Things are trucking along nicely at Chez Harris. I’ve almost wrapped up the first draft of the next Serial Killer Z book and I have a steady release schedule for the next few months. First up is the standalone publication of my science fiction horror story – Pod Fifteen. Ellis Osako is piloting the Redhawk across deep space with nothing but an AI and a cargo hold full of dead bodies for company. Haunted by his past, he spends his time trying to guess the identities of the dead around him. Until he finds the woman in pod fifteen, and Ellis is forced to face his demons and the fact that he may no longer be alone. Pod Fifteen first appeared in Tales of the Canyons of the Damned Issue 14 and it’s one of my favourite short stories I’ve written. I was going for a blend of Alien and the Japanese horror movie, The Ring, and I’m very happy with how it turned out. You can grab your copy for 99c from Amazon right now. The other retailers will be coming soon. CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR FREE COPY OF INFECTION [Out Now – Pod Fifteen by Philip Harris first appeared … Read More
Out Now – Pod Fifteen
It’s been an action packed couple of months here at chez Harris and the thrills keep coming with the release of Tales from the Canyons of the Damned in Space 3 featuring my story, Pod Fifteen. As you can probably guess from the cover, Pod Fifteen is a creepy science fiction tale. It features ship’s pilot Ellis, an AI and a cargo hold full of corpses. I don’t want to spoil anything about the story, but suffice to say, things don’t quite go according to plan. This Fourteenth issue of Tales from the Canyons of the Damned consists of Four sharp, suspenseful, thought provoking short stories—each from a different featured master of speculative fiction. Philip Harris invites us on a journey with Pod Fifteen. Ernie Howard takes us to court with Cosmic Jury Duty. In his tale Historic, Paul K. Swardstrom shows us that the past is always near. And Daniel Arthur Smith shares the third episode of The Off World Kick Murder Squad Dark Sci Fi Slipstream Tales like you’ve never read before. I’m a big fan of Paul, Ernie and Daniel’s writing so it’s a real pleasure to have a story appear alongside them in the latest in this fantastic series of publications. … Read More
Is it Really February Already?
My January 2017 update is only eleven days late compared to the thirteen days it took me to get to the January 2016 one so I’m going to call that a win. January was a busy month for me. First up, I got to trade in cold and wet Vancouver for warm and wet San Francisco for a few days (thanks day job). While I was there I got to experience delayed flights (booo), a California storm (wet and windy), San Francisco traffic (ugh), good food (two thumbs up) and Uber (got off to a shaky start but then two thumbs up). The trip ate into my writing time significantly (although I kept my writing streak up and reached 1312 days of writing) which isn’t helping me hit the aggressive schedule I have laid out for the beginning of this year, but I did get both Zombie Book 1 (working title) and Zombie Book Prequel (working title) finished and off to my editor. That was pretty much all the writing I did, apart from a final editing pass on Pod Fifteen, a science fiction short story which will be published in Tales from the Canyons of the Damned later this year. Total word count for the month was a … Read More
Sold! – Pod Fifteen and Immersion Therapy
2017 has got off to a great start (on the writing front at least) with two short story sales over the last couple of weeks. First up, my dark science fiction story, Pod Fifteen will appear in Daniel Arthur Smith’s fantastic Tales from the Canyons of the Damned. Canyons as it’s known by its fans is a monthly magazine that features a selection of new dark science fiction, horror, & slipstream stories every month. It’s a great magazine, and I’m very please Daniel liked my story enough to accept it. More details on this nearer the release date. Next up, my spooky story, Immersion Therapy, has been accepted by the excellent Dead Oaks Podcast for their season 2 finale. This is the first time one of my stories will be available in audio form and I’m really looking forward to hearing it. My story will be airing in June but you can check out Season 1 and the first few episodes of Season 2 right here. Sign up for my newsletter and get four free ebooks. CLICK HERE to get started. [Sold! – Pod Fifteen and Immersion Therapy by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 1st February 2017]
Looking Forward, 2017
After posting my belated end of year wrap up, I figured I’d better also look forward to what’s ahead in 2017… I talked about setting goals on New Year’s Day and mentioned my big personal goal – running a marathon in under four hours. That goal has actually been in the back of my mind for a few years but 2017 is the year I’m really going to focus on my speed and fitness (and weight) and try to hit that. My wife and I recently worked out which races we’re going to take part in this year and it’s a fairly long list, but a lot of them will be used as training runs for my main goal of that sub-four hour marathon. Time will tell whether it will pan out but I’m looking forward to trying. I’ll probably make the odd post here about my progress for those who are interested in how a moderately unfit, middle aged guy prepares for a marathon. I also mentioned my eight book publishing schedule. That’s pretty aggressive, even though I have a couple of the books complete and two more in draft form. I’ve laid out the schedule for the first half of the year and this is what it … Read More
Farewell, 2016
Continuing my tradition of posting end of year wrap ups late… 2016 was a mixed year for me, personally. We lost a lot of great people including some of my idols (I’m listening to David Bowie’s new EP right now) and people close to me. The internet seems to be getting more and more toxic by the day, and the less said about Brexit and the US election the better. But there was plenty of ups to offset the downs. I moved into a new apartment that doesn’t turn into an oven in the summer, and a new role on a very exciting project in my day job. It means I’ll be busier than I’ve been recently, but the work will be much more fulfilling. My writing went very well, too. I hit 282,441 words over the whole year which is a new record (I wrote 275,872 words in 2014 and 255,470 in 2015). There was plenty of editing in there as well so I’m happy with that. I’ve got ambitious plans for this year, so I’m hoping to break 300,000 words. We’ll see. I worked on several new projects during that time including the second and third Leah King books, The … Read More