Book Review: Of Ants and Dinosaurs by Cixin Liu

Cixin Liu is well known for his big concept novels, hard Science Fiction and far-future extrapolations: The Three Body Problem, Ball Lightning and The Supernova Era being the novels already translated into English. His latest work to be translated, Of Ants and Dinosaurs comes as somewhat of a surprise then.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: Immobility by Brian Evenson

I’ve read quite a few post-apocalyptic tales and there are certain things you come to expect: bleak landscapes, dust, desperados eking out an existence, rubble and debris. Brian Evenson’s novel Immobility has all those things but starts from a unusual position and paints a dire picture of the future that is more bizarre than most.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Haggis, Rhino and Other Unexpected Wildlife

The sequel to Squirrels, Foxes and Other Fine Specimens, my new story Haggis, Rhino and Other Unexpected Wildlfe is out now in Hungarian magazine Galaktika.

Unusualy, this story hasn;t yet been published in English, but as Galaktika had already published Squirrels... they were keen to have the sequel too.




My name is on the cover again, which is always nice.

Accountability Out Now

My hybrid story Accountability is out now in issue 3 of Hybrid Fiction magazine.

In an office in Chelmsford there's a tea room that leads to an alternate reality, and there's a man who can't stop counting...

Estonian Stalker Award 2020 Voting List

The voting list for the 2020 Stalker award has appeared. It includes my story 'The Righteous Indignation of the Naked Mole Rat' along with, I presume, every other SFF story translated into Estonian last year.

Accoutability Teaser

As part of their countdown to the April issue of Hybrid Fiction, there's an introduction and a teaser to my story Accountability.


The little section in the teaser is a perfect introduction into this odd little story.

Book Review: By Force Alone by Lavie Tidhar

In recent years there were a couple of films that purported to tell the more historically accurate stories behind such legendary figures as King Arthur and Robin Hood. For those who like a Robin Hood or King Arthur story, they were a bit of a disappointment. In By Force Alone, Lavie Tidhar retells the legend of King Arthur in a completely different way.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: War of the Maps by Paul McAuley

There’s a real sense of wonder right from the beginning of Paul McAuley’s new novel War Of The Maps. Set in the far, far future among an ancient, worn-out civilisation on an artificially created world, it seemed first of all medieval, then maybe Wild West or possibly a little bit steampunk.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

The Good Ship Munders

The space opera novelette The Good Ship Munders that I co-wrote with Alex and Haydn has been accepted by Aphelion, the home of several of my earliest stories. It won't be appearing there till the end of the year, but I'm looking forward to this fun story seeing the light of day.

Book Review: Qualityland by Marc-Uwe Kling

Translated from the German by Jamie Lee Searle, Qualityland is Marc-Uwe Kling’s satirical novel of a future where everything is controlled by algorithms. Set in a European country now known as Qualityland, it’s like living inside Google: adverts, deliveries, partners, jobs and every other aspect of each person’s life is assessed, rated, personalised and provided by all-knowing computer algorithms.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.