Circle Of Life

Over at Notes From The Geek Show, Hal’s been holding forth on the subject of the Glasgow SF Writers’ Circle. I’m not going to add anything here to what Hal’s written, but only as a slight caveat will add that at this week’s meeting we had one of those moments when you realise why we […]

Catching up on culture

Just some cultural notes worthy of note: – “Subtle Edens” is out now from Elastic Press. This is an anthology of new slipstream stories. Slipstream (I’ve never been comfortable with the term, but that’s part of the point I suppose) was an early influence on my writing as I discovered the British small press scene […]

Lost In Translation

Thanks to Mr Gibson’s passing reference to Plastic Bertrand (via the Hello Kitty lounge of Taipei airport), I have decided that all song lyrics read better translated from French. The reason? Well, see it occurred to me on seeing the title of M. Bertrand’s “hit” written down for the first time since 1977 that I’d […]

Sights and Sounds

Looking forward to this weekend’s Sounds Film Festival. Especially the Woody Guthrie biopic, Bound For Glory, and the opening night’s Ballads Of The Book film which will be followed by live music, including the most excellent Zoey van Goey.

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 […]

Tomorrow Elephant…next week, The World!

Those of you who have been enjoying Hannu Rajaniemi’s beautiful, compacted, effervescent jewel-like short stories in Nova Scotia, and the most recent issue of Interzone, will be as excited as I am to hear that he’s just secured himself a whopping three book deal with Gollancz. How exciting is that?

The Short Stuff

Must be the time of year, but for some reason I’ve been innundated with new short fiction to read, and I don’t know where to start to enjoy it all. TTA Press’s usual bi-monthly swaparama of Interzone and Black Static have been supplemented by the latest Crimewave, which is always cause for celebration. From PS, […]

If there’s a god he’s laughing at us (and our football team)

…or why I don’t read the music press. In this totally internetted up world in which we live in (sic), it’s so much easier to find new music to listen to, and yet can be so much harder to find stuff that you’re genuinely going to like. Let’s face it, with all the band myspaces […]

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 […]