Why can't every day be Friday?

If any clown ever tries to argue that the diameter of the Moon being one four-hundredth that of the Sun, and the latter being four hundred times further away, thus enabling us to see the full magnificence of a total solar eclipse, adds up to proof of the existence of God, simply point out that God could have been far more helpful had He given us a year that divided into easier chunks.

Three hundred and sixty five and a bit days. That isn't a design feature, that's an oversight. (Although if it had been something convenient, like four hundred, we would have been robbed of Jesse Pinkman arguing for thirteen months in a year. Oh, hold on, I remember now: God moves in mysterious ways. So, yes, He clearly exists. Duh.)

And isn't a seven-day week messy? We didn't have that sorted out until 321AD when Rome abandoned its combined seven- and eight-day systems. That must have made planning your holidays tricky. (As a passing aside, I've discovered that Burmese Theravada Buddhism still employs an eight-day week, but bizarrely achieves this by carving Wednesday in half. At least they're clearer about what 'half way through the week' means.)

All this digression is by way of telling you that last Friday Cosmorama ran my story 'Some of us are Going on a Bear Hunt', and today, a Friday, Wyld Flash have 'We are all Made of Stars'. Why can't every day be Friday?

Enjoy.

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You're here, so surely you know how to do that?

My Thoughts are with You. Your Thoughts are with the Authorities for Calibration Against Societal Norms.

Award-nominated science fiction and slipstream author Robert Bagnall’s second anthology of twenty-four stories, variously bleak, funny, bleakly funny or – very occasionally – optimistic.

  

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.
“Brilliant stories, well written!” (five stars, Amazon).

Faceless goats

Being of a vaguely scientific mindset, or possibly because I'm incorrigibly cynical, I try to ignore two occurrences of any phenomena on the basis it's no doubt co-incidence; only when I see three do I start to suspect a pattern. Even then, I wonder.

So, maybe this is nothing, or it may shine a light on the zeitgeist. Probably the former, but hey, it's a while since I offered any light philosophising here, so I'd appreciate some slack.

My first, meaningless on its own, data point was my stumbling upon the music of the band Kosmischer Läufer, an alias for the East German composer Martin Zeichnete, recorded as warm-up and cool-down accompaniment for Cold War-era East German athletes.  Spotify has five volumes of Krautrock-style ambient noodling. It's rather good.

My second data point, inspired by the soundtrack to Shane Meadows' Gallows Pole, was my discovery of the band Goat, who would be on hard rotation, if my laptop the sort of memory that rotates, but my limited understanding of solid state drives suggests something more akin to Harry Potter's pensieve or the Snow White's stepmother's mirror.

My third, triangulating the first two, was also inspired by the visual, this time Justine Triet's Anatomy of a Fall: the Bacao Rhythm and Steel Band whose take on 50 Cent's PIMP covers the fall that the movie goes on to anatomise - or do I mean pathologise? Like the first two, highly recommended. 

Spotify's artist biographies describes BRSB as "shrouded in mystery" and says "not much is known about the mysterious masked band" Goat. And Kosmischer Läufer? It may actually be the cosmic joke of a Scottish bloke called Drew who I doubt was even in primary school when the Wall fell. But he swears blind he picked Martin Z hitch-hiking, so who am I to say?

The connection is manufactured and sought-out anonymity in a world barraged by social media, FOMO, information-sharing, information-thrusting-in-your-face, and a general screaming me-me-me-ness.

I have more than a nagging sympathy with this approach. Whilst I don't seek anonymity - I write under my own name, and you can find out quite a lot about me, particularly the non-authorial parts of my life, if you Google hard enough - I'm not one of the jump-up-and-wavers on social media. I'd rather write, and if you stumble across me and like what you read, great, but if you don't, no matter, it doesn't make what I write any the less because of that. (Full disclosure: this approach does not lead to me being stopped in the street and asked for my autograph.)

I can't see how there could be anything subliminal in the music that leads me towards artists such as these three, but it does make me wonder whether I've unwittingly gravitated towards them because they gently push the spotlight away with their fingertips and let their wares do the talking for them? And, regardless of the answer, does it say anything about the world in 2024? 

We've always had Harper Lees and Thomas Pynchons - but theirs are more cases of reclusiveness than sought out anonymity. After all, neither adopted noms de plume, they just didn't like interviews and didn't return calls from strangers. And let's not forget all the Frank Sidebottoms, performing their schtick from within papier-mâché heads, or equivalent thereof. Same mindset, different millennia?

There still seems something categorically different about this artistic approach in 2024, and I think it's all about context. With the all-pervasive glare of social media, blanket online coverage, and the expectation of everything being curated for consumption, not giving your name and avoiding photographs becomes so much more of a positive act. It takes effort. 

In the same way that you only see who's swimming naked when the tide is out, you only see who wants to remain incognito when the floodlights come on and they seek the shadows. But the floodlights are on all the time and there are no shadows, which, in an odd way simply highlights the anonymous and reclusive. Catch 22.

I suggest giving World Music a spin whilst pondering that.

#

Click on the images or search on Amazon.

You're here, so surely you know how to do that?

My Thoughts are with You. Your Thoughts are with the Authorities for Calibration Against Societal Norms.

Award-nominated science fiction and slipstream author Robert Bagnall’s second anthology of twenty-four stories, variously bleak, funny, bleakly funny or – very occasionally – optimistic.

  

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.
“Brilliant stories, well written!” (five stars, Amazon).

Another life for a medicine man

Out today, available from Amazon or Barnes and Noble, and includes my story, Death of a Medicine Man.

#

Click on the images or search on Amazon.

You're here, so surely you know how to do that?

My Thoughts are with You. Your Thoughts are with the Authorities for Calibration Against Societal Norms.

