I only came across @DeborahWalker7 recently. I forget how, but I know I was doing that thing that one does on Wattpad: noodling about, clicking on recommendations, following little trails through other, fairly ordinary books until quite suddenly light floods out from your laptop screen as you strike a rich seam of loveliness.

Sci-fi used to be something I lapped up. It was fun, it was often thought provoking and it was BIG. To me, sci-fi wasn't sci-fi unless there was a chrome-plated starship travelling through the cosmos on some great adventure. I wanted to see a space elevator built in my lifetime! What would it really be like to build cities inside hollowed out asteroids? I wanted to know the secrets that Rama concealed (bugger the sequels).

Then suddenly it wasn't fun anymore. Heinlein had developed a incredible talent for repeating himself (TANSTAFL indeed), and reading God Emperor of Dune felt like it took longer than Leto's 3000 year reign. Star Trek disappeared up its own rockets and George Lucas did a very bad thing. I stopped reading sci-fi and I stopped watching great sci-fi movies. Sci-fi bored me. A couple of bright sparks cheered me on my way (Colin Greenland and Peter F Hamilton) but otherwise, I parked up the starship and started to nose around other genres.

I can honestly say that I have not touched Sci-fi for at least ten years. Not until coming to Wattpad, and not really until reading @DeborahWalker7's great short stories: Future Tales.

Future Tales brings back the fun! These are brilliant points of starshine in a dour universe of grim, copycat techno-babble and licensed tie-ins. @DeborahWalker7 has an inventive mind and she deftly paints in alternate realities and universes with one quick dab of her brush. Sci-fi and fantasy short stories require rapid and believable world building whilst avoiding the trap of infodumping. It's hard to do and less careful writers may be tempted to waffle on about the history of the Universe to that point. @DeborahWalker7 does not do that. She allows her readers to a) have a brain, and b) have an imagination that can fill in the blanks.

The stories in Future Tales represent a real pot-pourri of ideas. There are giant alien spiders invading the Earth, a dimension travelling wedding crasher, haunted nebula and time-warped personalities to name but a few of her scenarios. Each feels like there is a novel waiting to bust out, so packed full of ideas are they. My favourite is Aunty Merkel which simply does that thing that the best Sci-fi does. It surprises you, it enthralls you and it delights you. It is also very well written. For a minute, I thought I was reading something by Alan Bennet. I could certainly imagine Thora Hird in the role of Aunty Merkel!

I don't doubt that there are probably loads of sci-fi writers out there doing similar things to @DeborahWalker7 but she is the one that I found first. Do let me know of others – on the back of Future Tales, I am keen to strap my jetpack back on and get my flame on!

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