Okay, so my science fiction anthology, Thrace , has been out for a couple of weeks now. I'm actually very pleased with it (and, for once in my life, with the titles of the three stories – Let Tsygons Be Tsygons, Electric High and An Equal Opportunity Murderer ).

Obviously, it is time for a teaser from the stories:

Jed took a step outside the shuttle port and physically recoiled. It was not, in fact, the atmosphere that bothered him. Inside the TENT, he was able to breathe as normal, even if the strange sensation of the garment was going to take some getting used to. No, it was…

The concrete. The vast, unending concrete everywhere Jed looked. The sense of greyness: the buildings were grey, the vehicles were grey, even the sky was grey. Grey and dull and depressing. Gielgud really was the shit-hole he'd been told it was. Huge silver sky-eyes hung in the air, keeping watch over the city of Thrace. An autocoach (grey) roared overhead. Jed had to fight to force himself to stay put, not to run back to the port and beg for the first shuttle out of here.

Nothing was natural. No plants grew. There were no insects, no crawling wee beasties, no soil, no mountains, no water. There was concrete. And more concrete. And yet more concrete still.

"Fuck," he said comprehensively; and found that he could barely hear his own voice over the sounds of the city. A shuttle was leaving for Earth, and the blast was shaking the ground beneath his feet, while above him aero-route after aero-route slid into the far distance, the traffic zooming past with an irritating electrical hum.

"Jed Wilson?"

Jed jumped, as his name was spoken somewhere behind his right shoulder. He turned, and came face to face with what was clearly a Tsygon. Three eyes – two positioned as in humans, with a third, larger eye mid-forehead. Dark, almost black, skin. A strange garment which seemed to change even as Jed looked at it. And a tail. A long, long, tail.