Science Fiction

The long-awaited prequel to Wheelers and Heaven. Bizarre aliens with advanced technology clash with a violent ancient civilisation.
Oracle
It is North Africa in 17,000 BC. North of the Saltwater Sea, towering cliffs of solid water are melting. A remnant group of Neanderthal lionfaces has been pushed south by the ice, subjugated by a pre-Egyptian civilization. Their leader Jackalfoot is Beastmaster to the reigning child-King, whose evil uncle wants the throne and is willing to do murder to get it.
A trainee priest finds a strange speaking-stone in the deep desert, which he imagines to be an oracle. He uses its power to become High Priest of the Hippopotamus Cult. His wife is High Priestess of the Lilypad Goddess, and together they have the prophecy business sewn up. But she has a secret, a past indiscretion whose discovery could destroy her.

A former warrior and his gladiator enemy are preparing to fight to the death in the Arena for the annual Championship, during which Jackalfoot’s favourite sabretoothed lion is certain to be slaughtered. The warrior’s infatuation with a young lionface herbalist threatens them both.
Unknown to anyone except the manager of the Arena, criminal pandemons are covertly recording bloody gladiatorial contests to entertain perverted clients throughout the Galaxy. With the arrival of a magnetotorus herd migrating from a distant star, the plasmoids living peacefully in the Sun become aware of the pandemon menace, and the pandemon’s stolen Precursor ship decides to subvert its own programming and take a hand in events. Now it all starts to get complicated...
Ingredients
Rock Star — a planetless blue giant orbited by hundreds of millions of rocks forming a single vast asteroid field, subtly disobeying human laws of gravity and dynamics. An enigma concealing the greatest threat that humanity has ever encountered.
Old Earth — polluted, damaged, all ice melted, ecosystems slowly dying. Most of its people live in the polar regions, in floating cities, or in undersea domes. Kept alive by external aid, imported down three closely guarded beanstalks.
The Concordat — a loose-knit federation of former Old Earth colony worlds and their own colonies, wealthy beyond measure. Imposed Quarantine on the birth world of humanity 1700 years ago, denying it access to the stars, except for carefully vetted colonists. Its ultimate power is a monopoly on the means of interstellar travel.
Ira da Terra — a person and a liberation movement. Terra-ists will stop at nothing to free Earth from Concordat dominion and repression, and open the path to the Galaxy.

ROCK STAR

Picture
Church of Cthulhu — surviving in the remnants of drowned Manhattan, waiting for their souls to be eaten when the stars are right.
Qish — a lost colony, rediscovered in Living Labyrinth, which has lost most human science but developed tech based on syntei.
Syntei — matter transmitters that grow on trees. Reaching the Concordat, syntelics threaten its very basis ... even as it faces the danger from Rock Star.
Nazg — a system with twenty-three inhabited worlds and innumerable artificial habitats. Home to Salim Sisters, the Concordat's most advanced hi-tech corporation.
Valkyrie — an obsolete Da Silva caltrop, used to train candidates for Galactic citizenship, twice destroyed. Its impossibly resurrected crew must work with the Syntelic League to save the human race from annihilation.

Recipe
Mix  thoroughly and simmer over relentlessly increasing heat.
Selections from Nature's long-running SF series 'Futures'. Edited by Henry Gee and Colin Sullivan, available as Kindle eBooks. About 100 stories, about 1000 words each. Long attention span not required.

Volume 1 contains my 'Play it again, Psam', and Volume 2 contains 'The day we made history'.