Award-nominated science fiction and slipstream author Robert Bagnall’s second anthology of twenty-four stories, variously bleak, funny, bleakly funny or – very occasionally – optimistic.

  

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.
“Brilliant stories, well written!” (five stars, Amazon).

Fission #4 - something I hope we can all come together over

...because I'm offering the cure to ennui.  In the shape of my story, Formula 719: The Cure for Ennui, which you can find in Fission #4 from the British Science Fiction Association.  The cover is below, and look whose name leads?! It's even elevated above everyone else! Ain't the alphabet and odd-numbered lists great?  Available... well, they haven't said, but this month or next.

#

Click on the images or search on Amazon.

You're here, so surely you know how to do that?

My Thoughts are with You. Your Thoughts are with the Authorities for Calibration Against Societal Norms.

Award-nominated science fiction and slipstream author Robert Bagnall’s second anthology of twenty-four stories, variously bleak, funny, bleakly funny or – very occasionally – optimistic.

  

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.
“Brilliant stories, well written!” (five stars, Amazon).

Doubly Best of British

Two announcements today, which I'd like you imagine being made by Queen Victoria whilst waving a union flag in each hand.  Because it's all very British.

Firstly, my story 'Thus With a Kiss I Die', first run off printing presses somewhere deep in the colonies, has been picked for the 2024 edition of The Best of British Science Fiction - confusingly titled Best of British Science Fiction 2023.  It's my fifth appearance since the series first appeared in 2017 with, yes, '2016' on the cover.  Not for me to reason why.

Pre-order it here.

Secondly, my tale 'Formula 719 - A Cure for Ennui' has been chosen for the fourth edition of Fission, the British Science Fiction Association's anthology.

Both are due out this summer.

Three cheers for Albion, and I'll tell my man to clean your kit.

#

Click on the images or search on Amazon.

You're here, so surely you know how to do that?

My Thoughts are with You. Your Thoughts are with the Authorities for Calibration Against Societal Norms.

Award-nominated science fiction and slipstream author Robert Bagnall’s second anthology of twenty-four stories, variously bleak, funny, bleakly funny or – very occasionally – optimistic.

  

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.
“Brilliant stories, well written!” (five stars, Amazon).

Is half a psychopomp better than no psychopomp?

I really don't know whether this tale is heroic, pathetic, or ironic.
I've just had my story Charabanc accepted for Parsec Ink's next Triangulation anthology, theme: Hospitium, the Greco-Roman concept of hospitality, where both the guest and host have an obligation to treat the other with kindness and respect. Bring out the bunting. Hurrah for me. Etc., etc.

That's the heroic bit over.

Charabanc started off as a story about Black Shuck, then turned into an updating off the old legend of the phantom coach, updating the coach-and-four itself to a 1952 Foden PVD6, with Black Shuck sleeping on a seat behind the driver. In it, the bus drives on across the moor, into the storm, forever, with each passenger picked up becoming the next driver. They are, quite literally, psychopomps, guiders of souls to the afterlife. The story covered one soul, from flagging down the bus to finding himself in the driving seat, driving into the endless night...

The acceptance only came after the editors reached out to me to say they were minded to offer it a place in the collection, but only if they could cut the entire second half of the story - the part with the passenger from the first half now the driver.

I've accepted many editorial changes across the eighty-odd stories I've sold, from rewrites changing the point of view to new titles requested by the editor. But this was quite a fundamental change to the story itself - so was it pathetic to agree? Have I lost my principles? Sold out?!

I don't think so. Except, maybe, to the selling out bit, if you mean by that not being totally deaf to what your readers and buyers, editors and publishers, want. Fine if you want to be an artist with a capital A, just publish your own work in your own way, and don't trouble the market. Collaboration remains a dirty word. 

And it's not like I need the money, all $30 or so this sale will bring. Why not hold out to broadcast my 'vision' uncompromised by the venal views of Big Publishing?  Because selling short fiction is a lot like fishing; it's the challenge of throwing out the bait and seeing what bites. One day I'll land a Clarkesworld, Asimov's, or Lightspeed. But not today, and not with this story. Better to be happy with a semi-pro bite, even if it comes with conditions, than to wait at the water's edge forever.

Better half a psychopomp in the hand, than one in the bush and all that. 

And the ironic? Well, having been a c.1000-word story for most of its life, and having racked up forty-odd rejections at various nearness of miss, I rewrote it to 2000 words to give it a bit more heft. Ditching the second half, of course brought it crashing back to 1000 words, which was what was needed to get it over the line. Apparently.

#

Click on the images or search on Amazon.

You're here, so surely you know how to do that?

My Thoughts are with You. Your Thoughts are with the Authorities for Calibration Against Societal Norms.

Award-nominated science fiction and slipstream author Robert Bagnall’s second anthology of twenty-four stories, variously bleak, funny, bleakly funny or – very occasionally – optimistic.

  

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.
“Brilliant stories, well written!” (five stars, Amazon).

TexArcana

Released on 17th June by Lunarian Press, TexArcana, an anthology of Texas-set fantasy stories, includes 'Death of a Medicine Man', a reprint of one of my first published stories, from 2012, in the short-lived, long-forgotten, and almost unobtainable magazine Crimson Fog. Nice to know it's getting another airing.

#

Click on the images or search on Amazon.

You're here, so surely you know how to do that?

My Thoughts are with You. Your Thoughts are with the Authorities for Calibration Against Societal Norms.

Award-nominated science fiction and slipstream author Robert Bagnall’s second anthology of twenty-four stories, variously bleak, funny, bleakly funny or – very occasionally – optimistic.

  

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.
“Brilliant stories, well written!” (five stars, Amazon).