Magazine Review: Interzone #230

The latest issue of Interzone celebrates 25 years of Nick Lowe’s film review column ‘Mutant Popcorn’ with a reprint of the very first column, and an interview with the man himself. It’s an impressive feat for any genre magazine to have reached the stage of being able to celebrate a quarter century in its existence. Of course to go with this feature there is the usual fair-sized selection of book, film and DVD reviews, plus five stories.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi

In a brilliantly imaginative future, Hannu Rajaniemi has created a distinctive world as the setting for his debut novel The Quantum Thief. Set mostly in a city that moves across the surface of Mars, it’s full of quantum technology, physically and mentally augmented humans, secretive vigilantes and a whole host of bizarre developments that initially left my brain in a whir.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: Writers of the Future, the First 25 Years

I once sent a story to the Writers of the Future competition, but never heard back. Lots of other authors did though and many of the winners over the past 25 years have gone on to become well known authors. Writers Of The Future – The First 25 Years is a celebration of the successes of the competition and the stories behind it. This is a big book – a hard back almost a foot square, full of photos, interviews, quotes and anecdotes.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Two Thirds

Gap Years passed 60,000 words this week, that's 2/3 of the way there. The writing is going fast and smooth at the moment. I'm not entirely sure I'll finish by the end of the year now though; January 19th is looking like the finish date. Can't squeeze any more writing time out of the day without foregoing sleep.

Steampunk Anthology Developing

I've read several stories for the Immersion Book of Steampunk, and they're all pretty fantastic. I now have a full complement of contributors working away on their stories and so far I have a wide variety that encompasses adventure, romance, SF, espionage, fantasy and clockpunk, set in the past and the future.

The TOC should be finalised in December. It's going to be great.

Murky Congratulations

The fabulous Murky Depths magazine has deservedly won the British Fantasy Society award for Best Magazine, on its third anniversary. Of course, the magazine got off to a great start by including a story of mine in issue #1...

Book Review: Blood and Iron by Tony Ballantyne

I enjoyed the first of Tony Ballantyne’s Penrose series Twisted Metal last year. The book ended with all of the characters’ stories unfinished, but also with lots of questions about the robot inhabitants of Penrose unanswered. Blood and Iron continues where the previous volume left off, developing the characters further and beginning to unravel the mysteries of the robotic life forms.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: Zendegi by Greg Egan

I’ve been following Greg Egan’s work since his short stories first appeared in ‘Interzone’ twenty years ago and I’ve been reading his novels as they appear ever since. His first novel ‘Quarantine’ was the first book I picked up because of recognising the author’s name from his short stories. That has happened very few times since.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: Journeys by Ian R Macleod

Subterranean Press are regularly putting out anthologies by some very well known authors, and with great artwork to match. The scene on the cover of Ian R MacLeod’s anthology ‘Journeys’ is wonderfully evocative of the tales that take place in a world, or worlds, subtly different to our own. They are places that seem very much like the world we live in, but where history, or physics, or the powers of the elements are just not the same.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Roadmaker Shortlisted for Ictineu Award

The Catalan translation of Roadmaker that appeared in Catarsi #1 has been shortlisted for the Ictineu Awards, in the Best Translated Story category. Also nominated is fellow linguaphile and multiply translated author Frank Roger, and Spanish author Santiago Examino, former editor of Efimeras who translated some of my flash fiction into Spanish.

This is the first time one of my stories has been shortlisted for anything, and I'm very pleased.