Mort's Laws
or
Ten Commandments for a New Dawn

May 2022
Wyldblood Press, Wyld Flash
https://wyldblood.com/morts-laws/

It wasn't quite the end of the world and the survivors needed a code to live by, so Mort searched the recesses of imperfect memory...

Previously published in Nature's Furures 2016.

M'Lady, the Wizard and Me

September 2021

A servant must save her mistress from accusations of the beheading kind.

Methuselah

July 2021

in Derelict edited by David B Coe and Joshua Pamatier Published by Zombies Need Brains Press.

A deserted spaceship is not as deserted as it appears to be.

A Murder of Crows

July 2020
in Wyldblood Magazine.

Anka is streetbait, genetically engineered to protect the streets of the port and the city against the murderous Crows, or that's what she thinks, but when Anka's young apprentice is killed she's confronted by the Crows. A few home truths it force her to re examine her life so far and her potential future.

Traveling Hopefully

July 2020

In: My Battery is Low and it is Getting Dark, edited by Crystal Sarakas and Joshua Palmatier. Published by Zombies Need Brains Press.

An avatar on its last mission...

La Solitud del Panda de Fons

May 2020

Translated into Catalan and replrinted in Catarsi magazine.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Panda

May 2019

Reprinted in Wild Voices: An Anthology on Wildlife Issues

A Land Fit for Heroes

May 2019

My story A Land Fit For Heroes is on the Portals anthology from Zombies Need Brains Press. Set in the aftermath of the First World War, two ex soldiers find something toitally unexpected when they step through a garden gate in search of a missing sister.

Make Me Immortal With a Kiss

June 2018

My story Make Me Immortal With a Kiss is in the anthology: Second Round, Return to the Ur-Bar published by Zombies Need Brains Press. It's a story set on the eve of the Battle of the Somme, of doomed love given resolution, courtesy of Gilgamesh via a time travelling bar.

The Stolen Shoes

December 2017

My Elves and the Shoemaker story (not what you're thinking of, but a different take on the old tale) is in Enchanted Conversations - The Fairy Tale Magazine.

The Horse Head Violin

November 2017

My story about Belgian refugees in the First World War is in Children of a Different Sky, Edited by Alma Alexander. All proceeds to refugee charities. Available from the big company named after a South American river.

Weird is the New Normal

September 2016

My story is in the Alien Artifacts anthology published by Zombies Need Brains press.

Weird happenings at Glastonbury Festival. Oh, yeah, who's going to believe that?

Prawa Morta albo Dziesięć przykazań Nowego Zarania

April 2016

Ten Commandments for a New Dawn translated as Prawa Morta albo Dziesięć przykazań Nowego Zarania for Szortal Magazine in Poland.

Pitch

March 2016

Pitch is in the anthlogy Thou Shalt Not, Edited by Alex Davis and published by Tickety Boo Press.
It's a deal with the Devil story about a desperate salesman and a somewhat unusual iteration of the devil.

The Last Wild Place

November 2015

The Last Wild Place is in Bloodbond.

In the smog of a polluted city there's a park which has been the city's lungs for generations. It is more than it seems. A fight to protect the park from developers, could be a barttle to save the world.

Samotność pandy - długodystansowca

18th November 2015

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Panda is translated into Polish here at Szortal.

The Oracle is Never Wrong

27th August 2015

The Oracle is Never Wrong is now live on the Beam Me Up podcast. Here is a link to the story file or just log to www.beammeuppodcast.com and 451

The Jewel of Locaria

15th May 2015

The Jewel of Locaria is now online at Sorcerous Signals. It's a twins separated at birth story first published in 1998 in the DAW anthology Warrior Princesses. (My first ever published story!) And yes - one sister rescues the other - but I wrote this long before Frozen! Also in Mystic Signals - a print anthology of stories that have appeared in Sorcerous Signals

Time and Tideless

15th May 2015
My short story is now up at Theme of Absence - an online magazine of fantasy, Horror and Science Fiction. Time and Tideless: an encounter just before dawn on Toronto's lakeshore brings an old flame from Maura's past with a question.There's an interview about writing as well

A Taste of Oranges
18th April 2015
My short story is now up at Perihelion. A nexus between worlds and an alien ancounter.

Mirror Mirror.
1st April 2015
AlfieDog.com
Snow White meets The Six Wives of Henry VIII. This adult retelling of the Snow White story from the Wicked Queen’s viewpoint shows Queen Catherine’s deadly logic when faced with the problem of protecting her beloved country from annexation by matrimony.

Mort's Laws
Ten Commandments for a New Dawn

2nd April 2015
Nature's Futures

It wasn't quite the end of the world and the survivors needed a code to live by, so Mort searched the recesses of imperfect memory...

Panda pikk üksindus

27th March 2015
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Panda has been translated into Estonian for the webzine Algernon. Tõlkinud Teia Friedenthal
Polnud võimalik kaksipidi arvata, ta kolksus kõndides. Probleeme tekitas tagumine käpp.

Times Two

March 2015
Saturday Night Reader

Just for a change not a SFnal story, but one written for a local writing group.

The Urbane Fox

February 2015
Trysts of Fate

Sadly misspelled in the cover as Jaycee Bedford, but it's still me in there with a reprint of my fox shapechanger story. NOTE: Reprinted in the August 2015 issue with my name spelled correctly. Thanks ToF.

