Book Review: Alliance Rising by C.J. Cherryh & Jane S. Fancher

I‘ve read all of C.J.Cherryh ‘s ‘Alliance-Union’ books in recent years, including the ones that were only vaguely related in that they were also somewhere in space but bore no relation whatsoever to the main sequence of books.

Read the rest  of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky

In Adrian Tchaikovsky’s 2015 novel Children of Time, we followed some of the descendants of humanity as they travelled among the stars on voyages of hundreds or thousands of years, looking for earlier colonies of humans that had been sent out from a now dead Earth. This sequel, Children of Ruin, follows a similar format, alternating the account of one of the early exploratory and colonisation missions, with a follow-up mission that arrives in the same system thousands of years later.

read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Return of the Naked Mole Rats

I'm very pleased to anounce that my short story The Righteous Indignation of the Naked Mole Rats will be appearing on the Tall Tales TV podcast in July. Chris Herron did an excellent job of narrating my flash fiction story Escapades in Time recently, and this story seemed like it would fitr his style well. I'm looking forward to hearing it.

Book Review: Beneath the World, a Sea by Chris Beckett

When I read the cover blurb for Chis Beckett’s new novel Beneath The World, A Sea, it seemed vaguely familiar. A British policeman is sent to investigate the killings of the indigenous species of the Submundo Delta, the Muendes, whom the local human populace do not consider to be sentient. The Muendes mess with their minds and to make things stranger and the only way into the Delta is through the Zona, a region that wipes any memories of having been there.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: Morhelion by Dominic Dulley

Morhelion follows on from Dominic Dulley’s debut novel, the breezy space opera adventure Shattermoon, bringing back the roguish and mismatched crew of the Dainty Jane to mix it up with a new batch of criminal gangs, opportunists, charming conmen and villainous authority figures.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Estonian Mole Rats

The Estonian translation of my story The Righteous Indignation of the Naked Mole Rat is now out at Reaktor.

I sent the story to them around 3 years ago and had given up all hope, so this was a nice surprise!




This is the third language for this story, following English and Spanish.

Book Review: Atlas Alone by Emma Newman

Atlas Alone is the fourth novel set in Emma Newman’s Planetfall universe, all of which I have enjoyed and found to be engaging and emotionally charged, with wonderfully complex characters and an intriguing background. Each of the first three novels stands alone and could be read in any order, but this book follows on directly from After Atlas and really needs to be read in the right order.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Tall Tale TV

Today's episdoe of podcast Tall Tale TV includes 3 stories, by myself and my two eldest boys Alex and Haydn!

Brothers in Qualms by Alex

The Final Battle is But a Game by Haydn

Escapades in Time by me.

Escapades in Time is a dialogue-only story, and the narration by Chris Herron carries it off brilliantly, making it sound even better than when I wrote it!

Magazine Review: Visions #1: Visions of Home

It’s been a long time since a new UK-based print genre magazine has appeared, so I was delighted to discover Visions, which has arrived to fill that void. When I started writing reviews years ago, I particularly concentrated on this type of publication, switching gradually to novel reviews as the magazines disappeared one by one.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Familiy Podcasting Triptych

Tall Tale TV will be podcasting an episode containing three stories, one each by myself, and my two sons Alex and Haydn!

Alex pitched the idea when the editor said his story was too short to podcast by itself. I've not had many stories podcast, so I'm rather pleased and it will be particularly exciting to hava e whole family podcast to ourselves!