David Conyers

THE OCTAGON

Jupiter #26, 2009

BLACK WATER

Jupiter #24, 2009
Albedo One Fiction Highlights, August 2010
Aeon Award Shortlist - 2006-2007 
Ditmar Award 2010 - Best Novella Nomination

In a desolate and dry-near future Africa, Joseph Nuwangi’s specialist skills in fresh water management are in high demand. The purest water is worth gold, and is guarded by the few corporations who still do business in this dying continent. Hired by Abu Zinj Industries, Nuwangi is tempted into stealing their water, and risks his very life to do so. This story is set in the same Future Africa series as "Aftermath".

"Black Water" by David Conyers is an absolutely cracking story. It's one of the best I've read for some time... Even within the limitations of a short story, a believable world has been created with two strong characters, Joseph and an Australian woman called Donna, both trying to make their way as best they can. I particularly liked the use of archaic technology, even in the slums of Dar es Salaam. Well, if this is our future, we had better do something about it soon! - Rob MacDonald, SF Crowsnest

I found this story very poignant and a reminder of where we could end up if we are not so careful with our planet. Conyers, who has been short-listed for the Aeon, Aurealis, and Ditmar Awards, has excelled yet again. Well worth a read. - Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine 

The issue begins with "Black Water" by David Conyers. Set in a future Earth wracked by drought, Joseph Nuwangi is set on improving his lot in life. He has sacrificed much of his body to get where he is and now he is going to use just that sacrifice to make his fortune, on the island of Zanzibar with the purest water in the world. Conyers does a great job here with showing us a future world and the people in it. - Sam Tomaino, SFRevu

  

“Black Water”, for me, stood out almost immediately from the several hundred other entries I read for the Aeon Award [2006-2007] this time around. Not that the bulk of the entries I read were bad, in any sense, just that this story was better than the “good” stories. What more can I say to explain that? The confident style, pacing, and the motivations of the characters. Oh, and I shouldn’t forget the tension in the story, that sense of will he or won’t he get away with it. Excellent work. - Albedo One, Judges' Comments Aeon Award 2006-2007 

 

[Black Water] exhibited a great sense of place. Read it and you’ll see. It isn’t for me to try and out-do the story with my own words here. What I will say is that not many of us will ever get the chance to experience Africa, but this story will certainly take you a long way towards experiencing it as it is now, and unfortunately, where it may be headed in the future. This holds true not only for place, but character, and the interaction between Donna, the privileged white lady and the down and out Nuwangi is thoroughly convincing, and regrettably, probably not too far away from the truth of things. - Albedo One, Judges' Comments Aeon Award 2006-2007 

 

Conyers is pretty good at evoking his future, in particular by dropping in telling little details that hint at broader goings-on outside the frame of the narrative.  - The Fix

SIX-LEGGED SHADOWS
with Brian M. Sammons

Monstrous, Permuted Press, 2009

After an absence from Earth for fifty-thousands years, a starship of human colonists return home to find their world has changed dramatically. Humans are no more, wilderness has replaced civilisation, ice-shelfs cover the northern continents, and grass has grown to gigantic sizes. With the grass mutated to such an amazing extent, then the returning colonists soon fear what else might have grown with it, and that it might hunt them now.

Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Issue 37, 2008 

A team of engineers work hard to terraform the world of New Namib. When a race of alien machines infects their equipment and turn their equipment against them, the engineers must survive not only against the invaders, but also upon the cold desolate world not yet ready to support human life. The machines begin to hunt, but not to kill.

The story lacks nothing in terms of action. The ending is powerfully climatic and quite a surprise ... A good action/adventure tale. - The Fix 

SOFT VISCOSITY

2012, Twelfth Planet Press, 2008
Ditmar Award 2009 - Best Novella Nomination

Embittered and wearied CIA agent Gloria McKenzie finds herself on a new and hopeless mission, tracking terrorists in the heart of the Amazonian rainforest. Meanwhile there is a war going on and its all about oil, the local militia is corrupt and inefficient, and she doesn’t trust her boss. Before she knows it, someone will betray her, and perhaps that person will be herself.

Violent and political, which is exactly what I expect the world of the year 2012 to be like. This is probably my personal favourite of the entire book. - Grant Watson 
 

'Soft Viscosity' is about the increased competition for oil as well as terrorism. While there are quite a few viewpoints, each are developed enough to not bulge out of the short story format. One of the most frightening aspects of this story is the drugs that make people so happy, they don't care what's happening. It was very nicely put together. - A Boy Goes on a Journey

 

The brilliant characterisation in this tale of terrorism, environmental vandalism, governmental corruption and military collusion enables the reader to identify with even the most unlikable players (and there are plenty), again giving us an emotional investment in their fates. Conyers, who has made a name for himself mostly as a writer of Lovecraftian horror, here proves himself equally skilled in putting together an action-packed hard SF tale. - Chuck McKenzie, OzHorrorScope

 

For its combination of unflinching brutality and raw plausibility, this must stand as one of the collection's strongest, most unsettling stories. - Simon Petrie, specusphere

REDEMPTION SLOT MACHINE

Antipodean SF, Issue 117, 2008

Justin finally decided to end his life. His only hesitation was ten dollars in his pocket. It seemed a shame to waste it. So he decides to spend his remaining money at an AI interactive centre, specifically on an AI called the Redemption Slot Machine. Finally, Justin might just have found someone who will listen to his problems without judgement. Read the story here.

AFTERMATH

Agog! Ripping Reads, Agog! Press, 2006
Aurealis Award 2006 - Best Science Fiction Short Story Nomination
Ditmar Award 2007 - Best Novella Nomination
Apex Online, August 2007 

In the Mid-Twenty-First Centiury, Major Sandra Young thought she was fighting for a worthwhile cause in Africa. Then her UN outfit disintegrated. Garbled commands from headquarters were more often than not contradictory and often suicidal if obeyed, and then there was her own people turning on thier own rank and file. Africa it seemed had fallen into a gigantic international war where there were no sides and a million sides, and soon Sandra finds herself caught in the middle of a continent tearing itself apart. 

I find [David Conyers] compelling... This story is gripping, quietly suspenceful and amazingly powerful. It builds the scene without a lot of info dump. - Alisa Krasnostein, AS if! 

I found the story one of the more interesting in the collection, chiefly for its well imagined background  - Ben Payne, AS if!