Shadows of the Apt

At the end of this month I will indeed be at Fantasycon in Peterborough, doing the following hijinks: Friday 7.30 Writing fighting panel Friday 8.30 Dungeons and Disorderly (er… some kind of crowd-run D&D tomfoolery run by that rogue Dave Moore from Rebellion and I have no idea) Saturday 12.30 Worldbuilding panel Saturday 7.30 The New Epics panel Saturday […]

First of all, out of a very strong field (see posts passim), Colson Whitehead took this year's Arthur C Clarke award for his Underground Railway, which is a thought-provoking and powerful read. Definitely check it out, as well as the other fine books on the shortlist. It's been too long, Clarkes aside, since I wrote a post about good stuff I've read, […]

Long pause since I last blogged, which was on the Clarkes shortlist, the suspense of which will be resolved at Foyles in London this 27^th July, where I will have the honour of handing out this year's award to one of those six worthies. As previously gushed, it's a hell of a shortlist this year. I'm excited to tear […]

Occupy Me – Tricia Sullivan Ninefox Gambit – Yoon Ha Lee Sufficiently advanced mathematics being, of course, indistinguishable from magic, and that’s the thread I’m using to link these two books – very different in their settings and trappings but united by a core where reality is subject to manipulation in ways that frankly twist the mind. Tricia […]

Underground Railroad – Colson Whitehead After Atlas – Emma Newman (1) So what about books that have a rather less optimistic take on the world? As it turns out, the shortlist has those too, and these are definitely the bleakest. I hadn’t come across Whitehead until the shortlist was announced, but a little research shows that’s entirely […]

This year I'm breaking the review up into three parts, because the shortlist, in my idiosyncratic perspective, seems to form some loose pairs, so first I give you: A Closed and Common Orbit – Becky Chambers Central Station – Lavie Tidhar Because I didn’t get the chance to do a Clarkeslist post last year, for what I hope are […]

  I am delighted to announce that the audiobook of Children of Time is right now available from Audible. You can find it here read by the very able Mel Hudson. I am also informed that Audiobooks of The Tiger and the Wolf and Guns of the Dawn are planned direct from Pan Macmillan who are now recording their own. This is […]

The problem with putting off a post recommending good books is that you keep reading more good books and it all gets on top of you. I have, therefore, absolutely let some cracking books slip me mind, but I'm going to do my damndest to recommend some damn things here. First, though, it is that time of […]

And back from four days of a superb convention, in which I also got a load of editing done, so win-win all round there. "Innominate" was, as I understand it, a late submission brought into being Easter 2016 when the incumbent 2017 convention ran into terminal difficulties. It was also returning to a town which, apparently, hadn't gone down well the last […]

I have been writing my little socks off over the last couple of months, with relatively little respite in sight to be honest. I've just finished a novella for Rebellion and a novel for Solaris, both of which should be announced some time soonish, but until then I can't get into the details. I've also agreed to write […]