Category: publication announcements

The Singularity, issue 1

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The Singularity Issue 1 Cover

The first issue of the new UK SF magazine, The Singularity, has now been released. (And what a fantastic cover image!) It features a reprint of my story, ‘The Sleeper’. Having said that, the best possible reason to buy it is in order to read Andrew Wilmot’s ‘A Window Into The—’, which is one of the best short stories I’ve read this year.

You can get issue 1 of The Singularity in digital versions from Amazon.com and Amazon UK. Print versions will be coming soon, I’m told. (Update – print editions now available from Amazon.com and Amazon UK)

Game Over anthology

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GAME OVER cover - 27.07.15The Game Over anthology is published by Snowbooks today!

It features my story, ‘Lines of Fire’, about two teen boys, an old Bomberman arcade cabinet, and a dark secret.

The eleven other horror stories all feature arcade games in some way and are written by a pretty illustrious group of authors. I’m very proud to be hanging around with them and I’d like to thank editor Jonathan Green for a) picking my story, b) making excellent editorial changes and c) turning the project around with incredible speed.

You can buy Game Over direct from the publisher, or from Amazon UK (print / epub) or Amazon.com (epub).

Kitchen Sink Gothic

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KITCHEN SINK GOTHIC FRONT COVERThe Kitchen Sink Gothic anthology from Parallel Universe Publications is now available from Amazon.com (print/epub) and Amazon UK (print/epub).

It includes my story, ‘Tunnel Vision’, about one schoolboy’s dreadful Valentine’s Day. I’ve always been pleased with this story, so I’m very glad to have found it a home.

Kitchen Sink Gothic anthology sale

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KITCHEN SINK GOTHIC FRONT COVERMy story, ‘Tunnel Vision’, will be featured in the KITCHEN SINK GOTHIC anthology from Parallel Universe Publications, edited by David and Linden Riley.

I’ve always liked this story, but I was starting to wonder whether I’d be able to sell it. It’s quite personal, and doesn’t feature any SF or supernatural elements, yet it’s a little too creepy to be mainstream. In fact, ‘kitchen sink gothic’ is as neat a descriptor as I can imagine – so I’m delighted that it’s been selected.

KITCHEN SINK GOTHIC will be released as a paperback and ebook in July. You can see the full table of contents on the Parallel Universe Publications website.

Half a million words!

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First million words ometer 50

Yes, it’s an arbitrary figure. Yes, it ignores the many hours I’ve spent editing and revising. Yes, it took quite a lot longer than I expected.

But here it is anyway. As of today I reckon I’ve written 500,000 original words of fiction since I began in February 2011. It’s not quite enough to match the word count of War and Peace (587,000 words), but it’s still two Moby Dicks plus a Picture of Dorian Gray…

What’s most interesting to me is to take stock of the change in the quality of writing I’ve produced over this period. I’m an awful lot better at drafting and editing. Equally importantly, I’m an awful lot more efficient, to boot.

Anyway. The 50% mark is also a good excuse for a writing update. So far this year I’ve been funnelling my time into longer projects rather than short stories:

Short stories

  • The Forge (7300 words) – SF

Longer fiction

  • Blighters (16,300 words) – SF
  • Untitled medieval time-travel novel (40,000 words and rising, though only 15,000 of those words were written this year)

And, although the following are nothing to do with actual writing (as they’re all stories written during previous years) and all to do with the tenacious sending of submissions emails…

Publications and sales

  • Like Clockwork – SQ Mag Edition 18, Jan 2015
  • By the Numbers – The New Accelerator #3, Feb 2015
  • The Sleeper – Phobos, Issue 3, Feb 2015
  • Screaming His Scream – Perihelion, May 2015
  • The House Lights Dim – Dark Lane Anthology Volume 2, forthcoming
  • Finding Waltzer-Three – Pantheon Vol. 7, forthcoming
  • Read/Write Head – The Museum of All Things Awesome And That Go Boom anthology, forthcoming

Oh, and one other notable thing, for the sake of completion:

  • The Walls of Tithonium Chasma – Honorable Mention from the Writers of the Future contest (Q1 2015)

Carus & Mitch print edition and review

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C&M printLook what just arrived! (Amazon Prime, you are FAST.)

