Category Archive: Chitchat
Heman Chong
Tuesday, March 20th, 2012A friend sent me the link to the latest Rossi & Rossi exhibition: some splendid, beautiful canvases by Heman Chong, a snip at £2300, including the Headless and Snow images, below. Speaking as an author: I'm flattered to be included in such company, and to have provoked such fine art.
Term
Wednesday, September 21st, 2011That time of year again: a new academic term, which will (of course) soak up the lion's share of my time and energy until Christmas. I'll try not to go wholly silent here (or over here, either; here will keep on plodding its daily plod, regardless), but posting may de-frequentify. Still: news is -- I've [...]
Hiatus
Monday, June 20th, 2011Hiatus may refer to: Hiatus, Recess (break) Hiatus, a small difference in pitch between two musical tones Hiatus (linguistics), a phonological term referring to the lack of a consonant separating two vowels in separate syllables, as in co-operation Hiatus (television), a break of several weeks or more in television scheduling Hiatus (anatomy) Hiatus, a discontinuity [...]
Cultural Life
Saturday, March 26th, 2011In other news, I discover I am part of Frank Skinner's cultural life.
Fringe Interview
Thursday, February 24th, 2011A while ago the estimable Scott Wilson interviewed me about parodies and such for Oz's premier genre magazine, The Fringe. You'll find the original here. If you don't do so already then you'll want to keep up to date with The Fringe, for it is good. At any rate, here's the Q & A: The [...]
A new superhero is born
Sunday, February 20th, 2011As you can see, this particular Departmental Board didn't hold my entire attention. When I had finished the doodle, my friend and colleague Doug Cowie leant over and said: 'no he doesn't! He fucks flowers.'
February
Tuesday, February 8th, 2011In what I can't help but take as another example of this interesting phenomenon, SciFi Crowsnest's 'The Hyper Hundred: best scifi novels of 2010' includes my novel Splinter (Solaris 2007). I'm very pleased, obviously.
Interview (2009): revisited
Sunday, December 19th, 2010Here's an interview conducted by my friend Aleksi (formerly of Finland, now I believe living and working in Russia) early last year. It has hitherto appeared only in Finnish, I think; and dates from after the publication of YBT but before NMA. 1. You’re a SFF researcher and writer at the same time. Does your [...]
Twenty ten
Saturday, January 2nd, 2010What's coming? A couple of things, since you ask. New Model Army is published on the 10th of April. I'd say it is the best thing I have ever written, and by quite a wide margin too. That may, of course, not be saying very much; but it's a big deal for me. I'll be [...]
Guardian Book Blog
Friday, September 25th, 2009And by way of following up the previous post, here's something I wrote for the Guardian Book Blog on that very subject. Let the record show: the final portion of the last sentence of the first paragraph read, when I submitted it: '...my reaction was compounded of one part vainglorious ego-puff, one part genuine pride [...]
September
Tuesday, September 1st, 2009Back from holiday, now, and ready for the new month. I have grown a beard. It makes me look older than Christopher Lee, but I quite like it nonetheless. More news soon.
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air
Thursday, June 18th, 2009I suppose it's fair to say that Denis Bayle is less well-known as a science fiction writer than he ought to be. Over at Futurismic, I've reviewed a fictionalised version of Bayle's biography: supposedly written by 'Thomas Hidgekin', who I'm not sure is a real-life figure. My review of this problematic title is already causing [...]
Things
Wednesday, March 18th, 2009Sometimes things don't go so well. Yesterday my bike was stolen (the sort of thing that happened all the time when I lived in London, but which is something of a shock after six hitherto biketheft-free years of living in Staines). Today it seems that my car has died: unsurprisingly, since it's a banger, but [...]
December Commences
Monday, December 1st, 2008I've been busy, and hence elusive, here, but I have been neither idle nor unproductive. I've done a lot of University work, a certain amount of reviewing, and some academic writing for different projects. More to the point I have been plugging away at a Fantasy novel, or more precisely at a short novel in [...]
Podcast, reviews, things
Saturday, October 18th, 2008More news on upcoming publication will follow; but for the time being (as term continues super-busy and rather hectic) here are some smaller things. Firstly, a podcast I did for Gail Martin's excellent 'Chronicles of the Necromancer' site, about Splinter and the end of the world: Ah, the fun we had recording that, what with [...]
Staines and Egham News Aug 08
Thursday, August 28th, 2008Back from holidays now, and working on a couple of things, but nothing as important as this appearance by my son Danny in the local paper. That's right! The local paper! Fame, enduring fame! Click this link and you'll see for youself. Now, in real life he doesn't have ghostly mirror-written letters all across his [...]
News
Thursday, March 27th, 2008A couple of brief items, foremost among them: Darren Turpin, known to some by the spritely monker Ariel, is the man who made this website. He did a fine job, too, as you can see by looking around. More, he has maintained it expertly since creating it despite my periodic attempts at smashing it up [...]
Swiftly proofs
Friday, December 14th, 2007The proofs for Swiftly are here, and I'm going through them with a fine tooth comb. A toothcomb that is fine. A comb with fine teeth. One of them. Well, I say that ... The fact is I'm rubbish at reading proofs, so my wife (who has The Gift when it comes to proofreading; if [...]
I am edged gem?
Wednesday, December 5th, 2007SFRevu seem to think so; viz., comments by John Berlyne: Roberts, whom I always think must be the hardest working writer in the world, is a real shining gem of British genre fiction and one with many, many facets. No two books of his are alike, and his particular skill is extrapolating an entire novel [...]
Back
Tuesday, August 14th, 2007Been away. Back now. Big pile of papers on the welcome mat when we turned the key and tried to swing the door, making it hard to open more than a sliver. Most of this pile was free newspapers, fliers, junk mail and the like. Some was more substantial material that needs dealing with. I've also been spending the [...]
Welcome Back
Friday, May 25th, 2007A long haitus, almost half a year. Part of this was standard downtime, when there was little to report; part of it, on the contrary, was me being too busy with various other stuff to find the time to update the site. Now, however, the estimable Ariel has redesigned the creaky old homepage, ported it over [...]