Scroll down to February: http://albanlake.com/february-2015/

Last Train

23rd February 2015
in Grievous Angel (webzine)

Today's story reflects one of those experiences – or nightmares – we've all experienced. Waiting on the platform of a deserted railway station late at night for the last train home. Will it ever come – or will something worse arrive in its place?
"Spare, haunting and evocative. Very powerful! Nicely done." - Ande

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Panda

20th February 2015
My story (first published in Nature's Futures) is up at Buzzymag.com. Go take a look.
http://buzzymag.com/the-loneliness-of-the-long-distance-panda-by-jacey-bedford/

Late Breakfast

in Every Day Fiction,

January 2015
A joke story which is almost true, with a few embellishments

Root and Branch

in Albedo One
Autumn 2014.
A farming family rooted in the traditions of the village knows that a family tree is much more than a genealogical record.

Review: "If it’s true you can’t go home again, it is also true that, sometimes, you just can’t &^%#@## leave, either. In “Root and Branch” by Jacey Bedford we get a nice little short-short about the latter. John Rawcliffe has seen the world, and wants the same for his son and grandson, but the old oak tree has other ideas."

A soidade do panda de longa distáncia

In Nova Fantasia
Yes that's The Loneliness of the Long Distance Panda translated into Galician. How cool is that?
Non había outro xeito de dici-lo: facía ruido ao andar. Era a pata traseira a que causaba o problema.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Panda

Reprinted in
Nature: Futures 2 (Anthology)
Published by Tor, August 2014
Available as a Kindle Edition

Buy from
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com

Kindling the Flame

In Her Dark Voice (Anthology)
April 2014, KnightWatch Press, UK

Buy the book from Amazon.co.uk
Buy the book from Amazon.com

A young woman discovers she has dangerous talents, and her husband... well... it's complicated... but he's not quite the man she thought he was.

The Strange Art of Reading and Writing

Metro Fiction, January 2013

Kindness to a passing gypsy reveals that her skill at reading and writing is not one she learned in school.

Djinn Bottle

Buzzy Mag, 2012
When Dolly reaches desperation point she finally remembers Great-Grandma Wilkes story about the djinn in the bottle. Three wishes are just what she needs, but of course it's never as simple as that. For starters she has to drink the gin to release the djinn and when the room is spinning what's a girl to believe?

Floodlust

In River (anthology), edited by Alma Alexander, Dark Quest Books. 2011
ISBN: 978-1-937051-23-5

The river is all things to the People, god, provider and home, but Zanna's deep fear of drowning leads her to walk a knife edge between what she wants and what she knows she can't have. “Floodlust, [which is] a failed love quadrangle. ... Somehow, writer Jacey Bedford makes this improbable situation work, and work well." http://www.abyssapexzine.com

La solitudine del Panda

November 2011
in Orsi della Luna blog

Normally I'd be delighted to report a sale in translation, however, I do like to be asked first. I found this translated into Italian. Apparently it was put up just a day or two after appearing in Nature Magazine in November 2011. At my request this has now been removed from the web.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Panda

17th November 2011
Nature: International Weekly Journal of Science
Available online here. To listen as a podcast or download as an mp3 (read by Henry Gee) here.
"It's a quirky piece and I had a lot of fun reading it... It isn't a long tale, and I can't think of a way to review it without giving away spoilers that you would not thank me for.  Suffice it to say that it's extraordinarily well written, fun in a dark way, and will be over much to soon.  Takes about five minutes to read - longer to think about." - W. S. Swears

The Oracle Never Lies

Online in the April/May 2009 issue of AlienSkin Magazine
(Sorry - no longer available)

Everyone knows the place, date and time of their own death, but the price for this knowledge is that they don't try to evade it. When a young man misses his own death by accident there's a big problem.

The Jet Set

In the anthology 'Fabulous Whitby' edited by Sue Thomason and Liz Williams
Fabulous Albion Press, 2008

A future fantasy featuring morris men and the culture police. Ask yourself what might happen if the UK's licensing laws were taken to extremes and singing and dancing without a licence was an offence likely to lead to people being 'disappeared.' Vic works undercover for the culture police, but when he's sent in to expose the last morris team in England his world is turned upside down.

The Urbane Fox

A fantasy about sewing, shape-changing and romance.
In the anthology Mystery Date,
edited by Denise Little, published by DAW, 2008
Currently available for Kindle

When John Reynard orders a special outfit from costume designer Izzy, she doesn't realise that she'll be putting blood and soul into the making of it or that her life will be on the line when he invites her to the midsummer party where he'll be wearing it."Standouts include... Jacey Bedford's modern yet enchanting “The Urbane Fox,” - Publishers Weekly

Mirror, Mirror

In Twice Upon a Time
A new angle on Snow White's wicked queen.
Edited by Denise Little. Published by DAW, USA, 2005

Think 'Six Wives of Henry VIII' meets Walt Disney

Aunt Agatha's Agency

from: "Scheherezade #23 " (2002)
The magazine of fantasy, science fiction & gothic romance
edited by Elizabeth Counihan Published in the UK

The wild tale of a bunch of warrior princesses let loose from the agency where they work and allowed a day off in Blackpool circa 1955. Candy floss, crates of beer on the bus, Blackpool Tower Circus and the Pleasure Beach, a gentleman of small stature and large heart... and an alien sex slave on the loose and in rut. Oooh-errr... Lock up your daughters, especially if they happen to be Warrior Princesses with ideas of their own.

Baron Boscov's Bastard

A Cinderella story
in Rotten Relations
Edited by Denise Little Published by DAW, USA, 1999

"A light-hearted retelling of the Cinderella story with a different Happily Ever After than the one I expected." - Nancy Fulda, www.anthologybuilder.com (Four Stars)

The Jewel of Locaria

In: Warrior Princesses
edited by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough Published by DAW, USA, 1998

"Fun sword and sorcery-type stuff. I especially enjoyed the fact that the princess wasn't magically able to wield a sword and ride into battle with no training, and yet managed to prove herself clever and gutsy anyway." - Mystery Girl at www.anthologybuilder.com (Four stars)