I missed this adventure at the flicks due to babysitting duties, despite it being on the list of movies to see regardless of child welfare. Ah well. Instead, my journey involved waiting years to see it, then hearing endlessly about how awful it was from just about everyone. The ideal of course would be that […]
‘Children of Time’ is one of those books one devours obsessively and then mourns once it’s finished. Such has been its impact that I don’t know what to read next (apart from more of this author’s books). Either way, I’ve had to go off-genre and read a bloody thriller for my next book. Yes, ‘Children […]
After I have sat through ‘Stick Man’ eighteen times, my daughter Precious Child Khaleesi Gollum, who is 4.5 years old, has finally agreed to watch ‘Star Wars: A New Hope’, which I have downloaded at vast expense despite having owned it on almost every media that has existed since 1978. Incredibly, I’d forgotten a number […]
Take a fantastic gamble… Smiler’s Fair is one of those places you wish existed so you could go there. Not to stay for long mind but just so you could see what it’s like. I have a feeling it would be a bit like a kind of portable Las Vegas with loads more mud and […]
I’d like this to be a TV show just to hear kids saying, “Did you see ‘Rupert Wong, Cannibal Chef’ last night?”. Then again, given that this unusual and gripping novella starts with the arguments of a gang of undead babies for starting their own union it’s unlikely to be on before the 9pm watershed […]
Adam Christopher’s new novel ‘Made to Kill’, a 1960s-set Hollywood private detective story in which the detective is a robot who moonlights as an assassin, is a great fun book with an inspiring story behind it. Adam had just sold a space opera trilogy to Tor in the US; Tor then sent Adam some questions […]
Anne Charnock’s debut novel ‘A Calculated Life’ began as an independently published work that through great reviews came to the attention of Amazon’s SF imprint, 47North. After they re-published the book it was nominated for the 2013 Philip K Dick and Kitschie Awards. Anne discussed the novel with fellow SF writer Adam Roberts at the […]
THE PSYCHOMETRIC MAN Robert Blair ate lunch and watched the interview on a large screen. The interview, which was taking place in the next room, had reached one of its preordained crisis points. “But will I get the pay rise?” The young woman, whose name for today was Sally, leaned forward. Her expression of barely […]
It was the mid 1990s. We were, you may be surprised to learn or depressed to recall, emerging from the last recession, it too caused by hard-to-credit greed and stupidity. I was working as an actor. Yes, working although this particular job felt morally equivocal. It involved playing the part of a disgruntled, rather pretentious […]
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 […]
Life in Sci-Fi 