Steel in the Morning

A collection of DJ Cockburn's short stories, each telling the tale of someone trying to adapt to the world as it is, was or may soon be.

CASSANDRA'S CARGO: A colonial administrator in West Africa finds himself remembering a life very different to his own. Could his new teeth have anything to do with it?

THE ENDOCRINE TYRANNY: A brilliant scientist has decided emotions are a disease in need of a cure.
COLDWATER COTTAGE: Twenty metres under the English Channel, a man confronts a broken promise and a dwindling air supply.

PERCHANCE TO DREAM: A man dies content knowing he's lived the life of a true Englishman. When he finds his trials are far from over, he has to question whether it was all a waste of effort.

SEEKING KAILASH: A Nepali porter carries a Victorian explorer up a mountain in search of a fabled healer.

SUMMER HOLIDAYS: Barry is adamantly not a kid any more. A girl straying into the abandoned holiday camp where he hides forces him to find out what he is instead.

STEEL IN THE MORNING: There can only be one reason for a fencing master to take his sword into the frosty dawn of Regency London.

NEWGATE JIG: It's none of Le Méridian's business if an innocent girl is due to dance the Newgate jig at the gallows. That won't stop him using his wits and courage to keep her feet on the ground and if they don't do the trick, he has his sword and pistol.

VIRULENCE: A scientist is investigating a disease outbreak in the Philippines, but he's about to find out that neither the disease nor its after effects are as simple as he expects.

THE REDEEMED: The preacher says something unspeakable is stalking the winter. As the village follows him on the hunt, is anyone questioning where he may be leading them?

RAINFIRE BY NIGHT: When the sky is perpetually grey and humanity has disintegrated into warring bands huddled in mediaeval castles, does a woman have any role to play beyond being a trophy?