Book Review: Barsk: The Elephant's Graveyard by Lawrence M. Schoen

Some time ago I dreamt that the new issue of ‘Interzone’ featured on the cover a story about giraffes in space. When I woke up, I thought it was a good idea and jotted down some notes, but sadly haven’t written the story yet. Subsequently, I was intrigued when I saw that Lawrence M. Schoen’s debut novel ‘Barsk: The Elephant’s Graveyard’ is about elephants in space.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

A Decade of Translations

It's ten years this month since my first translated story was published: Devotion in Hebrew webzine Bli Panika. Later in 2006 I had a story published in Greek, so I had the interesting experience of my first 2 translations being in different alphabets that I can barely read.


Since then I've gone on to be published in 26 languages - possibly making me the second most translated science fiction short story author in the world. My very short story The Gondolier has been published in 16 languages, and translated into 37 altogether, most of those appearing here on this blog.


2009 was the busiest year for translations, with 23 stories published in 17 languages.


My rate of submissions to other language magazines has slowed down in the past couple of years but I'm still sending out a steady trickle as well as scouring the web for new venues in yet more languages. It's been great fun.

Classic Progress

Last year in this post I commented on some of the so-called classic SF books I've managed to read over the past couple of years. I've got through several more in the past few months:




Helliconia Spring - Brin Aldiss - Excellent, but not quite as ground-breaking as perhaps it was at the time


A Fire Upon the Deep - Vernor Vinge - Brilliant. It was like reading 2 fantastic novels simultaneously.


Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut -  Original and quirky, but I was left underwhelmed


The Windup Girl - Paulo Bacigalupi - Brilliant.

Book Review: Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente

It’s an intriguing set up for a story being set in a solar system as imagined back in the vary earliest days of Science Fiction, with every planet inhabitable and colonised by the great powers of the Victorian era. Spaceships are launched by cannon and filmmakers travel between planets to produce the latest silent blockbuster in black and white. All of this in the 1960s. Or most of it.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

EasterCon 2016

Two months to go and I've bought my EasterCon tickets. This year it's in Manchester and I'll be there for the Saturday as usual.

Book Review: Can and Can'tankerous by Harlan Ellison

For some reason I’ve never read any Harlan Ellison, which is odd considering he’s been writing longer than I’ve been alive. This new collection of ten previously uncollected stories seemed like an ideal opportunity to rectify that oversight. 

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: The Thing Itself by Adam Roberts

The thing about ‘The Thing Itself’ is that it’s difficult to say what the Thing is, which is actually the whole point of the thing itself. It can’t be described or even comprehended, due to the way our minds work. I’m afraid that sentence won’t make much sense unless you’ve read the book.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Favourite Books of 2015

This year I read my usual mixture of some brand new novels, a few from ongoing favourite series and a few of those books hailed as classics. These are the ones I particularly enjoyed, in chronological order of reading:






Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
Hyperion by Dan Simmons
Children of Time by Adrian Tcaikovsky
Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie
The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons
A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie

2015 in Writing

This year was not my most productive for writing, but I still managed to complete 7 stories: 4 flash fiction, the slightly longer than flash Englebert that was published in Daily Science Fiction, and 2 much longer stories, one novelette that took over a year altogether, and one that was almost long enough to be a novelette.






Coming up: a story for an invitation-only anthology, and lots more ideas still to make it onto paper...

Book Review: Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie

The hype over Anne Leckie’s ‘Ancillary’ books is not exaggerated. The judges and nominators of all of the various awards were all correct. I was blown away by Ancillary Justice and equally impressed by Ancillary Sword, so I already knew I was going to love the third volume, Ancillary Mercy, before I started reading it. If anything, it exceeded expectations.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.