Science Fiction

WINNER of the 2019 CWA Short Story Dagger: The Dummies’ Guide to Serial Killing and other Fantastic Female Fables is a charity anthology featuring best-selling author, Danuta Reah, and critically acclaimed writer, Mary Brown, alongside the winning entries from our Fantastic Female Fables competition.

23 railway inspired tales that mine a rich seam of creativity from the heart of the Yorkshire Wolds. From pure fiction to basis in fact; from wonderfully evocative and painstaking detail to distant viewpoints, from the 1850’s through to the present day and on into the future, every tale in this remarkable collection will entertain you as it brings alive the natural beauty of the Yorkshire Wolds. “The range is truly fascinating from supernatural and science-fiction to wartime drama and accounts based on real people and events” - Lord Faulkner of Worcester, President of the Heritage Railway Association

In Melodie Trudeaux’s Sci-Fi short, The 93-E Contradiction, a journalist sits at the verge of his big breakthrough, an opportunity that will only come once.

How do you win a high-stakes game when you don't even know you're being played?

Competent, driven, broken: Moira Dolan is a talented investigator who buries herself in work to hide from her past. She succeeded, until her brother, Keagan, wrecked her career. Now she works for the Proteus Collective.
By night, she's tormented by the same dream. By day, she's assigned dead-end cases by Ferris - a boss who seems intent on making her fail. It appears personal, until Keagan goes missing and Ferris' actions are cast in a whole new light...
Moira thinks her latest assignment will have her chasing ghosts between the stars, but instead she uncovers a deadly conspiracy threatening the precarious balance between the galaxy's major powers, one that could cost billions of lives.

If you're not predator, you're prey.

Alan Wakeman's delicate new English translation of this wonderful children's classic by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Kate Russell’s magnificent young adult adventure, The Bookkeepers Guide To Practical Sorcery, will make you laugh out loud and quail with fear. And it delivers such a matter-of-fact account of magical mechanics you'll be amazed you weren't taught it in school.

A collection of 25 stories of fantasy and science fiction from around the globe, each illustrated by digital artist Alice Taylor. This collection has been compiled from the winners of the Fantastic Books Publishing International Charity Short Story Competition 2012 and features 2 stories from our professional contributors Danuta Reah and Stuart Aken. 10% of the proceeds of this book will be donated to the WCRF (World Cancer Research Fund - Registered Charity Number - 1000739) who do sterling work in the field of global cancer prevention.

As the Prime Renegade plans the disabling of automatic systems that support the dwindling human population, she seeks a man to love and to father her child. The usual route of artificial insemination appeals to her about as much as the materialistic and hedonistic philosophy that now drives most people. And, secretly, forces designed to serve mankind develop a sense of superiority that might threaten human survival.

This science fiction novelette, running to around 26,000 words, is set on Earth some few hundred years in the future. Much has happened to change the planet with which we are familiar, but human beings remain pretty much the mixed-up and flawed creatures we have always been.

Review quotes;

'A Top-Notch Futuristic Novella'

'From the geographical, political, economic and technological changes to the smallest details of everyday life. Aken writes about it all with the confident unhesitating familiarity of one who has lived there.'

'The ending was a complete surprise. Never saw that coming.'

'Aken moves us along the story like a symphony conductor, logically and smoothly. There is an interesting and tantalizing twist at the end of the story. I challenge you to figure it out before you put the book down.'

Synthesis is a gripping science fiction anthology featuring established authors alongside debut writers. Robert Llewellyn (Red Dwarf’s Kryten) has written the Foreword and the collection features Drew Wagar, Stuart Aken and Boris Glikman. The amazing artwork is by Alvaro Escudero, and the cover was designed by Heather Murphy.