Some Other Traveller

 

Some Other Traveller

by Lyn McConchie

 

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GENRE: Post-apocalyptic

 

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BLURB:

 

When the world’s civilizations collapse from a lethal pandemic, being old can mean you have the experience and wisdom to survive and to see that friends and family do as well. Donal and Sheila McArn are seventy when most of the world is dying, and they must hold the line for everything they know. They may not have long, but so long as they live, they’re going to do their best – and anyone against them had better step back. NOW!   

 

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EXCERPT

 

Kaylie died an hour later. Ricky had all his things packed by then, Donal had dug a small grave, and we placed her in that, the teddy bear – a bright pink one that Ricky said she still loved – tucked in beside her. After that, he clung to my hand. 

 

I drove home, and when I would have left the lad with Janet, he clung to me like a limpet, his eyes wide in fear of losing someone else. I put him to bed in the spare room, slept in the bed opposite, and took him with me the next morning. Janet took the accumulated cash, along with a list and several friends, utes, and her car with a trailer. We removed the Black and McMallan animals, several small portable sheds, and salvaged useful items from houses and outbuildings. During which time Ricky was never out of eyeshot, and when my hands weren’t employed, he clung to one of them.

 

We drove home to eat dinner, I put him to bed, and when he asked, I answered, “Yes, this is your room now. You’ll go to school here once it opens again. The place is called Glen Mhairi. It’ll be your home.” And then the tentative question that almost broke my heart. “Aye, you can call us Grandma and Grandpa if you want. We’d like that.” He fell asleep still trustfully holding my hand, and as I looked at that peaceful face, I knew the truth.

 

After all those years and with never a child of our own, we finally had a grandson.

A Word With The Author

1.  Did you always want to be an author? No, for years I hugely admired people who wrote the books I loved. I regarded them as ‘superior.’ They must be so much more than me, so clever, so intelligent, so creative. I hadn’t quite completed high school. Life is what happens while you’re making other plans however. In 1980, I joined SF Fandom. A couple of years later the editor of our National Magazine, WARP, asked me to do an item or two. Well, it would be my opinion, and I could give that. I did. Great, do me an article for the magazine. I did. Then it was suggested I could do them a story. Urk! But my imagination leapt into gear, and a couple of days later - I’d written one (Beyond the River). Then the editor noted that most larger conventions had a short story contest, why didn’t I put something in for the next one. I did - I won. That went on for several years, until he also pointed out that if I was doing that well, why not try to sell something? Um, that was different. That would make me an ‘author.’ But then I could only get rejected, what the heck. I sent out three stories to three different magazines. I sold two. They paid. I looked at the cheques and it slowly dawned on me. I was an author. And after that, you couldn’t have stopped me writing with barricades and a police cordon.

 

2.Tell us about the publication of your first book. Another case of me stumbling into something and looking confused. For years I’ve had friends who live in major overseas cities. I live in the country on a few acres, and I had a house cow I hand milked, a small flock of coloured sheep, piglets, plus hens, geese, and a duck (Daisy). I used to write them long letters about the goings-on with my animals and friends. I also belonged to a small writer’s group at the time - long since dissolved and never reactivated. We were required to produce something to read to the group, and I read one of my letters about escaping piglets. The group collapsed laughing, and afterwards, someone said, why didn’t I offer that to a smallholder’s magazine they knew. It was a quarterly, so I simply printed out four of the letters and offered those. They bought them as a year’s worth of articles. I was delighted at the same but thought no more about it until the editor at the magazine phoned to say he was also at editor at a publisher. They were looking for suitable short books to bring out for Mother’s Day. How much material of this kind did I have? (about 90,000 words) How long would he want the book to be? About 35-40,000 words. Oh, no problem. I had it to him in three weeks, they accepted it, and my first book appeared in February 1993. 

3.Besides yourself, who is your favorite author in the genre you write in? There’s no easy answer to that. I’m a New Zealander, it’s common for writers here to write in several genres. I’ve had work published in real-life humor, SF/F/ghost/post-apocalyptic, mystery, children’s picture books, and serious nonfiction. For SF/F, Andre Norton by a country mile, she was also a long-time friend. For mystery, Conan-Doyle, (I’ve had 8 Holmes pastiche books published, and five more contracted.) For true-life humor, Doreen Tovey.  

4.What's the best part of being an author? The best - Seeing your work appear. Getting author copies and beaming at your own, your very own work in print. Being told by someone how much they enjoyed reading something of yours. The worst - nothing really. I tend to the laidback.

5.What are you working on now? Last Friday (March 18), I finished my sixth post-apocalypse book. Set in Cornwall from 2039 when a new virulent plague with a long incubation period hits the world, killing anywhere - depending on the country - from 90%-99% of the population. In this series of standalones, I’ve concentrated on two points. That in a major disaster; it is NOT the good, honest, deserving citizens who survive, nor is it the ideal family of a married couple with 2.5 children and a dog, it’s those who were ruthless, smart, in the right place at the right time, who moved fast, kept their heads, and used common sense. In most of the six books, the main characters are not standard. 

The books have been to date, Vestiges of Flames set in NZ, two young women who end up as lovers. (Published Lethe USA 2015)  Coals & Ash, set in Australia, a romance writer living alone in an isolated area takes days to discover half the world is dead around her. (Published Altair Books - Australia 2018.)  Another Fire set in America, a 17-year-old part-Navajo boy loses his grandparents and mother and sets out to cross half the USA to reach his father’s ranch in New Mexico. (Published Night to Dawn 2021.) Some Other Traveller set in the Scottish Highlands, where two married 70-year-olds (an ex-black ops soldier and a paramedic) find they are standing between the apocalypse and the deaths of everyone in their remote glen. (Published Night to Dawn 2022.)  

Completed also are - One is One - and All Alone, a middle-aged woman living a couple of miles out of a small town, finds the plague is right here, right now, and almost every person in her vicinity is dead - and those who aren’t are not necessarily kind or safe. And, Forever Cornwall, set in Cornwall (England) A married couple and his grandmother live at a small private school when the plague strikes. They combine with the local GP, a woman, a motorcycle-riding gun enthusiast, and the headmaster of the school, an old family friend, and out of the event the rejuvenated ancient kingdom of Cornwall will arise.  

 

 

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

 

Lyn McConchie started writing in 1990 and within a year had short stories and poems published. In 1993, her first book – a humorous true-life work (Farming Daze) about her farm, friends, and animals appeared – this was followed by six others in that series. As a joke between them, a long-time friend of Lyn’s, Andre Norton, was given a book Lyn had written set in one of Andre’s worlds. Andre was impressed with the work and took it to her agents who sold it to Warner books. This led in turn to Lyn writing another six books in Andre’s worlds, which were published either by Warner or TOR. Lyn has won seven short story Muse Medallions from the (International) Cat Writer’s Association, and six Sir Julius Vogel Awards for her books. Since the original book, Lyn has seen almost fifty more books appear plus over three hundred short stories, and says she has no intention of stopping so long as she is able to write.

 

Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/lyn.mcconchie.397

http://lynmcconchie.com/new/

 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1134674

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/some-other-traveller-lyn-mcconchie/1141107461

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/some-other-traveller

 

 

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