Welcome to the Cairns Writes Fiction Podcast. Every week I’ll be reading a short story or piece of serialised fiction.
This week’s story is called Children
In a world where intelligence is reversed, where the younger you are, the smarter you become, Prisoner Harris is waiting for the end…
Written, Read and Produced by Michael Cairns
The next episode will be available to download next week. Happy listening.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Welcome to the Cairns Writes Fiction Podcast. Every week I’ll be reading a short story or piece of serialised fiction.
This week’s story is called Anger
In a world of enforced national service for anyone born with a ‘gift’, Thomas Stall hides away, keeps his powers well hidden. But the offer of a once in a lifetime pay check for one, short conversation may be one conversation too many…
Written, Read and Produced by Michael Cairns
The next episode will be available to download next week. Happy listening.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Welcome to the Cairns Writes Fiction Podcast. Every week I’ll be reading a short story or piece of serialised fiction.
This week’s story is called Jealous
‘Seeing colour is a luxury of the rich’. That’s the world David lives in, but he’s not gonna sit back and take it anymore. Not when the answer lives just across the street…
Written, Read and Produced by Michael Cairns
The next episode will be available to download next week. Happy listening.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Welcome to the Cairns Writes Fiction Podcast. Every week I’ll be reading a short story or piece of serialized fiction.
This week’s story is called Nowhere
Shell is on a world ship, heading to a planet she’ll never see. Behind her, Earth burns and ahead lies a life she has no interest in. But Shell has been listening, and Shell has a plan.
Written, Read and Produced by Michael Cairns
The next episode will be available to download next week. Happy listening.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Welcome to the Cairns Writes Fiction Podcast. Every week I’ll be reading a short story or piece of serialized fiction.
This week’s story is called A Night on the Town
All Steve wanted was a few cheap beers and a pretty girl shaking her arse in his face. Instead, he got a world of hurt, and he’s still not sure why he even got involved.
*Warning*: Adult Content
Written, Read and Produced by Michael Cairns
The next episode will be available to download next week. Happy listening.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
My wife and I got talking the other day about the things within my genre that are cool. This led to me trying to explain to her that the Sci-fi and Fantasy worlds were complex, featuring any number of different sub-genres and, as a result, what may be cool for some readers may well not be for others. The title of this blog was uttered by me at some point within the chat and it’s a statement that I stand by, though with a smile on my face.
I feel quite strongly that the fantasy/sci-fi/horror genre within the world of books is still looked down upon by the rest of the literary community. The word novel, as described by the Oxford English Dictionary clearly fits many a contemporary fantasy, or epic piece of Sci-Fi, yet when we look at the Man Booker prize (contemporary fiction), the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and many others, no fantasy appears. Once again, the dictionary suggests that to be fiction, a story simply needs to be imagined, not factual. I’m fairly certain that A Game of Thrones has come out of G.R.R. Martin’s head, yet his books so far remain well removed from these lists.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am in no way devaluing the awards like Locus, Nebula or Hugo. I love that the genre has it’s own awards and, based on the depth and breadth of the field, they’re much needed. However, almost by having those awards, the Sci-Fi and Fantasy field are sidelined from what you could call mainstream literature.
Any thoughts?