“On earth, Joyce had often found herself thinking she had ‘nothing to do’. Now, aboard the ship, she knew that had been a lie.”

As it turns out, humans don’t deal with boredom very well.
Whoever decided to launch the few remaining healthy men and women into space didn’t seem to know that – but it’s something Joyce realized within the first couple of days. Months and months into her seemingly eternal journey, and she’s going to great lengths to stave off the stagnation – mainly by talking complete and utter nonsense.

But something is coming, and it might just be as ridiculous as herself.

My name is Mickey Sanders, I write Sci-Fi and Fantasy stories that are quite silly.

That’s the blurb from one of my shorts; Tin Can. It’s a story about self-isolation during a pandemic, but rather than being made to skip work and sit inside for 10 days, potentially infected humans are launched into orbit. As far as Joyce is aware, everyone on earth could be dead, she could be the last living human! Floating around in a light-weight, cheaply built pod without even so much as a window.

I wrote Tin Can during the first couple of weeks of lockdown, I’d spend my lunch break working on a new chapter and reading the one from yesterday. With themes like isolation, boredom and contamination, it felt very topical.

It also felt a little meta, because I was avoiding feeling bored and isolated by writing a book about a person trying to avoid feeling bored and isolated. It felt a little like making a roast dinner, not to eat, but to take my mind of my gnawing hunger.

At the time, my idea for the short was to convey one message,: Put very simply; ‘It could always be worse!’ I always try to add an air of optimism to my stories, even if everyone is dead by the epilogue.

I think that any audience that experienced the lockdown will be able to emphasize with Joyce.

Also, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I didn’t talk about the cover art, courtesy of S. Griffin @SG Fuel.. The pod is a simple computer generated ideogram, but the lighting affect is fantastically practical – made by shooting different colored lights through bits of cardboard. I think it looks fantastic! I’ve linked more of his stuff here!

I do regular promotions – if you time it right, you can get most of my books for free! So, If you want to keep in touch – either follow me on my twitter or go follow me on my Amazon.

I have another book on Amazon at the moment – it’s called the Vongagarium: The story of a down-on-his-luck coder and a magical purple worm from the depths of space.

Give it a google!

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