The third in the I Am Machine collection of short stories, entitled Far From the Sun, is now up and available for free.

I received Planet Coaster as a sort of early Christmas present, because I had seen some of it in action and would not shut up talking about it. Years ago, I was a big fan of the 1999 classic RollerCoaster Tycoon, listening to all the tiny people sending me complaints about how long they’ve had to queue for the haunted house. Planet Coaster is all that in glorious, stylised 3D, and I have fallen for it in a big way.

If you’ll direct your attention to the top of the main page, you’ll see you can now subscribe to my mailing list. Put in your email address and you’ll be signed up, meaning you’ll get an alert straight to your inbox every time I release something new – and that’s it! There will be no spam, no emails from anyone else, and no constant advertisements to buy the same thing. Nothing except for a simple message on occasion to tell you: ‘Hey, look! It’s a new book.’

I’m a huge nerd and I love space exploration, so it’s no huge surprise that I saw The Martian this week — but my delight at semi-realistic NASA missions is not the only reason. I’m showing my support for a fellow self-publisher, Andy Weir, who made it big with his book-turned-Hollywood-blockbuster, and it gives me vast quantities of hope about my own career.