Adapting ‘As Good As It Gets’ and hearing Charity’s unceasing voice in my head gave me the idea of writing ‘Diamond Roads’ as a novel so, over six months, I did. It was hugely exciting. Every day I would look forward to finding out what each character did. The evolution of the story came to […]
An epic fantasy novel that actually has an ending! That alone would get it an above-average helping of stars but this novel is also a multi-faceted adventure that gleefully subverts a number of beguiling but insidious conventions, like the expected appearance of the main female character and tedious notions of manhood associated with warriors. We […]
I’d wanted to write a piece of TV science fiction for some time. I thought about ‘The Psychometric Man’ but I couldn’t call it that. In the meantime, ‘Engines of Creation’ by K Eric Drexler, a book that posited the idea of nanotechnology, had gradually been popularised since its publication in 1986. I started to […]
Peter Capaldi’s first series as the Doctor was a return to the ‘spooky stories about a spooky man’ template of the classic series and a shift away from the show’s increasing tendency to be primarily about itself. However, the new season’s opener, ‘The Magician’s Apprentice’, seemed at first to be a move back towards that […]
Den Patrick interviewed by Gillian Redfearn at the BSFA, 22 April ’15 Den Patrick has written the comedic ‘War Fighting Manuals’, the ‘Erebus’ fantasy novel trilogy and maintains a popular blog. One of the best-known entries in the latter is ‘The Gentleman Geek’, which details ten dos and don’ts of the geek about town. It’s good […]
Scott K Andrews interviewed by Jason Arnopp at the British Science Fiction Association Meeting, 25 February 2015 The workings of time travel are impossible to show without telling, asserts Scott K Andrews, author of the young adult time travel trilogy ‘TimeBomb’, so in the first of the books he avoids this conundrum by deliberately not explaining […]
Shortly after my last gig as Robert Blair, WH Smiths ran a science-fiction short story competition to win a bit of computer kit. I can’t remember what the kit was and I certainly didn’t want it but I did want to win the competition. I have been writing since the age of 14. I date […]
William Gibson is a very long man. Until you actually see him in person, you don’t realise how long he is; his legs alone seemed to dwarf the interviewer. It’s one of the unexpected characteristics of an author I have admired since 1991, when I first read that great opening line ‘The sky above the […]
Who exactly are the Sons of the Crystal Mind and if that is what the book is called why aren’t they on the cover? Well, the Sons are an insane cult who worship the Basis, which is the part of Diamond City that enables you to grow whatever you want (clothes, food, flying bikes, even […]
Here is the beautiful cover. It features the heroine’s beloved sister, the People’s Princess Ursula Freestone, whose eyes have been altered to include the logo of the most powerful company in Diamond City…
Life in Sci-Fi 