My review of Marcel Theroux’s new novel, Strange Bodies, is online now at Arcfinity. When this arrived in the post I realised that I had actually read Theroux’s previous novel – the Clarke Award nominated Far North – but had absolutely no recollection of what it was about. I spotted it on the shelf, reread […]
So with Solaris Rising 2 being released tomorrow, the people at Solaris asked the anthology’s authors (you can read my effort, “The First Dance”, in those pages along with some stories that are really, really good) to write something about our favourite short stories. I couldn’t pick one. So instead I talked a bit about […]
So busy with stuff I hadn’t noticed that the table of contents for Solaris Rising 2 had been announced. I’m chuffed to be in this book alongside a list of very fine writers. I’m only slightly worried that I’m the one whose been stuck in to make everyone else look good. Still, it’s a very […]
Things have been quiet here for a few weeks and are likely to remain so for a while longer – apologies. However, I’d just like to draw your attention to the appearance of my story “Eskragh” in issue 12 (titled Night Legends) of Dark Fiction Magazine.Thanks to the editors for selecting it and transforming it […]
So last night I finally got around to watching Richard II, the first play in the Hollow Crown season currently running on BBC One. It was, I thought, a very strong production of what is quite a difficult play – lacking as it does an easily sympathetic protagonist and realistically portraying politics as a complex, […]
From issue 58 of Focus the third of my pieces of flash fiction “inspired” by the common writing errors and bad habits catalogued in The Turkey City Lexicon. This time I go toe-to-toe with a “burly detective”: This useful term is taken from SF’s cousin-genre, the detective-pulp. The hack writers of the Mike Shayne series […]
So, I did a recording of my story Eskragh for a friend, and then I thought about putting it up here. And then I didn’t. But since this seems to be an unofficial Irish-themed week on the blog and since I haven’t done this sort of thing before – what the hell. This isn’t the […]
I have in my clammy little paws my contributor copy of Rocket Science, the new anthology from Mutation Press, edited by the estimable Ian Sales. This fine looking volume of short stories and non-fiction features my tale of a (sort of) Mars mission, “Pathfinders”.
Since issue 58 of Focus is now off to the printer, I thought I’d put up this from issue 57 – the second in what appears to be an ongoing series of flash fiction pieces inspired by common writerly errors indentified by The Turkey City Lexicon. This is a slightly longer version than the one […]
Half term means I’ve not had much time to blog this week – but it does means I got to spend time with my daughter watching The Muppets, swimming and letting her thrash me at ten pin bowling (ahem!). Anyway, instead of something new, here’s something from Focus 56. I’ve been writing little pieces of […]