Horizons and Territories

The latest edition of Far Horizons magazine is filled with treats from Unsung Stories, including short stories by Malcolm Devlin, Verity Holloway, Oliver Langmead, and me. There are also interviews, reviews, and even a sneaky extract from The Loosening Skin. The publication date for that is the end of October, so you really are getting an early look at that. Gulp.

My story in the magazine is called Chekhov’s Gun. When I was studying theatre and film I was fascinated by the rule of Chekhov’s Gun. It states that if you’re going to hang a shotgun above a fireplace in act one, somebody should have used it by act five. The trick, for me, is to make it look like the gun might not be there to fired, or else the inevitability of the gun being fired takes over everything; it’s all we can think about. But what if it’s all the characters can think about too? So I couldn’t do things by half when using that particular rule; this story contains the biggest gun I’ve ever written about. Will it get fired?

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Also, I’ll just add that I’m so pleased that my new story Territory: Blank will be published in Interzone some time soon. It’s kind of the opposite to Chekhov’s Gun. That’s all I’ll say about it for the next few months, though, until it’s out in the world. Also I’m not going to mention the possibility of an upcoming cover reveal for The Loosening Skin in the next week or so. Nothing to see here yet. *whistles*