Saturday kicked off with entirely failing to catch the SF Legends panel because Rum but I did get the Urban Fantasy panel after it — Mark Newton chairing, and Paul Cornell, Sam Stone, Stacia Kane, Ben Aaronovitch and Benedict Jacka (whose Fated comes out shortly) discussing. Urban Fantasy is a hot topic for sure, but seldom actually put to […]
(because there's a lot and I am trying to keep these damn posts short) SFX 2012 — absolutely the best yet — as a convention they have been getting bigger and better since the first in 2010, and I was very happy to see that as well as the film & TV slots (1), the relatively small number of literary slots […]
I now have some firm details on panels for SFX and Alt Fiction and there are some nice meaty subjects to get stuck into: 12pm Friday 3rd February at SFX, I'm doing "Elf Preservation: without magic and monsters, it's not fantasy. Is it?" Expect me to get my Peake on unless someone beats me to it. UPDATE: I will also […]
Not to be confused with SF series by either Stephen Donaldson or Peter F. Hamilton. And, yes, they say make your blog entries short and pithy, but when I get my rant on it's hard to stop, Explains why the books tend to break the 200,000 word barrier, certainly. And before I start, the Shadows of the […]
Firstly, for those waiting for the regular paperback format of Heirs of the Blade, the arrival of a box of author copies informs me that this will be released soon (Amazon says 2nd February(1)). Anyone wanting to get the first signed copy can shanghai me (2) at SFX, as they should be about for that weekend. […]
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 […]
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 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 […]
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:
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 […]
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