Gemmell Award 2012 Nominations

They're in! And both the Sea Watch and Heirs of the Blade are on the long list for the Legend Award (best book) (1). These are the fantasy awards, after the David of the same name, voted for by you, the readers. If anyone would like to support the home team (2), voting is accomplished […]

Interview: Janine Ashbless

Something different today as I talk about someone else's writing for a change and interview author Janine Ashbless. Janine wrote me the short story, The Scent of Tears, written — under another name — for this site, a strong story whose elements (with Janine' s approval) are actually feeding into the main series plot as we speak. Janine already has […]

And it's 2012

And nuts to the Mayans (1). I will shortly have a crack at another post on computer games, this time with the spotlight on role-playing (or lack of same), but currently research is, er, taking up all my time. For now, just a quick update. The various projects that I previously mentioned I was contributing to are now all up […]

12 non-festive cartoons

Because it's the season, my gift to you is a dozen cartoons that have absolutely nothing to do with Christmas whatsoever. I make no warranties as to whether they have anything to do with humour, either. Click on each one (hopefully) for a larger image. Anyway:

Helmess Broiler and Jodry Drillen

Contains some spoilers for book 4 and later. Brief diversion on the writer's art to look at these two characters, a brace of Beetle-kinden politicians. Unprepossessing stuff, surely. However, what the two of them, bitter rivals as they are, demonstrate is the ability of characters to get completely out of control. Along with many writers, I've often […]

War in our time

It is with trembling hands that I type: the first draft of book 9, "War Master's Gate" (1), is finished. I'm not going to lie to you, it's been a rough ride. I'm slick with blood up to the elbows, and my normal protests that the story unfolds of its own momentum, with minimal fiddling from me, […]

Mind the Gap

Apologies for the gap in posting, which is entirely because I'm working on the edits for Air War whilst also trying to get the last few chapters of War Master's Gate down, and is not at all to do with buying Skyrim.

Warcraft, Lovecraft and Horrible Things

But not on this site — and not kinden stories. I'm proud to announce some new writing that's turning up here and there in the next few months. You may recall my story The Dissipation Club that was published in the collection "Dead but Dreaming 2" — I also submitted a story for a similar collection from Miskatonic […]

Javert in Space!

OK, I lie. But Javert in the future, anyway. Just been to see In Time and it's a very well done piece of proper SF with some involving action sequences and a tight cast of good actors. It's one of those Big Concept pieces of SF (1), and the basic idea (that in the future time is currency […]

The Usual Suspects

Thieves are back. Possibly they never went away but were just being sneaky. They're a staple of fantasy fiction that goes back to its most influential roots (1), and recently there's been a grand resurgence of books specifically showcasing thief leads. (1) And I'm not qualified to go into the whole mythic archetype businss but, suffice to say, […]