Even when I’m not gallivanting around the country attending festivals I can be tardy in my responses to other people’s blogs. By the time I read this post from Karen Mahoney she, and her responders, had pretty much covered the topic. But it got me thinking, albeit at a slight tangent. (Warning – this is […]

We’re now into festival season and I’m finding the prospect of a month of four day working weeks curiously liberating. The timing helps – I wouldn’t be so sanguine about being prised out of my garret if I had a book delivery date looming. But now I’m into the post-delivery wait it’s actually good to […]

… in a while. Unfortunately I brought back an unexpected guest from last week’s event, in the form of an impressive and unpleasant flu virus (not the piggy sort, fortunately). As a result this week’s main achievement has been catching up on some reading, as I’ve not been good for much else. I’m just glad […]

Actually I don’t find maths hot. I find it, truth be told, somewhat intimidating. My equation-phobia was the only minor concern I had about the ‘Physics for Fiction’ seminar held on Monday and Tuesday of this week at Imperial College, but I needn’t have worried; the level of this largely astronomy-based set of talks and […]

I’ve now applied the last few changes to the ending of Guardians of Paradise (see further ‘blowing more sh*t up now’). Some of the final tweaks had to be done in the back of an SUV being driven round the M25, but it was either that or cancel my weekend plans and I do still […]

That’s the delivery date for Guardians of Paradise: 30th June. I’m pretty good at getting my homework in early, and I was looking set for another delivery before deadline, in time for a busy weekend, and an interesting science event early next week (of which more later perhaps). All that was left was the final […]

I’ve now finished The Prefect, and it gets a definite thumbs up. This verdict pleased Beloved, who couldn’t understand my failure to enjoy Alistair Reynolds’ earlier stuff. Beloved and I have similar but not identical tastes, which leads to some interesting discussions and the occasional minor book-based Domestic (particularly during The Great Annual Book Cull). […]

Last weekend I did no work at all, despite being at home, as it was our wedding anniversary, and Beloved and I wanted to spend some time together for once. He did succumb to the lure of motorsport at various points, bless ‘im, though this gave me a chance read a bit more of the […]

Consorts of Heaven came out officially today. I haven’t really celebrated (unless you count coming down from t’garret while it’s still light to drink a pint of cider and watch Krod Mandoon), but I think I’ve had a good few weeks of celebratory events so I don’t feel I’ve missed out. The book has also […]

Unless I spot something my beta-readers have missed, all that remains before I deliver Guardians of Paradise to my editor is the final read-aloud-and-tinker stage. So, with the writing pressure slackening off for a while, I’m turning my attention to my teetering ‘to read’ pile. I was already reading two books at once, sort of: […]