So I was at Eastercon last weekend where John Scalzi was guest of honour, and he was talking about people's blog sites being basically a post that says "And I shall write more regular blog posts in the future" and then nothing for the next seven years, and I felt called out, I say, called out!

So here is the guilt-inspired blog post, mostly to say, I ain'tn't dead, but I have been making words happen. You may have seen Cage of Souls in the wild (copy shown below with reference Octopus (1)). There have also been a few copies of Walking to Aldebaran and even Cage of Souls around — certainly some made the book stalls at Eastercon, although both are officially only out later this month. If you would like signed copies of these books, then they exist at Forbidden Planet and Goldsboro Books  — who in fact should probably be able to get you any or all these releases.

My time since the last post has been dedicated to (1) new novella, and (2) first ep of a proposed space opera series, the first draft of which I've just finished, and which turned out to be huge fun to write. And only contains about double the recommended daily dose of cyborg insect hive minds.

Next up, seeing as I'm sitting here actually writing a blog post, reading recs in brief.

84K by Claire North is the most terrifying near future dystopia I've read, because there is absolutely nothing in it that isn't plausible. An ultra-capitalist economic collapse where everyone has a quantifiable worth, and the worth of most people is zero, it even includes a road map to show how we get from here to there, and I reckon several steps have actually been taken since the book was published. An incredible but traumatic read.

Emma Newman's Atlas Alone is another phenomenal instalment in her series — less standalone than the last three (although some time we must discuss the different reading experiences if you come to Before Mars with or without having read its predecessors) and another keen insight into human psychology, dystopia capitalist society (odd how that's a theme, right?) and a future that's both bleak and recognisable.

Aliette de Bodard's The Tea Master and the Detective is a lovely little SF detective novella, Sherlock Holmes in her Dai Viet space setting, with a grumpy ex-military spaceship for a Watson.

Also RJ Barker's The Bone Ships is going to be incredible but I have an advanced copy and it's not going to be out for months, and hopefully I will remember to talk about it at a more useful point in time.

And congratulations to Gareth Powell whose excellent Embers of War won the BSFA best novel award this year, out of a very strong field.

 

(1) Apologies to Shut Up and Sit Down's reference pear. Also, this is the Forbidden Planet green-edged special edition.