You'd have thought they'd have emailed

I don't want to give you the impression that I occasionally Google my own name, but I occasionally Google my own name.  Not having an agent or a press-cutting service (did any of those outlast the Reagan administration? did they ever exist outside of pulp novels?) I would otherwise miss out on things like Austrian Spencer's review of The Dead Inside on Goodreads:

"Highlights for me were discovering Robert Bagnall, Sarah Jackson & Marcus Woodman, all of whom I’ll read more from this year."

I'd also miss out on finding a reference to myself on File 770 going back almost a year and a half (I said that I only Googled myself occasionally) reporting that my story 'The Thirteenth Floor', published in Third Flatiron's 2019 anthology 'Gotta Wear Eclipse Glasses' (did I mention I have a story forthcoming in their next?) made the British Science Fiction Association Awards 2020 longlist in January 2021.

This, I admit, is news to me.  My understanding is that stories have to be nominated by somebody other than the author, so person or persons unknown and who I never paid in unmarked bills must have liked the yarn enough to nominate.  I'd only been a member for about three weeks at that point and was still working out how the whole BSFA thing worked, but they had all my details...  You'd have thought they'd have emailed or something, to let me know...

Meanwhile, back where people do give me a heads-up as to what's happening, here are two items for your virtual shopping basket.  Firstly, JayHenge's 'Grandpa's Deep-Space Diner' came out a couple of weeks ago with a reprint of my story 'The Fool' about an idiot with a fruit pudding.

Secondly, all credit to Patrick O'Ryan for getting the first issue of 'Medusa Tales' out of the door so quickly - my bad mermaid story 'Devil Ray at the Doorway' was taken less than four weeks ago.  Best of luck to both him and the magazine.

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2084 - The Meschera Bandwidth

2084. The world remains at war.

In the Eurasian desert, twenty-year old Adnan emerges from a coma with memories of a strictly ordered city of steel and glass, and a woman he loved.

The city is the Dome, and the woman... is Adnan's secret to keep.

Adnan learns what the Dome is, and what his role really was within it. He learns why everybody fears the Sickness more than the troopers. And he learns why he is the only one who can stop the war.

Persuaded to re-enter the Dome to implant a virus that will bring the war machine to its knees, the resistance think that Adnan is returning to free the many - but really he wants to free the one.

24 0s & a 2

Twenty-four slipstream stories.  Frequently absurd, often minimifidian, occasionally heroic.