Ted Bann is a hobbyist sci-fi author based in London. He reads a lot, writes a lot, and publishes odd bits of it. (He also writes thriller fiction as Mark Charteris and non-fiction as Chris Worth.)

A sci-fi fan since childhood, he has one pet hate: fantasy. (And won’t shop anywhere that conflates the two as SFF.) Why? Because at its best, science fiction is a soaring exercise in extrapolative wonder, combining hard thinking about where technology can take us with a solid understanding of the human condition and how our use of physics and engineering can affect it. While fantasy – well, that’s just dwarves waving swords. Magic is a get-out clause for lazy storytelling.

Ted’s sci-fi shorts will be published on this site starting Autumn 2014. If more than a few people like them he’ll turn them into a collection on Kindle. Until then, why not check out Espresso Stories, a site he co-created to showcase ultra-short fiction of 25 words or less?