Iain Banks’s untimely death has, quite rightly, got plenty of attention this week. My own feelings can’t be fully summed up without some rude and angry words, but in dilute form, they’ve be something like, How could you do that, you bastard universe/god!* Like a lot of British SF fans of my generation, I knew […]
Some writers need – or at least claim to need – to hand-write only in the finest moleskine notebook, handcrafted by artisans from quality ingredients (etc etc). Myself, I’m a scrawler, and this level of luxury would be lost on me. Not to mention, I might lose it. Notebooks, generally, are disposable items, and I […]
I love music. I’m a consumer not a creator, with eclectic tastes (as I write this I’m listening to an internet radio station devoted to electro-swing), but music matters to me, in every aspect of my life – including my fiction. So, I was pleased to be asked to play a small part in the […]
Mindjammer is a book which shows its origins. The author is a gaming professional and, as someone who’s dabbled in in Science Fiction RPGs myself, this comes through both in the book’s structure and in the approach taken to telling the story. Rather than focusing on a single character, we’re with a group, and whilst […]
A piece of bad news to start: the residential writing course on the second weekend in May, at which I was going to give a workshop, has unfortunately been cancelled. Something more positive: Readwave is a new site covering several genres. They don’t pay up front for your stories, but you retain all rights, and […]
I now have my schedule for Eight Squared: – Friday 5pm (Hawthorn (presumably a room, not a tree)) – Reading, a slot I’m sharing with Cory Doctorow. I’ll let him decide who goes first, and probably read one of the stories from Downside Girls. – Saturday 7pm (in the Conservatory … with the lead piping […]
Following on from my piece for the SFX Book Club on Mary Gentle’s Golden Witchbreed recently, the UK’s favorite genre ‘zine asked me to pick another book, and I chose CJ Cherryh’s Downbelow Station. This time I’ve even remembered to let people know in time to read the book and comment on the SFX website. […]
Marianne de Pierres is an underrated writer, especially outside her native Australia. Given I’m currently reading a lot of Young Adult SF (that being what I’ve been writing), when I got the chance to read an advance copy of her new YA novel, Burn Bright, I jumped at it. The book did not disappoint. It […]
Another date for my diary (and possibly for yours) is the residential writing weekend being organised by Alex Davis up in the scenic Dove Valley in Derbyshire on the 10th to 12th of May. Lovely location and excellent value. I’ll be giving a short workshop and doing a Q&A session on the Saturday.
I’ve just confirmed that I will be appearing at Nine Worlds Geekfest on the 10th and 11th of August. This looks like a great event, run by and for SFF fans and with something for everyone. And they’re currently running a kickstarter project which lets early supporters get cheap tickets. In other and unrelated news, […]
It’s the time of year when, in this household at least, diaries, virtual and paper, are pored over and arrangements finalised. One result of this is that I can confirm my attendance at the following two events: Picocon, 16th and 17th February, Imperial College, London. On Saturday the 16th at 2.30pm I’ll be appearing on […]