Report on Accelerated Coastal Erosion

By Sean Monaghan

Casey works hard on developing the resources to protect rapidly-eroding coastlines.

As the dunes degrade, she knows the urgency of figuring out solutions.

But not everyone agrees with her approach.

When strangers show up at her grandfather's house, they bring more than just questions.

Casey finds herself confronting her very values.

A climate story with a heart from the author of Goldie.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Triple V Publishing
• Release date: Jan 13, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224829743

Sean Monaghan

Award-winning author, Sean Monaghan has published more than one hundred stories in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and in New Zealand, where he makes his home. A regular contributor to Asimov’s, his story “Crimson Birds of Small Miracles”, set in the art world of Shilinka Switalla, won both the Sir Julius Vogel Award, and the Asimov’s Readers Poll Award, for best short story. He is a past winner of the Jim Baen Memorial Award, and the Amazing Stories Award. Sean writes from a nook in a corner of his 110 year old home, usually listening to eighties music. Award-winning author, Sean Monaghan has published more than one hundred stories in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and in New Zealand, where he makes his home. A regular contributor to Asimov’s, his story “Crimson Birds of Small Miracles”, set in the art world of Shilinka Switalla, won both the Sir Julius Vogel Award, and the Asimov’s Readers Poll Award, for best short story. He is a past winner of the Jim Baen Memorial Award, and the Amazing Stories Award. Sean writes from a nook in a corner of his 110 year old home, usually listening to eighties music.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Stepping back, Casey slipped on the tiled floor. The coffee cup slid from her grip. Impacted the tiles with a terrible sound of cracking ceramic and sloshing, bursting hot liquid.

She caught her balance before she, similarly, impacted the tiles.

A terrible sound of breaking bones and slapping, splashing grey matter.

Casey gripped the stone bench, steadying herself. On the floor, one of the chips from the cup was spinning. The brown fluid found its way across the tiles, into the grout-filled lines between. Running away and under the humming refrigerator.

She took a breath.

The kitchen was compact and efficient. The bench was little more than meter wide, with an adequate stainless steel sink at one end, against the exterior wall. Swirls of black ran through white reconstituted stone. Faux-marble.

Before his passing, her grandfather had had the house remodeled. Fresh carpeting, licks of paint all over—the walls practically glowed—triple glazing against the winter and the relentless sound of the sea, an attic room.

Something done to the extra room at the back which had his extensive model train set. Little engines clacking along the lines, the smell of tiny electric motors running fast, plaster hills and plastic bridges. Figurines standing on platforms.

They're not toys, he'd told her. This is a serious hobby.

She hadn't even looked in there since coming.

The house stood on a half acre of rough, sandy soil. Twisted macrocarpas stood in haphazard spots, their foliage dense.

The next house over was abandoned.

Some days here, Casey could pretend she was the last person in the world.

The kitchen bench had drawers and cupboards below and as she crouched to retrieve a cloth from one, a little scuttlebot appeared. The thing was the size of a closed fist, with eight jointed legs. A green LED blinked on its back.

Hello there, Casey said. She hadn't known that the house had any bot assistants.

The scuttlebot made no reply. A siphon appeared at one end and twisted like an elephant's trunk. The tip reached to the spillage and began sucking the liquid from the tiles.

Well,