I hadn’t really thought about how it might feel to hold a physical copy of Carus & Mitch. It turns out that it feels very, very good. It’s a satisfying, neat little package. I’m so grateful to Kate Jonez at Omnium Gatherum for taking a chance with an unknown author, and for producing such a lovely little book.

Also nice: Carus & Mitch is picking up positive reviews. Here’s a new one from Horror After Dark, also published at Char’s Horror Corner.

Book soundtrack: Carus & Mitch

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I listen to music while I write. It’s usually drone, industrial or minimal techno. I could wax lyrical about the state of mind induced by Biokinetics by Porter Ricks, Grapes from the Estate by Oren Ambarchi or Water Park by Dirty Beaches. Each story I write is usually accompanied by a particular few albums on rotation.

But that’s by the by. That’s not the kind of soundtrack I want to write about here.

I’ve started creating playlists for each of the longer pieces of fiction I’ve written. You could think of them as soundtracks to imaginary film adaptations, I suppose. But who says that books shouldn’t have soundtracks in their own right? In fact, creating a soundtrack playlist has helped me pin down the tone of stories while I’m still editing them.

I like to make the process convoluted. I’ve come up with a fairly strict set of rules:

  1. The first and last tracks ought to work as an accompaniment to the story’s ‘opening and closing credits’.
  2. The playlist should include diagetic (i.e. in-world) and non-diagetic (i.e. conventional overlaid soundtrack) music. Generally, that means not much vocal content.
  3. Broadly, the tracks should reflect the mindset of the central character. My stories are mostly 1st-person or close 3rd-person POV, so by the editing stage I should have a pretty good idea what makes them tick.
  4. The ordering of the tracks should reflect the changing mood or plot events.
  5. Despite rule 4, the playlist should remain listenable in its own right, without sounding jarring. Unless jarring sounds good.

Carus & Mitch

My novella, Carus & Mitch, is published by Omnium Gatherum on Monday (23rd Feb 2015). It’s about two girls who live entirely alone in a remote house, afraid of the dangers outside. It’s kind of creepy.

Here’s a Spotify soundtrack to accompany Carus & Mitch. Hopefully, it ought to work either as a teaser to reading the story, or a kind of epilogue if you’ve already read it.

It’d probably be counterproductive to explain the reasoning behind each of the track choices. But perhaps it’s worth noting that the 1940s tracks and the ‘Autumn’ educational record are the diagetic (in-world) ones. I like the image of Carus and Mitch investigating a vinyl record collection they’ve discovered in the house.

Mild spoilers: The playlist reflects the book in that it transitions from cosy to queasy to a little bit terrifying. Enjoy.

First review quotes for Carus & Mitch

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Here are the first review quotes for Carus & Mitch, extracts from which also appear on the back cover of the book:

“Carus & Mitch is punchy and scary and tense and genuinely moving. The central portrait of the book’s sibling relationship captures its mixture of friction and love spot on, with heartbreaking precision. Tim Major is an exceptional writer.”
— Adam Roberts, author of Jack Glass and Bête

“Tim Major takes now-familiar tropes—an apocalypse, a resourceful teenage girl heroine—and recasts them in a bleak miniature portrait of a world ending with a whimper rather than a bang. More The Road than The Hunger Games, blending a John Wyndham-esque melancholy with a dose of existential despair, Carus & Mitch is a compelling, unconventional page-turner. Once I started reading it, I couldn’t put it down until I reached the end.”
— Lynda Rucker, author of The Moon Will Look Strange

”A sad, sweet little book that does post apocalyptic at a soft, intimate level.”
— Garrett Cook, author of Murderland and Time Pimp

”Like life and college, the novella Carus & Mitch will leave you with more questions than answers. But the question you’ll replay over and over in your mind, the question that will keep you up at night will be, “Oh Carus, what have you done?” Tim Major tells Carus & Mitch through Carus, and as with all 15-year-olds, she’s a somewhat unreliable narrator. Grim, bleak storytelling, paired with simmering tension strikes the same haunting chord as Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, and the overall tone is reminiscent of Room by Emma Donoghue and Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery.””
— Kristin Luna, Urban Fantasy Magazine

CMFullCover011415 croppedI’m very grateful to Adam, Lynda, Garrett and Kristin for these wonderful quotes. Kristin has also contributed the first review score on Goodreads – an amazing 5 out of 5 stars!

