Christmas Quintet

Really pleased to announce that my punky musical story, Arrhythmia, has been reprinted in Infinity Plus’s new Quintet anthology. Yeah, so Arrhythmia was nominated for the BSFA award and it’s one of the stories I’m proudest of, but what’s really cool is that it sits snugly in amongst stories by four writers whose work I absolutely adore. For 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 […]

Dark Currents

Before Christmas I mentioned a story sale, and I’m now pleased to be able to announce that my sheep-in-space effort, “Lost Sheep” will be appearing in NewCon Press‘s next anthology, Dark Currents. I’m really pleased about this. It’s got a wonderful cover by Ben Baldwin (I’ll link to it once it’s finalised), and it’s got […]

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 […]

Untinted spectacles

Unlike many who write genre fiction, I didn’t grow up reading the stuff. Don’t know, it just never appealed to me. My loss, I guess, but one benefit it has left me with is the distinct lack of rose in my spectrum when viewing the older works in the genre. When I first joined GSFWC […]

The Taste Of Mundanity

So, the Mundane SF issue of Interzone has come and gone. In case you’ve not been aware, there was a whole bunch of foohfarah about the Mundane manifesto, because I don’t know, the rhetoric rubbed people up the wrong way or something. And that was rekindled when IZ announced they were handing over the reins […]

Post-orbital

So Eastercon has been and gone once again in an other-worldly flash. I’m not going to do a con report – there wouldn’t be any point because I didn’t do much except talk to people – but here are ten impressions that have managed to persist through the haze of alcohol and sleep deprivation. 1/ […]

A moment of praise…

…for Keith Brooke’s Infinity Plus. Over the last ten years Keith has grown IP into a colossal repository for great, free, short genre fiction, and that’s not counting the fine selection of reviews, interviews and other bits and bobs. Sadly, the site has become too much work to keep going now, so Keith’s calling it […]

And the winner is…

Having been fortunate enough to have both of my books shortlisted for awards, I’d have to say that I’m generally in favour of them. Sales aside, it’s nice to know that people thought well enough of your work to want to mark it as worthy in some way. It’s not only gratifying, it gives a […]