It's set in the same universe as Saturn's Children , but a whole lot later. That one was originally written as a stand-alone novel, so why am I going back to the setting?

Neptune's Brood is due on bookshelves in just over two weeks' time. (And some of you lucky people will probably be able to get your hands on paper copies of it a bit earlier.)

Well, "Saturn's Children" was indeed a stand-alone when I wrote it, but over the next couple of years I didn't notice any huge holes in the world-building. I had no plans to re-visit it, mind you, but unlike the Eschaton series there was no reason why I couldn't go back there in principle.

Then Jonathan Strahan got in touch. Jonathan is a talented editor, and among the things he edits is a series of theme anthologies. In this case, he wanted to commission a story for an anthology titled Engineering Infinity. "I want hard SF stories, for a new century," he said (I'm going from memory here). Which gave me a headache thinking about it, but then I realized I had a loose end left over from "Saturn's Children", and read a write-up of a funky new phenomenon in high-energy astrophysics in "New Scientist", and suddenly ... bingo! I had "Bit Rot". And more importantly, I had the realization that there was room for another novel in this universe—because if I could write a short story, I could tackle a more ambitious project.

So, without further ado, here's the missing link between "Saturn's Children" and "Neptune's Brood":

Bit Rot (epub format ebook)

Bit Rot (Kindle format ebook)

Bit Rot (read it online as HTML)