It's October! You know what that means, don't you? ... No? Well, I guess that's allowable as this is the very first #FurryBookMonth! For more details, including special prices on many fine furry publications, head over here: https://furrywritersguild.com/furry-book-month/ In the meanwhile, here are three short reviews of some of the furry fiction I've read so… Continue reading Three quick reviews for #FurryBookMonth
Category: Personal
Posts of a personal nature.
Pneumonic November
So. I've been laid up with pneumonia for most of the month, including a six day stay in hospital to receive treatment with IV antibiotics and ventilators after my lungs more or less decided to stop working. Thank heavens for the NHS and fie on any politician trying to pull it apart. Other than that,… Continue reading Pneumonic November
My ounce of bile: Yarn is cowardly.
TL;DR: I have an opinion on the Hugos/Sad Puppies thing, people who cry out 'we just wanna write good old fashioned entertainin' yarns!', and the state of Science Fiction as a genre. For context if you didn't know (and wow, are YOU out of the loop), a bunch of people hijacked one of the Science… Continue reading My ounce of bile: Yarn is cowardly.
Post-con shenanigans, titles, and outlines.
Slow off the mark this month! So. I attended both LonCon 3 (Worldcon) and Eurofurence 20 last month, and, man. I did not expect things to be so tiring. I actually managed to give myself a fairly heinous foot blister by the end of Eurofurence, so, I've been taking the excuse to be fairly lazy… Continue reading Post-con shenanigans, titles, and outlines.
On to the next project + Cons
So. My novel Dog Country's done. Or, more accurately, it's as done as I feel like I can reasonably make it in the time available to me. In theory it's the second draft, or at least that's what I've got it numbered as, practically it's kind of a third/fourth pass. At some level I would… Continue reading On to the next project + Cons
Risking burnout and writerly fetishes.
So. As those of you who follow me on twitter/generally stalk me are likely aware, I am currently working flat out on getting the first draft for Dog Country done. This has resulted in some thoughts, which I will get to in a moment. First up, things are getting finalized very rapidly on Orbital Decay,… Continue reading Risking burnout and writerly fetishes.
Something on the way, back in the slush piles, and Ancillary Justice
Okay, so, getting through things roughly in order... In absolutely positive news, things are slowly getting finalized on a novella I've produced for Abaddon Books. What I can confidently say at the moment is that it's provisionally titled 'Orbital Decay', it's around 30 000 words long (fractionally longer than Dangerous Jade), and it's set in… Continue reading Something on the way, back in the slush piles, and Ancillary Justice
Recent Reviews, Current Activities
Okay, so, in the interest of keeping things all updated and everything on here, since last we spoke, I've gotten some neat reviews, some walks beside the Thames, achieved a lunar landing with a slide rule and logarithm table, and stood in a queue for two and a half hours. Firstly on the reviews front,… Continue reading Recent Reviews, Current Activities
A very brief review of Papers, Please.
Papers, Please is one of those games that, I feel, explores what storytelling in videogames is all about. From the point we're confronted with a near perfectly immersive interface -- we interact with the world by moving documents around, as we step into the role of a passport inspector/border checkpoint desk agent -- to the… Continue reading A very brief review of Papers, Please.
To Iain Banks,
This was my contribution to the flood of messages supporting Iain (M) Banks when the announcement of his terminal illness was made. I post it now, after news of his passing, because I simply have no other good way to mark the moment and feel like I have to do something with my grief. ----… Continue reading To Iain Banks,