Or, time for a brief glance backwards. It's been a mixedsort of year. A lot of people I know have had a rough time of it for various reasons — illness, personal problems and the vicissitudes of the writing game amongst them. The industry has lost a lot of people. It has been something of a subdued year all told. On the plus […]
I did get through a metric crapton(1) of books this year, and a lot of them were very good. I'm not going to do a 'best of', but I want to flag up a few reads that people might not have come across, and that I think deserve some attention. If you're looking for a good, solidly written book with a different […]
"Everyone in fantasy books is always resorting to the "old magic". Why isn't the new magic better? That's what I want to know," said Obi-Jon (@jonthepo0le) on Twitter, possibly not expecting to get taken up seriously on it. My knee-jerk answer was "because then it would be science-fiction." (1) Wouldn't it? Okay, let me expand briefly […]
Well last post was Weighty and Meaningful, and today's is decidedly short on any kind of serious import. It also contains mild spoilers for Thor: The Dark World, though nothing that isn't covered in the prologue section. So, Malekith. I've read a number of reviews so far about Thor 2. I really enjoyed the film — and […]
Does SFF have a problem with women? Do women have a problem with it? A remarkable number of incidents over the last year or so have certainly put the issue in the foreground. It’s hard to avoid the feel of a storm getting ready to break. Here are some of the flashpoints. For the record, my personal opinion in […]
31st October to (counts on fingers) 3rd November is when mild-mannered bespectacled Fantasycon tears off its shirt and reveals the bare nipples of World Fantasy Convention 2013, and if we're thinking bare nipples in the UK, we must of course be talking of Brighton. I am at this, as a very minor footnote to a very large ensemble […]
Another long hiatus. I am, I kid you not, on the last chapter of the first draft of The Tiger and the Wolf, the first of me new series. This has taken about 10 months to put together, a lot longer than my usual six, partly because it's the first in this setting, hence there's a lot of build […]
(Usual apologies about the delay, excuses re being busy with writing etc. etc. etc. Seriously, I've had the line edits in for Seal of the Worm, on a murderous deadline, so it's all true. But I should blog more, I know). Anyway, we rejoin our irregular viewing with a piece of blatant and shameless self-promotion! My very first short […]
So, that was Geekfest, a large-scale convention that came out of nowhere around the beginning of the year, funded itself via Kickstarter, occupied a large chunk of two big hotels at Heathrow and had a mind-bogglingly bewildering variety of panels, lectures, games and activities for fans of just about all tastes. And it was, frankly, wonderful. I had a fantastic […]
First of all, and God protect and preserve me, but I am now on Twitter @aptshadow . Please boost my following if you're a fellow sufferer. I may occasionally say something amusing, or at least make snarky comments on things other people have said (1). Secondly, and far more excitingly… The Adrian Tchaikovsky Short Story Collection is coming! […]
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