I’ve posted my first guest post of the week over at Futurismic.

Click here to read ‘Stick Fighting’.

Futurismic is a news and discussion site dedicated to the near future. This week the editor, Paul Raven, is taking a well-earned holiday, and as announced in this post, he’s left Aliette de Bodard, Lavie Tidhar and myself in charge. Over the next few days, we’ll be contributing posts to the site. I’ll probably put up my first one tomorrow night.

There’s a reference today on the Futurismic web site to my short story Flotsam, in an article about shipping containers being turned into makeshift housing. It’s a fascinating article, which you can read by following this link.

Flotsam appeared in issue 3 of online magazine Concept Sci-Fi.  In it, I imagined container ships hastily refitted as floating refugee camps. I wasn’t the first to come up with the idea of using containers to provide living space, but it’s gratifying to be mentioned in the same breath as Ken MacLeod, Neal Stephenson, and William Gibson.

Click here to download Concept Sci-Fi #3 as a free pdf.

There seems to be some doubt:

http://jklgrfhkljkhthys.blogspot.com/2009/01/gareth-l-powell.html

Starting tomorrow, I’ll be contributing a week-long series of guest posts to the Futurismic blog, using my experience of commercial copywriting to lay out a few simple techniques that SF writers, magazines and publishers can use to communicate more effectively with their audience and increase their readership.

Paul’s introduction to the series is up today: http://futurismic.com/2009/01/10/introducing-guestblogger-gareth-l-powell/

My five posts will follow next week, one per day, starting tomorrow. If you’ve been wondering how to increase the response you get from your letters, adverts or emails, they could be just the ticket.