Well, yet another of these. Move on! Move on!

READING

I'm currently enjoying Morrissey's Autobiography. I'm listening to it as an audiobook, and it's... beautiful. No other word for it. Also, it's great to see where all those songs came from. Definitely one for the fans, of which I am one.

Chris Moriarty's Spin State is a marvellous hard SF/ ( Read more... )

Happy New Year, dearest friends, readers. Happy Befana to the Italians; Women's Christmas to the Irish; actual Christmas to the Orthodox -- tomorrow that is ( Read more... )

Reading

I have a tonne of children's books to read these days and no permission to talk about any of them. On the plus side, however, commuting gives me plenty of time for audiobooks and this month I've been lucky enough to snag a copy of Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and ClayHis books can be a bit hit-or-miss for me, but, as ( Read more... )

WATCHINGBoy, life starts racing past when you take your eye off, doesn't it? It's months since I last posted what I'd been watching and this in spite of some unspeakably awful TV that flashed before my eyes. In all of that, I forgot to mention one very special program that blew me away. So, just in case you need another positive recommendation, let ( Read more... )

My last post here was called "Writing in the Dead Zone", and how prophetic that turned out to be! Four months later, here I am, even more tanned and handsome than before; even more brilliant and full of shiny promise ( Read more... )

Working through the third draft of The Volunteer yesterday, I came across a Dead Zone ( Read more... )

Recently, a journalist from somewhere out there in Deepest Internet published what he thought must be a devastating critique of cartoonist Matthew Inman from theoatmeal.com. You can the read brilliant response in full here, but I want to take out just one little part for myself. While attempting to belittle Mr. Inman's talent, the attacker lays out ( Read more... )

I'm not supposed to be on a social network right now, what with all that writing to do, all those Con preparations, all those parts of my nostrils that have yet to be explored. However, I am very excited by the announcement that When The Villain Comes Home is now available to buy.

This is the sequel anthology, obviously enough, to last year's When ( Read more... )

What's in it for me?

Oh, I've read a lot of boring action scenes lately. Worse, I've written a few myself.

How can that be? I mean, it's all about raising the stakes isn't it? Here's sweet Jenny. Quirky, yet kick-ass, with those goggles and that steam-powered gun. And now, she's just been invited to the school dance by a bare chested, sensitive bad ( Read more... )

The golden age of short stories is long past. Once upon a time, say, back in the 1930s and '40s, a young go-getter could make a good living out of writing them. Nowadays, however, forums are full of people who claim to only ever read novels. Publishers steer clear of anthologies. Collections are a tough sell and even well-known editors in the genre ( Read more... )