Before Hinterland

Around this time a year ago, I heard about the Hinterland Festival – basically an inner city music festival that takes place over 2 nights, with tons of bands in 15 odd venues across the centre of Glasgow. I thought it sounded interesting, but didn’t get to go, and regretted it. So, this year I’m […]

NAF: KING CREOSOTE / Flick The Vs

Every KC I’ve heard sounds slightly different. This one has the usual mix of acoustic and electric instruments, but there’s considerably more electronica than on Bombshells or KC Rules OK which gives it a more ethereal overtone. On first listen the songs are more downbeat and introspective (for KC, surely not possible!) too. But I […]

New Album Friday

OK, I decided that the Friday mp3 A-Z selector was a nice experiment but was going to get old quickly, but I like bigging up music, especially if it doesn’t involve expressing an informed opinion (long time readers will know how I feel about music journalism). So watch in amazement as I tread the tightrope […]

A Bit Previous

Open question: is a prologue ever a good idea? Why do writers insist on putting them in? And do readers even read them or do they skip on to the actual story? For me, on the rare occasions that I have time to read books, when I encounter a prologue it’s like a barrier. I’m […]

Afterglow

The aftereffect of Eastercon for me is always exhaustion+inspiration in equal measure. Exhaustion from the stamina-sapping of talk-talk-talking, being engaged and attempting to be engaging all weekend. Inspiration from all the serious, fun, silly conversations that you find yourself a part of. With so many smart people around, ideas are tossed off, tossed up and […]

Subterfuge Review

Nice to see this very generous review of Subterfuge appearing in Strange Horizons today.

Easter, here and gone

This being the obligatory post-Eastercon post, although to be honest it all passed in more of a blur than usual. The convention was well run, with a lot of thought and work clearly going into filling Bradford’s Cedar Court hotel with as much to do as possible. I got to bang on about Delia Derbyshire […]

Songs in the Key of…Y

Nearly at the end now. Probably go back to random next week. Yawns – Frightened Rabbit Yeah Next – Mother And The Addicts You Are Could I? – King Creosote You Better Believe It – Small Faces You Don’t Know Me – Ben Folds You Made Me Like It – 1990s You’re Not My Friend […]

Songs in the Key of…T

I know, I know… but there were a lot of S’s! Take It All – Badfinger Take Me Home – Crystal Gayle and Tom Waits Talk To Strangers – Envy And Other Sins Teardrop – Jose Gonzalez The Audition – A Band Called Quinn The Bagman’s Gambit – The Decemberists The Bee Song – Arthur […]

BSFA Award – Getting Involved!

Really pleased to see that in the recent mailing, the BSFA have made serious attempts to enfranchise its membership towards voting in this year’s awards by thoughtfully providing a booklet dedicated to focusing minds on the task. Traditionally, there has been an issue of accessibility in garnering votes, especially for the short fiction and artwork […]