Review of ‘Semiosis’ by Sue Burke
Inspired new colony story, in which three species try to find a practical, ethical equilibrium over generations on a beautifully-rendered alien planet called Pax, whose otherness is depicted with clever hints and subtle imagery. Gravity exerts more force, for example, so children are smaller and stronger, while their parents’ flesh droops with age like melted […]
Performing ‘Frame Swingers’ at Virtual Futures
BOUNDLESS BODIES Bodies are often a product of the environment in which they are situated. Likewise, minds are partially shaped by both what they receive from the world around them, and the receptors they use to process reality. There is no guarantee that the Earth will be able to maintain its current ecosystems, or that […]
Review of ‘Blackfish City’ by Sam J Miller
This politically and psychologically insightful epic is set in a gloriously-realised post-ecological/social collapse floating city named after a flooded Inuit town, and has some of the best character introduction/development arcs I’ve read in a while. It actually had me shouting ‘Oh no!’ at a sequence near the end – see if you can guess which […]
Review of ‘Europe at Dawn’ by Dave Hutchinson
Unlike most clever dick SF ‘comedy’, this book is actually funny, because the author understands all too well that humour comes from humanity (clue in the name there) as well as wit. Thus, the painful travails of Alice as she negotiates life in the newly independent Scotland’s Estonian embassy while trying to find a decent […]
Review of ‘Halcyon’ by Rio Youers
Deft and unapologetically populist novel about a traumatised girl who can see the future and a cult leader who wants to exploit her, Halcyon has the feel of mid-career Stephen King. It’s more supernatural thriller than SF, although the antagonist and her tormentors are straight out of the Crash handbook as they engineer atrocities to reach an […]
Review of ‘Revenant Gun’ by Yoon Ha Lee
As we learned from the Millennium Bug, a single digit can cause potential havoc with a complex, number-based system. Yoon Ha Lee brilliantly extrapolates this contemporary reality in science-fictional terms by depicting a densely hierarchical civilisation that spans thousands of star systems, all in thrall to ‘the calendar’, an agreed system of ethical, scientific and […]
Celebrity Werewolf performance at EasterCon
Click here to see my performance based on new novel Celebrity Werewolf at EasterCon this weekend.
‘Celebrity Werewolf’ reading at EasterCon – 5.45pm on 21 April
I’ll be doing a performance based on my new novel Celebrity Werewolf in the Discovery 1 Room at Ytterbium EasterCon this Sunday 21 April at 5.45pm. Joining me will be ace fellow authors Anna Smith Spark and Russell A Smith (a conspiracy of Smiths!): Click here to read my write up of Russell interviewing Anna at the […]
‘Celebrity Werewolf’ launch details
My new novel Celebrity Werewolf launches at 5pm on Friday 19 April in the Tereshkova Room at Ytterbium EasterCon. Ytterbium is the 70th element, and this is the 70th EasterCon, hence the name. The launch is one of several by my publisher, NewCon Press, headed by the ever-inventive Ian Whates. Here are the other books coming […]