I have always been a science fiction writer. I remember filling an exercise book with deck-plans for a starship when I was twelve years old. I wish I could find that book, but it has long since vanished. During my teens I played RPGs, and wrote up the sessions as fiction. After joining the British Science Fiction Association in the late 1980s, I turned my hand to writing your actual original science fiction. Not entirely successfully, it has to be admitted. And this despite the fact there seemed to be new sf small press magazines appearing every five minutes in the UK. Some of the titles I remember, and still have copies of, are: BBR, Dream Magazine, New Moon Quarterly, Works, REM, Exuberance, Critical Wave, Territories, The Lyre, Nova SF, Auguries, Strange Attractor, Opus Quarterly, Sweet Dreams Baby!, New Visions, The Edge, The Scanner, Sierra Heaven…

I submitted fiction to several of the above, but my first ever published short story was a space opera parody which appeared in The Scanner #8 in 1990. It wasn’t very good. Shortly after graduating from university, I left the UK. And spent ten years working in the United Arab Emirates. While there, I started submitting fiction to the pro magazines, with even less success. Occasionally, I tried stories at small press mags… Which is how Sierra Heaven ended up with my second piece of published fiction in their Summer 1997 issue.

Here, for your delight and delectation, your edification and edumacation, is that story. It’s a space opera metafictional story, titled ‘Pulp!’, that probably owes far too much to certain film by Quentin Tarantino. Apologies for the poor quality of the scan.

Click here: Pulp!