baby!

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My review of Oronooko has gone live over at the Blog a Penguin Classic website.

I initially spent some time writing a medium-length review that, I felt, struck a fine balance between accessibility and insight. Then I attempted to submit the review and discovered the 2,000 character limit. That’s 327 of my words, in this instance. It’s not very much.

Still, despite having had to chip away at my review relentlessly I’m reasonably pleased with the outcome, and I think it still manages to hint at the interesting ideas and context in and of the book – even if there’s no space to explore them. It was also the first time I had to revise a wordcount downwards, and substantially so, which was actually very helpful from an editorial standpoint.

I’ve missed the last few Friday Flash Fictions, which I genuinely regret. It’s been a tough few weeks and, in all honesty, this trend is unlikely to let up any time soon. Still, I’ll try and manage at least this one post per week!

This week’s story is short and bittersweet. It’s also me trying to imitate one of my fellow F3 writers – there’s a fabulous prize to the first correct guess who*.

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