I really like short SF. It’s where I got my start in SF, reading the golden age stories by Asimov, Heinlein, etc., etc. I couldn’t acquire the new era SF that was being published right then because I was still in Australia at the time, and only a limited amount of international fiction made its way down to us there.
What I could find was classic anthologies and I gobbled them up. I would buy any anthology edited by Gardner Dozois, no matter what the theme or cover.
These days, I’m still devouring short stories in magazines, and anthologies. My favorite editors are John Joseph Adams (and I love the stories in his Lightspeed magazine, too!) and Jonathan Strahan (who lives in my old home town), among others.
When I began writing my own fiction, though, I went immediately to novel length stories. Which sounds counter-intuitive. I actually did try writing short fiction when I first started out, but I couldn’t get my stories to work. I quickly moved on to a novel, and found it much easier to structure and write, and figured I was an anomaly (I am an outlier in more than just writing, as it turns out).
I found out much later, after I had published more than a few novels, that writing good short fiction is considered to be much more difficult than writing novels.
There is a Blaise Pascal quote:
“Please forgive the long letter; I didn’t have time to write a short one.”
It was only when I tried writing short stories myself that I finally understood this.
So for many years, I didn’t write short fiction. The genres I was writing under other pen names didn’t have strong short fiction markets, but speculative fiction’s short markets are prolific and doing very well indeed, even as the traditionally published SF novel is struggling.
But now I’m happily wallowing in the writing of SF, and that includes short stories. 🙂
Today, Stories Rule Press Presents: Space Opera Digest 2021: Fight or Flight is released. The anthology includes one of my novelettes, “The Captain Who Broke the Rules; a Ptolemy Lane Tale”.
This is the second Ptolemy Lane story to be released by a publisher other than me. The first was “The Body In the Zero Gee Brothel”, which appeared in Boundary Shock in October last year.
What does one do in the face of a relentless enemy?
Stories Rule Press presents: Space Opera Digest 2021: Fight or Flight.
Fight or flight is one of our most primal instincts, a leftover from primitive days. It cannot be denied. In the backwater colonies on the fringes of outer space, it is one of our most valuable skills.
Ptolemy Lane. Sergeant Fisher. The Dagger. Senior Chief Jack Palahniuk. Jedidiah Kramer. Captain Hedge. Six heroes face that choice.
Fight or flight.
“The Captain Who Broke the Rules” by Cameron Cooper
“Stranded” by Benjamin Cooper
“Dagger” by David A. Gray
“Plankholder” by Blaze Ward
“The Sentry” by Clayton Scott
“Talionis” by Eliot Bishop
Six stories. Six relentless enemies and six epic heroes. What will they do? How will they survive?
Space Opera Digest 2021: Fight or Flight is the first volume in a quarterly collection of genre fiction anthologies presented by Stories Rule Press.
Space Opera Science Fiction Anthology
And here’s a bit about my story:
Ptolemy Jovan Lane meets his next adventure.
Lane’s personal cargo is jettisoned while travelling back to Georgina’s Town after the death of a friend. Lane confronts Captain Sandor and learns the ship is being pursued by slavers. Captain Sandor’s response to the disaster is anything but typical. Nor is she above roping in Lane to help…
“The Captain Who Broke The Rules” is the second Ptolemy Lane space opera science fiction story by award-winning SF author Cameron Cooper.
The Ptolemy Lane Tales:
1.0: The Body in the Zero Gee Brothel
2.0: The Captain Who Broke the Rules
Stories Rule Press Presents: Space Opera Digest 2021: Fight or Flight is available everywhere.
Enjoy!
