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Short Science Fiction Stories, Short SF Stories

Of Moths and Men. Science Fiction Weekly #32

By NeilA

TBH I had a lot of fun writing this. Quotes from Doctor Who “Are you interested in lepidoptera at all?” Always one for the obscure! And weaving in ASIO and ASIS as well as playing around with genetics… Yeah, it’s a weird one. I’ve also snuck it in as an Easter egg in Hoganthology, so anyone who gets that now will have a surprise at the end. Then again, maybe they’ll have a disappointment at the end. I hope not!

Stellar Flash IV is so far behind schedule that I don’t think I can catch up to my projected release of May 2020. I’ll do my best, but so many crazy things have happened in 2019 that I’m tempted to take 2020 off and just retreat from the world for awhile. We’ll see.

In other news, it had been a half-a-life-long dream to release Hoganthology. And now that it is out there, I thought a collection might be eligible for a Hugo Award nomination. Nope. No collections are accepted. So, if you’re a member or supporting member of CoNZealand and wish to nominate Hoganthology, maybe nominate Temporal Incursion instead? Or even one of the Science Fiction Weekly Short Stories released in 2019 that are in it?

You read something better? Oh. Okay. Fair enough. Let me know the title in the comments and I’ll check it out.

Of Moths and Men is available in digital format from Amazon

Fanged moths, enlarged animals, and now something was affecting his team of lepidopterists. With an Australian government department involved, and attacks on the rise, Bruce is tasked with finding a cure to whatever climate change has brought the world this time.

But can he reverse the effects of something that had previously been dormant for over 13,000 years?

Find out more in Of Moths and Men. #32 in the Science Fiction Weekly Short Reads Series

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Tutor Who Heaven Cent. Science Fiction Weekly #30

By NeilA

On the  28th November 2015, the BBC broadcast an episode of Doctor Who called Heaven Sent, starring Peter Capaldi. It was a very different kind of Doctor Who story in that it was almost completely carried by Capaldi, apart from a wraith-like creature that silently chased him the entire episode. Not only was it a mystery, a horror, a convoluted time conundrum tied up in a shifting puzzle box maze, it was well shot, well executed with amazing detail that kept you not only guessing while watching it, but rewatching it in your head long after the episode had finished.

So taken with this story, I not only watched it about twenty times, (on ABC iView, among other places), but I also wrote a short story as a homage to it about the underlying cycles across time that we sometimes end up in. I released this in issue two of Alien Dimensions in November 2016. I don’t know whether it was this story, or simply a coincidence of timing, but that issue shot to the bestseller list on Amazon for two weeks.

But I didn’t want to stop there.

Once the creative bug had been born, I wanted to do other things in relation to Heaven Sent, so I then downloaded and rewrote Stephen Moffat’s script and put together a short video starring myself, emulating as much as I could. I also hired Genelyn Javier, who did many of the illustrations for my Alien Characters series, to create an animated theme tune and a wraith-like image for my character to run away from. It’s called Tutor Who Heaven Cent, and you can watch it online here:

For the full effect, you should watch Doctor Who: Heaven Sent first before watching my embarrassing fan video.

When watching Tutor Who Heaven Cent, please use headphones and have your hand on the sound control. As it took me two years to make, each time I added a scene in Movie Maker I had trouble getting the previous sound levels to match, so apologies in advance.

In 2019, I reviewed the written Tutor Who Heaven Cent story and realized that an almost completely new story was needed. One based on the video. The new version is now available from Amazon, and closely follows my script, the final video being a cut down version.

If you’d like to read the original version, you can find it in the Alien Dimensions Boxed Set

And, if you’re a Doctor Who fan, then I challenge you to find over 37 Easter eggs that I wove into the video, and over 50 that I included in the new written version.

Many thanks for your interest.

Neil A. Hogan

23rd November 2019

Doctor Who’s 56th anniversary

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A Little Matter by Neil A. Hogan. Science Fiction Weekly #20. Short Reads Series

By NeilA

A Little Matter by Neil A. Hogan

Science Fiction Weekly #20

Digital Format Available

When Julie sees the Guider striding towards her, she knows something is up.

And when he invites her to a safe house to reveal that he had already known about her discovery, long before she had made it, she soon discovers that all is not as it seems.

With the dark matter having left the Oort Cloud, and now heading towards the inner Solar System, it is up to Julie to decide what to do next.

But she has absolutely no idea what that could be.

Could this mean the end of the human race?

A Little Matter is #20 in the Science Fiction Weekly short reads series. A short story of approximately 4600 words.