Blog Archives
Other Worlds Anthology Volume 1
What if… an anthropology graduate finds herself on a work placement in an off-world ‘glom’ trying to save her career? Find out in the short story In Space, No One Can Hear You Sing.
What if… on a distant planet in another solar system, a young girl finds herself the victim of a brutal justice system? The answer may lie in Soulbane.
Two fantastical futuristic stories from the pen of FG Laval and many more authors in one volume. Available now from Fiction4All
Near-Future Fictions Anthology
Virtual Futures near-future fictions anthology, Vital Signals is now out from NewCon Press.
Described as ‘a volume of short sharp stories that present alternative or unconsidered visions of the future; stories that draw attention to the potential impact of cutting-edge science and technology on society and humanity.’
I am honoured to find my story nestled among such esteemed company and I had great fun exploring the theme of ‘Post Brain’. Not to mention the opportunity to read it aloud at a live event, which was a truly immersive experience.
‘This is science fiction with intent, providing quick bursts of conjecture and insight, guaranteed to both entertain and stimulate.’
When They Came For You
The shrieking siren of the police car gets people making the same comment, ‘they’re coming to get you’! Ha ha, very funny, but what if ‘they’ were coming to get you, what if you had a threat of retribution hanging over your head, what if you disregarded the warnings that they were really coming to get you…this set of stories will show you just what some people have been through when ‘they’ were about to interfere with a life…
New horror anthology available from Fiction4All, which includes my short story Just A Woman…
Running from a terrifying past of government experiments and conspiracies, Jade was so close to realise her dream of freedom when they came for her…
27 stories from various authors present you with their unique take on When They Came For You
Available now from a variety of retail outlets – read an excerpt here.
A Darker Shade of Green
This is a story about recycling.
Recycling? I hear you say… sounds a bit boring. But bear with me. This is environmentalism explored on multiple levels.
And… there are monsters lurking at the bottom of the garden.
Sustainability is a dish best served with a touch of darkness. Enjoy.
Available here from Cemetery Moon.
At Goodge Street
My latest short story, At Goodge Street, is published today in STORGY Magazine; an online literary short story magazine which aims to ‘challenge literary conventions and experiment with genre, style, form and content’.
What I like about STORGY is that it is an exploration of story across genres and media that at its heart examines what it means to be us… to be human. You’ll find art, culture, books, TV and film, competitions, interviews and more. But before you explore the other delights STORGY has to offer, take a quick trip to Goodge Street, where you’ll find a weird adventure awaiting you.
At Goodge Street follows the story of a couple who cross the boundary between fantasy and reality, playing a hidden game of love and betrayal against the backdrop of the myth and legend of ancient Hindu demons and gods.
Thank you to the staff at STORGY for publishing my story and I hope you enjoy it!
The Gone Gods
When I was a girl, my granda used to take me and my siblings for long walks in Ashridge Forest. We explored acres of glorious beech and oak woodlands, crunching through the bracken and collecting beechnuts and acorns to use as projectile weapons in the eternal sibling rivalry war. Trees have always fascinated me. The garden of my childhood was filled with hardy tree-climbing inspiration; Pines tall enough to see over the town and across the downs, Horse Chestnuts with perfect nooks and crannies for makeshift tree houses and stashing secret conker supplies. So, I guess it’s not surprising for me to link my love of trees and forests with my love of fantastic fiction.
The Gone Gods is one in a series of stories that feature dryads, nymphs, wood elves and other magical creatures. Writers have handled dryads in different forms for many years. Such stories are as old as the gods themselves. We find dryads represented throughout literature; Paradise Lost by John Milton, The Virginians by William Thackeray, and particularly as symbols of nature in; On the Difficulty of Conjuring up a Dryad and On the Plethora of Dryads by Sylvia Plath.
Dryads can also be found in fantastic fiction; The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis and The Belgariad by David Eddings. I am sure that you can come up with many more examples.
This short novelette, The Gone Gods, is three chapters, which explore the juxtaposition between modern urban life and ancient myth; how these wonderful and alien creatures rub up against the modern Londoner. Hope you enjoy it.
