BSFA Shortlist

Over the last few years I’ve got into the habit of looking out for the BSFA awards shortlist announcement and resolving to read all the nominees before voting. The year before last I succeeded. Last year I ended up short by one novel, and looking at the way things is stacking up for the first […]

The Sales v Williamson 2013 Short Story Challenge

So, in the comments of a recent post writer and friend, Ian Sales, challenged me to “friendly” race of sorts. The reasoning is to get both of us writing more short fiction this year. The rules: 1/ Contest runs between January 1 and December 31 2013. 2/ Each writer gets one point for a story […]

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 […]

A good thing

So, 2012’s Eastercon has been and gone, and left me feeling (with a nod of gratitude to Jim Marshall) like a fan in front Nigel Tufnell’s stack in Tap’s heyday. It was a good thing, there was a lot of it and I possibly indulged a little too much. It had started so simply. No […]

BSFA Awards shortlist

So, the extended voting period has passed and I hope a few more votes snuck in. The result is really interesting shortlists in all the categories. In the two fiction categories, I’ve read two of the novels and two of the short stories, so I have a bit of reading to do to be in a […]

Rocket Science

Over at his blog, Ian Sales announces that he is going to edit an anthology of science fiction and fact called Rocket Science. To be published by Mutation Press in 2012, the unique selling point of this anthology is to be its focus on Hard SF (defined in another blog post by Ian as – and […]

Interesting stuff that I read in January

So this new year I had but one resolution – to read more stuff. Last year was a seriously shoddy effort in terms of picking up a book/magazine/e-reader and enjoying all the good fiction at my disposal. So, in an effort to …make a decent effort… I’m going to attempt to post a monthly update […]