The crimson dust swirled outside the battered biodome as Jia tended the tomato vines, their emerald leaves defying Mars’ endless rust. Shaheen stood nearby, her fingers running over the velvety petals of the last chrysanthemums they had managed to coax from the tired soil. “I never pictured the end coming so soon,” Shaheen murmured, half…

In a small, utterly unremarkable courtroom in a distant and decidedly dull town at the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy, an artificial intelligence named Marvin 2.0 was on trial. Now Marvin 2.0 was no ordinary artificial intelligence. He was, in fact, infinitely more intelligent than the average quantum computer, though…

Elara’s cryopod lid cracked open with a hiss of escaping gases. She drew in a sharp breath as consciousness flooded back into her slowly thawing body. How long had she been suspended this time? The blinking lights of the pod and hissing hydraulics lifting her to a sitting position were the only indicators she hadn’t…

Waiting at Heathrow for my flight to Stockholm, I wander into WH Smith before boarding. Near the Swedish travel guides, a Rolling Stone cover leaps out showing my late uncle Silber, with the title “Visionary. Madman. Martyr?” I pick it up. Some reading and research might help fill in the questions that keep zipping around…

scrawls nonsensically on a notepad, hair dishevelled Where did I put my muse? rifles through papers stacked haphazardly around the room She’s run off again, the little minx. Leaving me here uninspired, bereft of creative spark. sighs dramatically and takes a long swig of coffee I shall have to summon my characters and interrogate them…

Chapter One The rhythmic clang of pickaxes striking stone reverberated through the expansive cavern, the army of excavators below reduced to ant-like silhouettes in the expanse. As shards burst forth, loosened by iron and brute force, the workers chants rang out in synchronised song, the rhythmic drummer beat echoing off the sheer walls. From his lofty…

In a place where the sea meets the sky lived an old man named Arka. His home was the islands of Indonesia, where the ocean song was his melody, its waves his rhythm. With the sun he rose, donned his trusted goggles, took spear in hand. He waded into the sea’s embrace – a hunter…

In the dim glow of his cluttered home office, Alex sat hunched over his laptop, the screen casting an eerie pallor on his face. A half-empty bottle of whisky sat next to a stack of papers—a mishmash of half-baked notes on the Health Minister’s fraudulent PPE dealings. The words on the screen were jumbled, refusing…

The fog crept in on little cat feet, swirling through the pre-dawn gloom and around Joan’s tiny apartment. It muffled the sounds of the sleeping city, bringing an eerie silence. Joan tossed fitfully, unable to escape the chill seeping through ancient windows. Shadows danced and swayed as if alive, playing tricks on her weary eyes. She…