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Author: Jonathan Furneaux

Jonathan E. Furneaux (pronounced: “fur-no”), is an author and educator who currently resides in Brisbane, Australia. In the second grade, his teacher let him write novels in the back of his mathematics exercise book instead of learning his times tables. As a result, he developed a joy of writing and literature, as well as an awkward pause before having to do any kind of counting.

Sound the Siren

I stopped for petrol at a Shell service station that was nestled beneath the highway overpass. It was midnight, and the station was only illuminated by the distant orange lights of overhead street lamps, and the occasional white-hot flash of a car rudely rounding the bend with its high-beams on. I’d been listening to Cream on the radio as they crooned about someone named Ulysses. The album had gone platinum…

Lyrical Storytelling: Recycling the Chorus

Telling a narrative through song is by no means a recent invention. In fact, one could argue the original purpose of both songs and poetry, in a pre-paper world, was to convey stories and information in a way that would be more readily remembered by the listener. Recently, however, I’ve noticed a lyrical gem tucked away in several songs I enjoy (where storytelling is the focus). I’m not educated enough…

What I learnt from the “worst” episode of Star Trek

Credit to Star Trek: The Next Generation | Season 4 Episode 25: In Theory (Written by Joe Menosky & Ronald D. Moore). In Theory is an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which has been relatively panned by critics. To be fair, it’s an episode of Star Trek with zero exploration. Not only that, but it’s a romantic episode, without any romance. Despite these flaws, however, I continue to…

A Review of “The Machine Stops” by E. M. Forster

I have only read one story by E. M. Forster, the author who also wrote the novel Passage to India. However, The Machine Stops has quickly cemented itself as one of my favourite stories. In fact, it was one of the pieces of fiction that inspired me to begin this blog. Forster’s writing is emotive, and in many ways disarmingly prophetic. He penned the story in 1928, and in it…

A Review of “Starfighters of Adumar” by Aaron Allston

A Prelude to Star Wars Fiction Throughout my lifetime I’ve perhaps read forty or fifty books based in George Lucas’s Star Wars universe. This literary canon spanned a few hundred years of fictional history (until it was jettisoned by Disney executives), with several long-running series planned out by some seminal authors. Of these, it was the X-Wing series that I most adored. Let me pitch them to you: these books…

Emberfall

Emberfall was shortlisted for the Audrey Daybrook Short Story Prize (Round 3, 2019).  I kick the side of my griffin-mount, and he responds with a gentle, spiralled descent to the autumnal forest below. My fingers, clutching desperately to his neck-feathers, feel icy in the roaring wind. We corkscrew at the last second before crashing into the loam forest floor, and I hit the ground running. Ahead of me, the goblin…

The Sky Castle

Nobunaga was furious when he saw the sky castle, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. He stood in the lobby, mouth agape, eyebrows knitting together as he glanced quickly around the transport lounge. “What is this? What have you done?” He asked, examining the dark-stained wooden interior of the lounge. Two suits of samurai armour were placed either side of the exit, and his gaze lingered on…

Lessons from the Wreckage | Book 1: The Lessons Saga

Prince Du Mon of Mars is a reluctant officer aboard the starship, Socrates. However, he quickly finds himself thrust into danger when pirates kill his best friend, and a devastating creature arrives at the edge of inhabited space. The prince quickly learns two things: First, someone onboard wants him captured or dead. Second, he must outwit a terrifying alien foe that he cannot comprehend. Lessons from the Wreckage mixes the…

Shutter

You have trapped me. Yes, you. You did this. Without knowing. You’ve done it a hundred times, to a hundred of me. You’ve been off living your life, while I have been awake: unable to move, or breathe, or sleep. So, how have you been? Do you remember how it happened? What you did? You were there with that girl you know. I can’t remember her name, but I do…