Book Review: Chimes at Midnight by Seanan McGuire
Urban fantasy novels are big right now and it’s hard not to love Toby Daye, the unlikely knight and changeling protagonist of Seanan McGuire’s popular series set in magic-rich San Francisco.
Interview With Seanan McGuire
Seanan McGuire, sometimes known as Mira Grant, is one of this generation’s most prolific writers.
Fantasy Cartography, Part 2
Fantasy cartography is like playing SimCity; first you create and then you take an almost gleeful joy in the destruction before rebuilding from the ashes.
Fantasy Cartography for Writers (part 1)
Fantasy cartography isn’t new, of course, from Lord of the Rings to Throne of the Crescent Moon, maps help readers to connect with the universe, to make unfamiliar locales a little more familiar. It’s always fun when there’s a heroic journey involved, be it a quest to dump a shiny bracelet in fiery nastiness or running from doom.
An Interview with Jo Graham
Lesley Smith interviews Jo Graham, the author of numerous books from Stargate tie-in novels to her own Numinous World series.
The Numinous World of Jo Graham
Historical fiction is not my thing and neither is historical fantasy but, then Jo Graham’s books are not simply tales set in ancient times, they’re something more. I first came across her debut novel, a […]
The New Doctor and the Spin Behind It
The BBC is a weird organisation. The night after the first episode of the first series of Doctor Who aired, their news site broke the news that Christopher Ecclestone was leaving at the end of […]
Self-publishing – Four Months In
I pushed the ‘publish’ button on my first e-book way back in March. Other e-books followed in June and since then I’ve branched out from Kindle into iBooks and also the Kobo with the Nook […]
An Interview with Hugh Howey
Hugh Howey wasn’t a name many were familiar with until his self-published book Wool went viral. Now on the best-seller charts across the planet, we sit down to find out what’s next for the Silo and find […]
Camp NaNoWriMo: Doing the Prepwork
On Monday, the last Camp NaNoWriMo of 2013 begins. You’ll have thirty days … okay and maybe one extra … to write something awesome. I’m on holiday but wanted leave some words of wisdom for those planning […]
Haunted by Demons
Da Vinci’s Demons has been the unexpected highlight of the last three months. The life of one Leonardo da Vinci given a mysterious new age spin which turns an already fascinating historical concept into compelling […]
Game of Thrones and the Curse of the Ninth Episode
Traditionally, episode 9 of Game of Thrones has been The Big One. Something HUGE happens which has been building up for an entire season and so it is looked forward to by all with glee, […]
Muse Ridden
As I write this, it’s bank holiday in the UK and Memorial Day in the US. The sun is out and – against all the odds – summer is actually here. So what’s a writer […]
So Who is the Doctor?
I must admit, I’ve not been so excited about a season finale in a longtime. Most of the time, I’m not worried about how a series will end but how I’m going to cope until […]
Star Trek Into Darkness: Review
Let’s talk about Star Trek. Actually, before we do that, let me first lay out my biases: I’m a minor trekkie, having grown up with The Next Generation and the various movies. The 2009 reboot […]
World War Z: The Complete Edition Review
Being visually impaired, I love audiobooks and one of the first ones I listened to via Audible was the abridged version of World War Z, Max Brooks’ oral history of the zombie war. I loved […]
Camp NaNoWriMo the First (2013): Lessons Learned
In just under thirty days I have written over sixty thousand words on two projects and started a third. This is a personal best for me but proves that if you put your mind to […]
The Rising Tide of Alien Languages
Be warned, this post contains spoilers for this week’s Game of Thrones episode “And Now His Watch is Ended”. This morning I sat and watched Daenerys Stormborn finally grow up as she unleashed hell upon […]
NaNoWriMo Woes
After last week, I talked about the whole process of writing and winning National Novel Writing Month – or in this case, it’s summer camp incarnation. You have thirty days to write a fifty thousand […]
So How Do You Write a Novel in 30 Days?
National Novel Writing Month (more traditionally held in November and known as NaNoWriMo) starts early this year. The idea is simple: you write a 50k novel in thirty days. It sounds so easy doesn’t it? […]
Great TV Series Are Like Buses … Two Come Along at Once
This weekend has been all about TV; on Saturday night we had the return of the Doctor but also the high fantasy epic Game of Thrones. I can’t remember the last time I looked forward […]
Self Publishing for Beginners
This week I became an author. After reading about Hugh Howey, I was inspired to collect the three installments of The Carrion Files into an e-book which I then put on Amazon (as part of […]
Transparency, Wool and the Future of Indie Publishing
This week, I started listening to the Wool Omnibus, the audiobook of Hugh Howey’s infamous cult bestseller. I noticed the book a month ago in my local Waterstone’s but it was only this week that […]
The Good and Bad Sides of Digital Minimalism
I strive to be a minimalist, that is, someone who has few physical possessions. For a geek and an Aspie with OCE, this scenario is fraught with problems. For example it’s taken me a good […]
Gaming: It’s All About the Story
I’m excited; the sun is out, spring is here and March brings a slew of video games to various different consoles including Bioshock Infinite and Tomb Raider, both of which I’m dying to play. Tomb […]
Serial Fiction for Beginners
Serial fiction is old school and the best examples I can think of is probably comic strips, soap operas and the black and white episodes of Flash Gordon, Doctor Who and Lost in Space that […]
Walking unto Death
I’ve never read The Walking Dead but I love the TV show and watch it religiously every Monday morning. Series one enthralled me because of the likeable characters who unfailingly seemed to die just as […]
Being Human
Being Human is a fascinating TV show, originating in a time before Twilight became all the rage and posing an interesting question: what if your neighbours weren’t human? We all wonder what our neighbours get […]
Blind Geek For Beginners
Folks who read my author bio will have realized I lead an interesting life or that I have a passion for Starbucks. No wait, that wasn’t it. Yes, you will have noticed that I’m something of a […]
Life on the Fringe
Fringe finished it’s five year run the ot her night and I am grieving it’s loss. At the same time though, as I watched the two hour finale, I was left with a deep sense of […]
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