Putting the Science in Fiction

My article on hazardous waste that appeared in Dan Koboldt's Science in SciFi blog will be making the move to print in a new book version to be published by Writers Digest. You can read the announcement here and Dan explains more about it at his blog.

Book Review: The Guns Above by Robyn Bennis

It’s airships and rifles in a kind of Napoleonic-era war in the steampunkish debut novel The Guns Above by Robyn Bennis. Other than the steam engines mounted on the airships and the mention of trains, there’s little of the traditional Victorian steampunk ethos in this book. But there’s plenty of adventure, grittiness and sarcastic comments.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: The Wandering Earth by Cixin Liu

After reading Cixin Liu’s Three-Body trilogy last year and subsequently meeting him in person for an interview, I have been looking forward to reading his first translated short fiction collection, The Wandering Earth. Three of his short stories were published in English in the Ken Liu edited volume Invisible Planets, but only one of those appears among the ten stories in this volume, half of which have won the prestigious Galaxy Award in China.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: Dark Run by Mike Brooks

Dark Run is the debut novel by Mike Brooks with a book full of dodgy space bars, roguishly heroic smuggler captains and assorted crewmembers with dubious pasts, mechanically augmented humans and seedy underground dwellings.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Family Flash Fiction Challenge

Alex, Haydn and I have all written stories for this month;s flash fiction challenge. You can read all the entries here, and even comment and vote if you like.

Book Review: The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi

‘The Collapsing Empire’ is the first book in a new series by award-winning author John Scalzi and the first of his books that I’ve read. The setting is a far-flung interstellar empire know as the Interdependency, over a thousand years in the future, where planets are connected via poorly-understood faster-than-light conduits known as the Flow.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Further Classics

Following on from my previous posts on the subject, I've continued to look out for 'classic' SF books that have won awards, appaered on 'Best of' lists etc.


These are the ones I've read over the past year or so:


Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre - Enjoyably lyrical.


Hothouse by Brian W. Aldiss - Very good, though slightly old-fashioned now.


Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boule - OK, not actually hailed as a classic, and actually rather antiquated even for its time.


The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. LeGuin - Very good, but really sure what the fuss is about.


I Am Legend by Richard Matheson - Rather dated.


Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick - I don't know why everyone says this is so good.






According to the GoodReads 'Best Science Fiction' list I've read 52 of the top 100 science fiction novels of all time, which isn't bad. There are, of course, lots of other 'Best of' lists.

Review Revival

Over 100 of my older book and magazine reviews no longer appear on line because the sites they appeared on have since disappeared. I've started to post the  reviews on GoodReads for the sake of posterity.

Book Review: Dying of the Light by George R. R. Martin

Unlike the rest of the Earth’s population, I have neither read nor watched Game Of Thrones, not being a fan of fantasy, though I did once see George RR Martin in passing at EasterCon.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Return of the Blind Collaborators

My first collaborative story The Blind Collaborators, published 10 years ago in Aphelion Webzine , has been republished in their 'Best of 20 Years' selection.

It was a fun story to write in which I gave my collaborators a brief outline of what to include in their sections without telling them the plot and then I tied them all together in an overall story.