Carus & Mitch will be published by Omnium Gatherum in epub and print formats on Monday 23rd February.

Carus & Mitch cover reveal

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<Cue drum roll, or whatever sound you feel conjures up anticipation>

I’m very pleased to reveal the cover for Carus & Mitch, which will be published by Omnium Gatherum on 23rd February!

CMFullCover011415 croppedPretty flipping creepy, right? Here’s the back-cover blurb:

Carus is only fifteen but since their mum disappeared, looking after her little sister Mitch is her job. There’s nobody else. Not in their house and not outside, either. There’s something out there, scratching and scraping at the windows.

The barricades will hold.

They have to.

Also, Carus & Mitch now has its own page on Goodreads. Just one step closer to it being a real, actual thing…

Short story: Like Clockwork

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SQ Mag Edition 18, featuring my story, ‘Like Clockwork’, is now available for free on the SQ Mag website. ‘Like Clockwork’ took second prize in the Story Quest ‘Punkin’ the Train’ contest at the start of December 2014.

cover-sq-mag-18

It’s the first of my Mars stories (featuring sand-sculpted dwellings, roaming bases and ‘aye-aye’ AI robots) to be published, though it’s one of the most recent I’ve written. More to come, I hope.

My writing in 2014

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Novels written in 2014

  • The House-sitter (74,000 words) – SF time-travel mystery

Short stories written in 2014

  • A Crest of a Wave (2300 words) – SF, Mars
  • Like Clockwork (3000 words) – SF, Mars
  • Cast In The Same Mould (4200 words) – SF, Mars
  • Finding Waltzer-Three (1400 words) – SF
  • An Empty Vessel (3000 words) – horror
  • What Are We Going To Do With You? (5900 words) – YA horror

Flash fiction written in 2014

  • For a Tooth (850 words) – humorous SF
  • Kraken Mare (250 words) – SF
  • Corvus Cornix (250 words) – horror
  • All I Can See Are Sad Eyes (850 words) – horror

Fiction sales in 2014

I wrote about 124,000 (new) words in 2014. That’s less than last year, but that figure doesn’t reflect the huge amount of time editing and reworking ‘The House-sitter’. Also, I’ve often been exhausted due to my son’s sleep patterns, so this is still a higher word count than I’d anticipated.

To date, my fiction word count total is now something in the region of 448,000 words. I’d hope to reach the half-million mark at some point in early 2015.

First million words ometer 45

Phobos story acceptance

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PhobosMore publishing news! I’ve been told that my short story, ‘The Sleeper’, will be published in the third issue of Phobos, the weird fiction magazine based in Philadelphia. I’m really looking forward to reading the magazine!

SQ Mag contest win

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SQMag bannerI’ve just been told that my story, ‘Like Clockwork’ has won second place in SQ Mag’s current Story Quest contest. The theme of the contest was ‘Punkin’ the Train’ – though my story isn’t specifically steampunk or dieselpunk etc and I’m not sure which classification might include a Martian sand-sculpted steam train… This nostalgic version of Mars features in several of my stories, but this is the first that’ll be published. I’ve always liked the idea of threading a story/world across several publications, so fingers crossed for that. I don’t yet know which issue of SQ Mag will include ‘Like Clockwork’.

So that’s good news, and offsets a rejection email (for another story) that came through at around the same time. Despite the harshness, I’m very much in favour of this kind of blunt feedback: “The high quality of the writing camouflages that this is a very dull story.  It’s very dry, slow and neither inspires fear or wonder.”

Swings and roundabouts.

‘Finding Waltzer-Three’ Interzone illustration

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The Interzone team have revealed the illustration for my story, ‘Finding Waltzer-Three’, which appears in issue 255. It’s by Wayne Haag, the same artist who created the terrific cover.

747_largeI love it. It’s the first time that any of my stories has been illustrated. I couldn’t be prouder.

17 Nov 2014 update: And Interzone #255 is available in print now! Click here and scroll all the way to the bottom.