Speak to Me
My story, Speak to Me, is published this month in New Realm.
If you follow me on Pinterest, might have noticed my board for Dryads and Trees where I have been collecting pictures and researching dryads in literature to inform my latest obsession.
According to Greek mythology, dryads are considered to be shy creatures, supernaturally long-lived and intrinsically linked to their trees. In the case of hamadryads, they are quite literally part of their tree and if the tree dies, so do they. Dryads are also known as wood or tree nymphs; ‘Nymph’ meaning ‘young woman’ in Greek, so they are always female. They never grow physically older, though they are very long-lived, wise and intelligent. They do not like being disturbed but will always be friendly if approached in the right way.
Generally, they preside over groves of trees and forests. A dryad is born with a certain tree over which she watches and will punish mortals who harm trees. Animals and trees are friends of the dryads who are thought to be their protectors.
This is a story about a dryad I found in a local park in East London. She too is quite shy, but harbours a deep desire to start conversations with people. Ironically, she has a curse hanging over her, which makes this particular yearning somewhat tricky.
Unheard
As writers we strive to engage in sensory description to bring alive our stories for readers. Through sight, sound, touch, smell and taste we can evoke a sense of the familiar and colour our characters with graphic depth. So, I thought I’d mix it up a bit in this story. Synaesthesia is an extraordinary condition where the stimulation of one sense automatically triggers sensations in one of the other five senses. For example, sound triggering a tactile response, music or voices seen as colours. I chose to play about with touch and taste in this case, but I’ll let you, my curious reader, decide for yourself how well you think that worked.
This particular story was also inspired by the deep divisions in our society that are growing ever wider and threaten our unique and inclusive cultural identity. The story takes us into a near future that is already sitting on our doorsteps. As a writer, you can’t help but reflect what you see going on around you. Whether set in our world, a future world or a re-written past, stories give us the opportunity to take a good look at ourselves and wonder what we can do to make the world a better place.
Thank you to The Mechanics’ Institute Review Online for publishing Unheard.
The Watchers
I became interested in steampunk fiction when I used it as a theme to research London’s influence on the genre as part of my MA in Creative Writing.
As well as discovering a rich backdrop of inspiration, I uncovered untapped memories of my own. When I was a little girl, my grandfather used to take me and my siblings to traction engine fairs. I remember the green fields and muddy tracks, bold red and green painted engines with huge wheels and pumping pistons. Most of all, I remember the noise and smell; the sudden whoosh as steam was released that made me leap behind the safety of my grandfather and set my heart hammering against my ribs. The grimy, oily scent would stay in my nostrils for days and linger on the periphery of my senses. I was barely the height of those massive cast-iron wheels and the engines terrified me, deeply embedding a sense of awe. It is that same sense of awe that drew me towards speculative fiction with its big question of ‘what if?’ and then steampunk fiction, drawing on a nostalgia that has sat in the back of my mind for most of my life. If science fiction deals with the ‘what if?’ of pure invention, then perhaps steampunk deals with the ‘what then?’ – a reimagining of what has already been discovered.
My aim was to write a piece of fiction using the city as a backdrop, evoking a strong sense of place. Victorian London has always been a classic backdrop for steampunk and because I know the city well, I felt able to feed on its nostalgia. I chose Paris because it fascinates me and the similarities and differences between the two cities was interesting to explore. So with the background suitably steampunk, I managed to get in a bit of steam-powered tech alongside the retro-futuristic inventions. The protagonist’s story itself attempts to subvert the norms of the historical times, simply by the fact she is female attempting to enter a male dominated profession. And of course, there have to be aliens involved somewhere.
Hope you enjoy it – published this week in Electric Spec.
City of Bones
The road to nowhere;
a road of indistinct nature
that baffles and bemuses.
A creature of comfort,
a black hole in the middle
of a City of Bones.
The clouds open up
beneath my dogged stride
darting through
sheets of purple rain.
The ground beneath me rumbles
and a great crack sunders the earth.
I ride through the darkened skies
on the creature’s black-winged back.
Ruby eyes illuminate the space,
burning leaves, baking the tarmac.
And oh, how the city groans.
FG Laval 