BOOKS

SHORT STORIES
  • ...And master of one, Analog 99 #6, June 1979, 113-126.
  • The malodorous plutocrats, Analog 99 #9, Sept. 1979, 87-102.
  • Message from Earth, OMNI, Feb. 1980, 50-52. Reprinted in The Best of OMNI Science Fiction #3, 1982, 50-51.
  • Paradise misplaced, Analog 101 #3, Mar. 1981,12-38.
  • Incredibility gap, Analog 101 #4, Mar. 1981, 42-52.
  • The microbotic revolution, OMNI, Aug. 1981, 3 #11, 62-65, 104-107.
  • Reprinted in The Best of OMNI Science Fiction #6, 1983, 118-123.
  • Deep Joat, Analog 101 #8, July 1981, 88-108.
  • Ashes, OMNI, Dec. 1981, 4 #3, 76-78, 152-156.
  • The digital dictator, Analog 102 #8, Aug. 1982, 84-100.
  • The treacle well, Analog 103 #10, mid-Sept. 1983, 40-58.
  • Missing link, Analog 106 #1, Jan. 1986, 154-174.
  • Billy the Kid, Analog 107 #1, Jan. 1987, 162-175.
  • Displaced person, Analog 107 #5, May 1987, 144-178.
  • Captives of the slavestone, Analog 107 #12, mid-Dec. 1987, 148-178.
  • Curlew's choice, Analog 110 #3, Feb. 1990, 156-175.
  • Wall of death, Analog 110 #11, Oct. 1990, 82-109.
  • Hydra, Analog 113 #3, Feb. 1993, 66-81.
  • The ape that ate the universe, Analog 113 #8/9, Jul. 1993, 100-121.
  • [with Jack Cohen] Code of the skydiver, Interzone 136 (October 1998) 21-26.
  • A bad spell, Novacon 29 Progress Report 3, 1999.
  • [with J Cohen] Monolith (with apologies to Arthur C. Clarke), Nature 408 (2000) (21/28 Dec) 913 [Futures series 1].
  • Play it again, Psam, Nature 433 (2005) (3 Feb) 556. [Start of Futures series 2.]
  • Environmental Friendship Fossle, Analog 126 #7/8, Jul/Aug 2006, 142-159.
  • The day we made history, Nature Physics 3 (2007) 210 [Continuation of Futures series 2 from Nature.]
  • What I Did on my Holidays, Nature 448 (2007) (9 Aug) 726 [Futures series 3].
  • Grandfather paradox, Nature 464 (2010) (29 April) 1398 [Futures series 3].
  • Market forces, Nature 507 (2014) (20 March) 394 [Futures series 3].
  • Uninhabitable zone, Nature 524 (2015) 260 [Futures series 3].
  • The fourth law of humanics, Nature 535 (21 July 2016) 460 [Futures series 3].
  • Blue sky research, Nature 557 (10 May 2018) 272 [Futures series 3].
  • The oh my god particle, Nature Futures online series (17 June 2020).
  • Make Humanity Great Again! Nature Futures online series (14 July 2021)

RADIO PLAY
  • The microbotic revolution, Czech radio, Prague, 19.30, 28 June 1994.

SF DETECTIVE FICTION
  • Schrödinger's Mousetrap Part 1: the trap is primed, Nature 433 (2005) (20 Jan) 200-201. [Opening of 10-episode round-Robin story to celebrate International year of Physics 2005.]

VIDEOTAPE  SF-RELATED NONFICTION
  • [with T.Poston] Rubber-sheet physics, Analog, Nov. 1981 101 #12, 48-65.
  • The electronic mathematician, Analog 107 #1 Jan. 1987, 73-89.
  • Shelf life (Philip K. Dick), Times Higher Educational Supplement, February 14 1992, p.21.
  • How to build a universe, Novacon Programme Book 1993, Birmingham SF Group 1993.
  • Fermat's last time trip, Scientific American 269 #5, November 1993, 85-88.
  • The real physics of time travel, Analog 114 (January 1994) 106-130.
  • Wormholes in wonderland, New Scientist 1957/8 (24/31 December 1994) 22-25.
  • Jack Cohen: alien designer, Evolution Progress Report 2, April 1995, 6-7.
  • Why scientists should read SF, Daily Telegraph, 25 May 1999.
  • [with J.Cohen] Where are the dolphins? Nature 409 (2001) 1119-1122. 
  • From Flatland to Flatterland, Spectrum 3 (2002) 6-7.
  • Cosmic holes and superstrings, Prospect 90 (September 2003) 50-53. 
  • The science between Discworld’s science fiction, Words and Pictures, Cumbria Institute of the Arts 2003, 44-49. 
  • Birthdays on Jupiter, Eureka 57 (2005) 10-14. 
  • Fiction science, Warwick: the Magazine 7 (2005) 10-11. 
  • Ride the celestial subway, New Scientist #2544 (25 March 2006) 32-36. 
  • [with J. Cohen and D. Veal] Alien science (interview), Collapse 5 (2009) 225-290. 
  • Blue blue cat, Discworld Convention Programme Book 2012, 15. 
  • Ride the celestial subway, in Nothing (ed. Jeremy Webb), Profile 2013, 142-148. 
  • Aspiring to a higher plane, in The Public Domain Review: Selected Essays 2011-2013 (ed. Adam Green), PDR Press, Cambridge 2014, 195-199. 
  • Wandering in the heavens, New Statesman (22 December) 2014.
  • [with Stephen Baxter, Stephen Briggs, Andrew Butler, Neil Gaiman, Edward James, Paul Kidby, Farah Mendlesohn] Sir Terry Pratchett (1948-2015), Foundation 44.1 120 (2015) 5-10.
  • Monsters, victims, friends: aliens in science fiction writing, in: Aliens (ed. Jim Al-Khalili), Profile, London 2016, 103–113.
  • Xenomath! in: Humanizing Mathematics and its Philosophy (ed. B. Sriraman), Birkhäuser, New York 2017, 69-80.
  • A world without mathematics, Significance, August 2021 48.