Captain's Log: February 2025
The story so far, and what's next on the voyage.
This is a quarterly-ish update post summarising what’s been going on at Coracle Voyager recently, and what’s happening next.
If you’ve recently joined the voyage, welcome aboard! This is a “housekeeping” post, a semi-regular feature to highlight what’s been happening and look at what’s coming up in the next few months.
First off, something exciting that happened recently, and a first for me…
An interview
I had the pleasure of being interviewed by
, author of the Fallen series of sci-fi novels, for a series he’s currently running on science fiction from outside the US.Click below to read the interview and find out more about me, my background in physics, how I got into writing, and my thoughts on Scottish science fiction! There are also other interviews with writers from England, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa and Ukraine, and I believe there are more in the works, so do check out the whole series for some fascinating input from writers around the world.
Short stories
Over the last three months, I’ve published three standalone short stories, all of which were a lot of fun to write. In case you missed them, here’s a summary!
Dark Matter blends ideas from particle physics and neuroscience, and is a strong contender for my favourite story so far. It’s also the most popular of my standalone short stories to date!
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The Best of All Possible Worlds is a wintry near-future sci-fi tale set in Edinburgh. I’ve been thrilled by the reception this one’s got. It led to my first paid subscriber, to whom ceud mìle taing, a hundred thousand thanks — I don’t quite have the words to express the grateful joy this has given me, and the encouragement to keep going. It also inspired one reader to buy a bottle of whisky! Slàinte / cheers!
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The Powercut, which has a supernatural rather than a sci-fi tinge, is a story I wrote for Christmas this year, leaning on the Norse and Celtic history of my home island.
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If you’ve read any or all of them, let me know which was your favourite!
The Selene City Christmas project
The bigger project going on over the winter, running from before Christmas until the Lunar New Year at the end of January, was the Selene City Christmas collaboration. I wrote a setting — Selene City, an international lunar base — and invited others to add stories using that setting. I loved seeing how other writers interpreted Selene City and ran with the prompt into all sorts of unexpected directions!
My own story, Music of the Spheres, ran to 4 parts, following lunar geologist Livia Lamarr and her student Victor Cheong as they tried to solve the mystery of the strange music people had heard. It has jazz, fractals, strained family dynamics and a smidgen of romance.
This kind of collaboration is one of my favourite things about the Substack platform. It’s allowed me to discover some great writers, and hopefully I’ll participate in more events like this (or run another one) later in the year.
Looking ahead
Over the next few months, I have a whole flock of short stories just waiting to be written. I have more ideas than time in which to write them, but first out is likely to be a modern fantasy based on Scottish folklore, followed by a couple of sci-fi shorts. You can look forward to a new story in your inbox approximately every 2 weeks.
Now that we’re well into 2025, I’m also getting to grips with what’s needed to turn Destination Europa, the serial I published here last year, into an ebook and paperback. This is going to take some time, but meanwhile the serial will remain available to read for free.
Thank you!
Last year was a blast, and I think this year’s going to be even better. Thank you for joining in and making this such a special experience!
SDG.
Sounds like you’ve been quite busy. Congratulations on getting your short stories published.
As an American, I have no idea what’s different about “Scottish” science fiction vs other types. Is it just where the author is from or are there other hallmarks?
Thanks again for the wonderful interview! It was my pleasure having you.