A dawning sense of idee fixe

While researching the WFC panel I’ve come to the realisation that I tend to write about music quite a lot myself. My last publication was a piece about competition karaoke and sirens, and my next is near-future SF about music-sharing. I’ve written about well tempering a misbehaving child (rather than the piano she refuses to […]

September reading

Decent haul on the reading front this month. The novel for September was one Ian R McLeod’s Wake Up And Dream, a book I’d bought almost a year ago, read (and loved) part of and then had to put down for non-reading reasons. I then waited for a suitable period of quietness that’d allow me […]

Other Worlds Other Dimensions

I’ve been asked by the Scottish Writers Centre to take part in a discussion event at the CCA next week entitled: Other World Other Dimensions. Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Paranormal. Do they have a place in Literature? I have to admit that I find that last part a little provocative–I wonder if the panel will agree on […]

Well Loved

I know I’ve mentioned this before but there was a definitive moment in my life when I made the decision to try writing fiction. A moment, a place, a time. A story. I remember it with absolute clarity. It was 1990-91 and I was living in Shepperton. Sharing a house next to the film studios […]

Oh, The Horror!

Don’t know if I mentioned this or not, but I’ve got a bee in my bonnet about contemporary horror. The following is an attempt to work out why, and – being a rummage around inside my brain – may well be doomed to being malformed and half-baked. So, apologies in advance. I think it started […]

October, October

Well that month went fast. Reading-wise, although I returned from Fantasycon with a stack of great books that I cant’ wait to get into and although I now have an issue each of Interzone and Black Static waiting to be devoured, I have almost nothing to report. Well, I have read and critiqued two unpublished […]

August’s books

Fully expected this month’s reading to be curtailed by other activities, but as it turns out I managed a couple of enjoyable (albeit with a slightly higher than usual incidence of author/reader nark) novels and the usual interesting array of shorts. Rule 34 by Charles Stross (Orbit) You know you’ve read a good thriller […]

Fun stuff that I read in February

Continuing my monthly reading round-up that a/passes on some recommendations of neat stuff and b/ proves that I’m keeping the resolution going. “The Gutenberg Boys” by Ian Boyter (The Vanity Press). More of a rolling anecdotal memoir than a novel, but I was pretty taken with the evocation of time/place, language and technology in this […]

Aftercon

So, Newcon went well. Three days of chat, drink, chat, drink, the occasional panel (I was on one, but wasn’t able to offer much of a contribution) and lovely books. Top five moments: Meeting up with friends – Gary, Andrew, Michaela, Sam, Paul, Al, Heather, Debbie, Tiffany, Chaz, John (of course), Chris, Tony (but no […]

In with the New/Ain’t no lie

Conventions. I love them. They come at just the right times to wrench you out of the workaday and let you just hang out with your friends in a bar, for three or four days. Usually, I do two a year. Eastercon at, well, Easter, and Fantasycon in September. Occasionally, if I’m feeling flush I […]