CM Simpson: Writer & Gamer

This week’s short story takes us from a near-future Earth setting where loss can lead to hope to a colony facing the perils of plague. Welcome to They Years of Voyage . Someone had to go to the old ship—not because the colony was sick, but because the colony was dying, and the reason why was locked inside the transport’s hulk. Someone had to go out to where the ship had crashed, out into the dark, and past the plaguers. I just wished that someone didn’t have to be me. The Years of Voyage (Excerpt) “…because those were the Years of Voyage. Our ancestors slept through most of them, and we never had to fly, but now we have to know what happened through those years, because that’s where the answer to this problem lies,” and Great-Grampa Briarly sat down again. Usually Grampa Briarly’s speeches had us clapping and stamping our feet. Usually, they left us raring to get out and do whatever it was we had to do, and had been avoiding the truth of, but not this time. Thi...

This week’s verse moves from a reflective verse about moving on when you've suffered a setback in life to a science fiction verse about the dangers of an unauthorised planetary excursion. It is taken from Another 365 Days of Poetry , a collection of mixed-genre poetry released in 2019. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Caution on the Gathak'nor I spasmed in the Gathak’nor and tumbled down the hill. In the wake of dandelions, the bluebells seemed to spill clouds of pus and whitened bone, as I found the river bank and tumbled o’er the brink into a torrid torrent rank and, in case you’re wond’ring, why I was walking Gathak’nor, when the planet is forbidden and will remain so evermore, t’is because I found a signal, something faint that called, and I rode the beacon down and landed on a world that used to be a colony before its nature true ...

Last week, Tiger was worried sick about Simone. This week, she lets him know what happened. Chapter 9 – The Journey Back Hey, Tiges, We’re on our way back. I’m hoping this is going to make some sense, because I’m pretty tired. It was a long fight—and we’d have been in a lot more trouble if the GalPol forces and Odyssey’s back-up hadn’t arrived. You should have seen my spec-ops siblings. Oh, Tiger. I never want to see them like that again. I wish I knew this fever was contained, because it horrifies me that it just might not be. They were okay with Delight’s team, but only because Gunny and I kept them in line. It was like I was the interface. They looked at me, and something almost human came back into their faces. When they looked away, it was like looking at a set of particularly intelligent animals—intelligent predatory, ruthless, hunting animals. It was horrible. There was almost nothing left of them. I just want to find whichever scientist...