A story written for Tales from the CyberSalon — #3 A Sense of Community Her cluster of friends had been hushed. Her connection implants dialled down as close to zero as possible. Her panel displays blurred. She glanced at the fridge, switched off in her determination to avoid an accidental…

A story written for Tales from the CyberSalon — #2 A New High Street Jake’s mouth is full of toothpaste when his Gran calls. He quickly rinses, pops his toothbrush in its holder and his oral health is broadcast to his fan base. “Hey,” she says. “Good luck. Not that…

Signposts to a post-pandemic future All fiction is of its time and science fiction holds a special place, speculating how the fears of today might play out into possible tomorrows. Within the genre there’s a difference between the near-future and the apocalyptic. Or as people are now saying, there used…

His wife Helen had died a horrible death, and yet, Yoshi, his plastic puppy, refused to stop showing videos of her across its forehead. “Bacon?” said Andy to this modern-day guard dog, which he loved and loathed in equal measure. “No.” “Then add it to the shopping list.” “No. I…

Is it true that dystopias predict doom-laden futures and utopias inspire better futures? I write near-future fiction and I frequently get asked, “Why aren’t there more utopian stories and why don’t you write more optimistic futures?” I believe my stories are optimistic, albeit often dark and focussed on the unintended…

Ten. Nine. This is it. Seven. David grabs my hand. Five. He’s holding my hand. Three. Strange. One. Our work is complete. The months spent finding the best neural widgets to build the ultimate AI and the painstaking training of Omega ended with that simple countdown. A palpable sense of…