A new picture has gone up in the Art section, this by the very talented Daisy Abbott. The digital people at Macmillan are just setting up an email for the site, but thereafter I will be taking submissions for further book-based art, so any artists, or friends of artists, out there, watch this space. In other news, […]
Well, the moment fast approaches to see whether this beastie can survive in the wild, so… To celebrate the publication of his debut novel, Empire in Black and Gold ADRIAN TCHAIKOVSKY will be signing copies of the book at Waterstone's, United Reform Building, 89a Broad Street, Reading RG1 2AP SATURDAY 5th JULY, 3–5pm […]
Welcome to the Official ™ website of the series Shadows of the Apt First things first: who the hell am I, that I have the right to comment? Am I, for example, award-winning author Neil Gaiman, internationally celebrated fantasist, whose excellent book, American Gods, has already been the subject of a blog about the post-writing process? No, I am […]
A brief diatribe on the Hollywood Fight Not some choreographed wrestling spectacular (1) but the way that your traditional action movie lumbers through its climactic hero/villain confrontation. Fantasy fiction has far, far more than its fair share of fighting. From duels to running skirmishes to vast set-piece battles and sieges (2), the genre is a fundamentally […]
A very brief interlude to say that I have found the name of horror, and it is “dried, sweetened pineapple”. In a somewhat halfhearted attempt to be healthy I decided that, to snack on at work, I would purchase some dried fruit. Dried fruit – is there anything more wholesome and natural? (1). It comes in packets that […]
I used to engage in a certain amount of amateur dramatics, back in the day, and after a while I became sufficiently unwise as to get involved in committees and the like, and become something of a Figure in the Community, thus descending into the traditional pit of tribal politics and mud-slinging that these concerns always seem to involve […]
In The Night Garden would be a perfectly acceptable title for a certain type of fantasy novel, probably featuring a proud female protagonist hampered by a restrictive society who finds freedom and emancipation by way of her discovery of a supernatural plotstick that manifests via the aforementioned nocturnal allotment, probably some part of the palace that she all-unwillingly lives a life […]
Some random rants with a pretence at a linking theme. There is a sign at Leeds train station that says “Stay off the tracks”. It is painted, black letters in a white box, on the front of each platform, so as to be easily visible from the far side. The mind boggles. What is the target audience for […]
Well, not the last refuge, given that our entire society, and most specifically economy, is liberally greased with the stuff, as a look at any advert (1) will show you. After all, we live in a society where the amount of money you stand to make would seem to be inversely proportional to the actual need society […]
Oh to have a reputation. Specifically, a full half-dozen people have sent me links to the same news story, linked herewith: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7104421.stm The obvious thought, when confronted with this, is, “slow news day.” Had the story broken a day later, then the football (1) would have squeezed it out entirely. Like the fossilisation process itself, a news […]
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