Conversations with Dragons

It's only just occurred to me, writing this, how apt my story "The World in a Bottle" is for the times. I could easily be accused of writing a pandemic story - it's about someone trapped in a simulation, the bottle of the title - but it wasn't deliberate. The story was written in January 2020, just before the pandemic struck.

Anyway, go read it at Nature Futures.

I should probably update this since it's a two publication month. 

First up: "The Resurgence of Clowns" over at Daily Science Fiction.
We knew it was happening again when David started juggling.

I wrote the first draft of this in one sitting, just before bed, while listening to scary clown music. It came from a title prompt during a flash fiction contest, and the concept and first line came shortly after.

The second is "Totality", one of my rare science fiction stories which was published at Nature.
Two days ago it had been "we don't negotiate with terrorists", but it was difficult not to negotiate with people who'd stolen the sun.

This one required a bit more research - what would happen when the sun went out? It also came from a title, but not the one I used. It was the gloriously pulpy "The Spacemen who Devoured the Morning" from the Pulp Sci-Fi Title-O-Tron over at Thrilling Tales. That gave me the idea, although it was a far more serious story than the title warranted.


I also found (and spent a couple of hours binge-reading) an amazing creepypasta over on Reddit, called "The Left/Right Game". It 's got me wanting to read more. I also played a fun little text-based game called "You are Jeff Bezos", where you wake up as Jeff Bezos and have to spend all his money. It took a few tries, but I managed to get all three endings.

Finally, I spent this weekend binge-watching The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, which is all kinds of hilarious. I love the changes they've made (Salem doesn't talk, the advice and sarcasm is provided by Sabrina's cousin Ambrose who's under house arrest for trying to blow up the Vatican), although some of the politics is a little on the nose. Perhaps it needs to be, these days, and it does add to the fun.