2021 Writing Summary

 So, what have I accomplished in 2021?

Somehow I wrote an entire novel in 8 months, which is now on query with literary agents. 

I also wrote a collaborative short story, a flash fiction piece of 100 words, two short stories, a novella and halves of two other stories. 

I thought I'd made a conscious decision to cut down on the number of book reviews so I could concentrate on the novel, but somehow I ended up writing 24 of those too.

I also had ten stories published this year in seven languages, including one new language: Marathi. 

No idea what I'll be doing next year...

Book Review: Wergen: The Alien Love War

 I have previously read most of Mercurio D. Rivera's Wergen stories as they appeared in various magazines and anthologies, and I enjoyed them all immensely.

Read the rest of my review in issue #2 of ParSec magazine.

Book Review: Tomorrow by Chris Beckett

Chris Beckett has his usual effect on me with his new novel Tomorrow in that, as soon as I start reading it, I fall into a trance-like state of comfortableness.

Read the rest of my review in issue #2 of ParSec magazine.

Five Ways to Accidentally Save the Earth from Alien Conquest

 In keeping with my tradition of unfeasibly long titles, my latest story is called Five Ways to Accidentally Save the Earth from Alien Conquest. It's out now in issue #2 of ParSec magazine.

The Gondolier Activities

 In a late burst of activity, I have received translations of The Gondolier in Arabic, Japanese, Kannada, Korean and Telugu, taking the total number of languages for this story to 56.

Of these, 20 have been published and the others appear here on this blog. There are possible markets for some of these new languages, but others will appear here in the near future. 

At WorldCon in Dublin in 2019, my display of The Gondolier included 42 languages. I'm hoping to repeat this at the 2024 WorldCon in Glasgow, with a lot more translations.

Canines, Reptiles and Other Biological Anomalies

The fourth in my 'Yorick' series of stories is out now in Hungarian in Galaktika magazine. This is my 7th appearance in this magazine altogether, and the second time my name has appeared in large front on the front cover. 

 This one continues the tradition of long titles and is called Canines, Reptiles and Other Biological Anomalies.

This time, my name has somehow outranked Paul DiFilipo!

Book Review: Blindspace by Jeremy Szal

Jeremy Szal’s action-packed debut novel Stormblood exploded onto the scene last year, introducing us to alien-DNA-infected, ex-soldier Vakov Fukasawa. After agreeing once more to work for the interstellar government known as Harmony to track down the drug dealers spreading the same stormtech drug that was used to turn him into a killing machine, Vakov finds himself at the beginning of Blindspace facing a huge and complex conspiracy involving drug cartels, cultists, deep space pirates and smugglers.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.