An anthology of authentic and realistic hard science fiction
My story ‘Barker’, a re-imagining of the flight of Laika, the first dog in space, as an American man, has been bought by New Horizons, one of the British Fantasy Society’s two journals. New Horizons is biannual, and my story will appear in the December 2010 issue. Don’t forget that Postscripts #20/21 ‘Edison’s Frankenstein’ is [...]
Filed under: fiction sales, my fiction | 4 Comments »
Not read all that many books, or watched many films, since the last one of these I did. Never mind. Books The Night of the Mi’raj, Zoë Ferraris (2008), is a literary murder-mystery set in Saudi. According to the one-line bio, the author “lived in a conservative Muslim community in Jeddah”, but I’m not entirely [...]
Filed under: books, films | 6 Comments »
My first choice of genre might well be science fiction, but I’ve also read a lot of fantasy. But not The Belgariad by David Eddings, for some reason. Perhaps it felt like too much of a cash-in on the popularity of the genre – back in the 1980s – so I gave it a miss. [...]
Filed under: 2010 reading challenge, book review, david eddings, fantasy | 11 Comments »
It’s not all positivity and shiny happiness around here, you know. Some times, I have not very nice things to say about science fiction and/or fantasy. This post happens to be one of them. You can blame Liam Proven – it was his idea. “Everyone does top five or best ten lists,” he said. “Why [...]
Filed under: books, science fiction | 18 Comments »
I have a lot of books. Two questions people always ask me when they see my book collection: 1) have you read them all? and b) why do you keep them if you’ve read them? The answer to the first question is: not yet. About 80%, perhaps. And the second question: I might want to [...]
Filed under: 2009 reading challenge | 2 Comments »
I first read Stranger in a Strange Land back in my early teens, twenty or more years ago. I think I may have read it more than once during that time. I vaguely recall being aware of the book’s reputation, but not entirely understanding why it had such a reputation – I enjoyed it, but [...]
Filed under: 2009 reading challenge, book review, robert heinlein, science fiction | 12 Comments »
I spent a couple of hours today sorting out my book-shelves – the ones holding the hardbacks, that is. And even then I only got as far the letter “K”. But now at least half the alphabet is correctly shelved. And here they are, the authors A – J: Chris Amies, Brian Aldiss, AA Attanasio, [...]
Filed under: books | 7 Comments »
In 1930, Hugo Gernsback wrote, “Not only is science fiction an idea of tremendous import, but it is to be an important factor in making the world a better place to live in, through educating the public to the possibilities of science and the influence of science on life which, even today, are not appreciated [...]
Filed under: science fiction, writing | 21 Comments »
2009 has finished and 2010 has begun. Who knows what the next twelve months will bring? I do know, however, what the last few weeks brought. I may have done my Best of the Year (see here), but my last reading and watchings round-up was back on 8 December (see here). So, here’s a rundown [...]
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