Give Me These Moments Back

Give Me These Moments Back

By Mike Chinn

Cover by Mike Chinn.

Writer Mike Chinn (The Paladin Mandates) takes us on a tour de force...

A ring of external spotlights flared to life, revealing the floor of the Mariana Trench a few metres below us. The backwash filled the observation room with a cold grey light... As one, they gasped at the sight. I didn’t blame them – even though I’d seen it dozens of times, it still caught the back of my throat.

Donnie could feel himself beginning to shake. He clenched his fists, fighting the tremors. For a moment, he back-flashed to October last year: River Phoenix, on a Hollywood sidewalk, dying. No resurrection from the flames that time: no one was reviving dead movie stars.

The storm bounced the Oji-Maru across the ocean like a toy boat. Sky and sea were black; the only light came from the ship’s navigation lamps. Ishimaeru could barely make out the bows and harpoon gun. From somewhere he heard the sound of shattering glass. It reared out of the dark, vast and... and wrong. Nothing but bones...

And more... eighteen stories that range from the depths of the Pacific, the cruel charms of Venice, the price of immortality, to the Appalachian Mountains...

• Welcome to the Hotel Marianas
• Facades
• A Matter of Degree
• All Under Hatches Stow’d
• Be Grateful When You’re Dead
• Kami Ga Kikoemasu
• All Beauty Must Die
• Parlour Games
• Cold Rain
• Once Upon an Easter
• The Appalachian Collection
• Just the Fare Back Home
• Harbour Lights
• Like a Bird
• Give Me These Moments Back
• Brindley’s Place
• Holding It In
• Saving Prince Romero
• Afterword