One of the recurrent topics at cons is whether e‑publishing will impact on the publication of shorter fiction. Thus far: not so much insofar as I've seen. Although it is now quite possible to, say, sell a single short story as an e‑book(let?) on Amazon, nobody seems to be saying this is a big thing and a way […]
So I feel I've been putting in the hours on my inhuman characters, what with the protagonists of Children of Time and this year's release of Spiderlight from Tor UK, as well as more human examples like the insect-kinden, or the shapeshifters of The Tiger and the Wolf. I first got into SF for the aliens. When I was a kid I would […]
Does it seem a long time ago, that we were sitting with Sten and Tisamon and Marius in Myna, waiting for the Empire to come kick in the gates? Back when Empire in Black and Gold was first released, as well as short stories and general fanfarage (1), I had some help from my good friend David Mumford […]
A woman tries to rebuild her husband's mind using the machine that dismantled it; a botanist touches the soul of a planet; the mind of a warship plots revenge on the powers that destroyed it; a photographer tries to come to terms with his inexplicably dead wife; a scientist experiments with a drug that allows direct access to the minds of […]
One question that turns up a lot, from readers and in interviews, is "Which characters are your favourites to write?" And of course I love all my insect-kinden children, even the ones I brutally kill off seconds after you meet them, but it's true there are a few who are an especial joy to write for. And 'write for' […]
You have probably seen this link by now, at least if you live anywhere near my corner of the Social Mediadrome. The response has been pretty much what you might expect, with people essentially picking it up, carrying it to a big stack of wood and setting fire to it. Lynn Shepherd has been villified, accused […]
So, genre and gender is still making the SFF industry look ridiculous, now sufficiently so to catch the derisive attention of reporting well outside the genre, and at the same time as the ripples from that farrage(1) were still crossing the water, (NK Jemisin has a good take on it here) we got Foz Meadows' report that […]
I try to let plot, world and characters develop as organically as possible. One major upshot of this is that bit-part players, conjured into existence to fill a momentary need of the narrative, can take on a life of their own. If a niche arises for them, they can take on real lives of their own. Here are […]
Super Secret Project Zeta Go! I am very glad to announce that Tor UK have picked up a brand new novel of mine, as they announce here. This is in addition to Guns of the Dawn (1) and the new series that will start with The Tiger and the Wolf. As you'll note, the new book is […]
Shotgun Linkstorm is most definitely my new band name. Anyway, dragging myself from the hibernation pod for another year I discover it's 2014. It's way too early in January to expect anything coherent so: Super Secret Project Zeta I will most definitely have some news on this, probably even next week. It's very exciting. To me, […]
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