It’s finally here! The Switchblade Magazine/Pulp Modern double feature Tech Noir is out today!

Switchblade and Pulp Modern have teamed up to make a retro cyberpunk anthology with twice the goodness.

My featured short story Baby on Board sees ex-cop Oink, having returned from Mars to his hometown on Earth, Belt City, get embroiled in a kidnapping scheme (mostly) against his will. There are digital ghosts, physical augmentations, eating noodles outdoors in the rain – all the Cyberpunk classic moves! – and more.

Also, at its heart is a simple tale about a baby that won’t go to sleep, and as the father of an eleven-month-old who has only recently began sleeping through the night, it’s very close to home – you know, except for all the shooting and eye-gouging and mag-lev cars and that…

This story was an absolute blast to write. I’m a huge fan of the genre, with William Gibson’s sprawl series (and short stories) being one of my all-time favourites that I just keep going back to every few years. His name also appears many, many times throughout my blog posts.

While my story and other excellent tales by the likes of Alec Cizak and Matt Gomez are being published by Switchblade, there are some fantastic authors on the Pulp Modern side of the aisle too, including Jo Perry (famous for her Dead is Better paranormal crime series) and C.W. Blackwell, who was also in the recent anthology by FunDead Publications, Exquisite Aberrations, with me. (His story, ‘The Gravekeeper’s Daughter’ was one of my favourites in that collection!)

Check out Tech Noir here and here.

“It rained hard in Belt City. Real rain, not the sprinkler stuff he’d gotten used to on Mars. It was freezing, malicious, and wonderful.”

— Baby on Board