My father worked in the forestry service for forty-one years. He took early retirement last October. These days he’s discovering the joys of binge-watching all the TV shows he missed out on during his working life. He mostly stays indoors now, and I suppose I know why. After university, I bounced from job to job for eight years before deciding to throw away my collection of bland shirts and ties and follow in the old man’s footsteps. That was eleven months ago. My 30th birthday is next we...| Matt Gemmell
The incoming minister was young by Cabinet standards, but not outrageously so, at a tender forty-one years old. He was impeccably British — thus he steadfastly hid the nervousness which accompanied his third day in his new role — and his name was David Hutchison. The morning briefings had been unremarkable, but that was perhaps because his mind had been focused entirely on his next meeting. The green door swung open to reveal a wood-panelled office, with a vast but empty desk towards one...| Matt Gemmell
The stories of the old gods are true. They came from a convulsion of the universe, a chance and temporary order by which future chaos could best be ensured. Birthed in moments that might have been millennia, they found themselves in the void; its sole inhabitants, seething with entropy and separation and light. Alone, and angry to exist, in their supreme isolation and ultimate other-ness they instinctively lashed out, and in doing so created all the features and worlds of the heavens. Every s...| Matt Gemmell
Today, his name was Wouters, but only until the border. Once he got past the checkpoint, he would be travelling under a different identity, making the change of documents in a parking spot, or a filling station, or whenever the first opportunity presented itself. He had the new papers ready, of course, taped to the underside of one of the rear floormats, and he hadn’t memorised the new name yet. For now, he was still Wouters. The most pressing matter was his vehicle. Borders in this part of...| Matt Gemmell
Jarlsson sat cross-legged on the floor of the abandoned building, his surroundings lit by an LED lantern at his side. Items were scattered in a rough semicircle around him, including several paper-thin acrylic tablet computers, a pocket-sized atomic-decay clock, and more than a dozen books, some of them cracked and yellowed with age. It was the final object, though, which dominated the scene. Three metres away, lurking in the shadows, the sleek rifle was locked atop a gyroscopically balanced ...| Matt Gemmell
I made a simple, lightweight syntax for creating indexes in Markdown and other text documents.| Matt Gemmell
While working on my pandoc-based Markdown publishing system, it seemed to me that when writing non-fiction content, there was no accessible way to mark-up content for the purpose of explanation, examination, and education. So I made one! It’s called FigureMark, and I invite you to take a look. Here’s an example: To be, or not to be, that is the question: 1 Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And b...| Matt Gemmell
Rawlins glanced disapprovingly at the dashboard as he made the familiar right turn to go through the metal gates to the factory. The engine warning light had been on for a couple of days now, but he hadn’t had time to go and get the car looked at yet. It seemed to be running as well as it ever did — which was just alright, at best — but that could change at any moment. The building was shabby, as it had been since twenty-six years ago when Rawlins first drove in. Since then, he had come...| Matt Gemmell
This is another example of the use of pandoc publish, my own wrapper and configuration for pandoc, to allow me to publish my fiction written in Markdown as both ebooks and paperback novels. This time, I’m going to show how I can publish any of the instalments of my KESTREL techno-thrillers series. Here’s my ideal setup: Publish any instalment with a single command. Shared front- and back-matter between all instalments, for convenience and standardisation. Per-instalment customisation as n...| Matt Gemmell
Javen pushed the surprisingly heavy door open, and peered into the chamber beyond. Once his eyes adjusted, he saw that he’d come to the right place. The walls were lined with racks and other shelving, all of it occupied with merchandise. There were security cameras everywhere, and a large counter at the far end, behind which stood a man with a perfectly neutral expression on his face. His hands were at his sides, obscured by the counter unit. Probably got one of his own products back there,...| Matt Gemmell
I’ve recently created — and then extensively enhanced — a wrapper and configuration for pandoc, to allow me to publish my fiction written in Markdown as both ebooks and paperback novels. I previously used Ulysses for all of this, but lately I’ve been drawn towards platform-portability, and there were a number of limitations in what I could conveniently do while all my writing was siloed within a proprietary database. Publishing my novels is relatively straightforward, but things are m...| Matt Gemmell
A pandoc wrapper and configuration for exporting Markdown novels as ePub and PDF.| Matt Gemmell
The teacher stood in front of the classroom of young children, wearing a reassuring smile as she looked from one eager little upturned face to the next. Some of the children were quieter than usual, occasionally sneaking glances at the unfamiliar man who sat in a chair off to one side of the room, a compact metal briefcase laid in his lap. He was smiling too, and clearly at ease in the environment, but he remained silent and waited patiently, knowing full well that younger children could be s...| Matt Gemmell
Why is it always nuns? Kearney thought, but she already knew the answer. It was because most people were far more shocked to see a religious woman crawling up a wall and along the ceiling, clinging there like an outsized spider, than to see a man do the same. Just typical preconceptions about gender. The nun on the ceiling was Sister Agatha, or used to be. Kearney shook her head before taking out her crossbow, and she didn’t hesitate for a moment before sending a consecrated steel bolt stra...| Matt Gemmell
It was always a tedious ride up. The hardened glass walls were thick, but almost perfectly transparent, so the view was certainly spectacular. It was the transit time that was the annoyance. Ten whole minutes, Kreutzwald thought. A brief lifetime. The machine was a stunning feat of science, without doubt, but like all feats of science it was ultimately bound to obey the laws of physics, such as they were currently understood. Physics was a harsh parent, much more given to prohibition than to ...| Matt Gemmell
KESTREL face a new and terrifying enemy: an all-seeing mastermind who already knows exactly who they are, and many of their deepest secrets. Nothing stays hidden forever, and the line between privacy and liberty is razor-thin…| Matt Gemmell
