I’ve been thinking recently, would our species have achieved its intelligence, civilisation, technology etc if we hadn’t have been omnivorous? And, by extension,does intelligent life in the universe only (or very typically) evolve from omnivorous species? My thinking is that a carnivorous or herbivorous species is locked into a non-risk taking groove, while omnivores have […]
Read more "The Omnivorous Mind"Been playing around with backgrounds on Scrivener’s compose setting recently. To be honest I was wasting time: I figured any image around the page as I wrote would be distracting. Initially my instincts were correct. The bright white of the page doesn’t sit well with any imagery along its borders, at least not to me. […]
Read more "Scrivener’s Page Fade Feature: Any good? Yeah, Actually."You never see/read any cyberpunk futures where people have cutlasses. Which is weird because in practice they’re the same thing as katana: a one-sided shortish sword mainly intended for slashing with. Or, it’s just been suggested to me, an Indian tulwar. Which, like a cutlass, has better hand protection than a katana. A near-future full […]
Read more "Katana and Science Fiction"So I’ve got a novel coming out soon with the wonderful folks at Castrum Press. I’ll leave it at that for now but, in the mean time, here’s a bio on their site, detailing who I am, what I’m about and the risks I may or may not present to the public at large. […]
Read more "Debut Novel News!!!"I’ve started singing to the cat when I feed her. I sort of improv each time I come back from work. So far, my favourites have been the 1930’s ballroom crooner ‘Oh Leila (what a swell gal)’ and the Beach Boys-inspired ‘Leila Kitty Beach Party’. I’ll run out of material sooner or later but I’m […]
Read moreI think genre writers and artists can find real inspiration in history’s cul de sacs, its conceptual still births. How would things be if they had seized the world’s imagination and become the norm? It’s a great launchpad for both worldbuilding and tone. The European powers, desperate to remedy the hellish stalemate of the trenches, […]
Read more "WWI Body Armour: An inspirational anachronism"I was somewhere in the exhibition hall when the liquorice began to take hold. Sugar-coated stuff, metre-long, hanging from my mouth like a tongue as I pushed the mobility scooter full-tilt across the wide and depopulated floor. Sure, there were people, a few, but most of us had gone, readying for the Hugos. I could […]
Read more "My Worldcon Saturday In A Mobility Scooter"The super-rich have damaged our world while asset stripping it and the people of the Caribbean, Texas and Bangladesh are having to pick up the tab. If change doesn’t come through rationality and sense in the next ten years it’ll come through blood and violence in the next fifty. We’re an early stage planetary civilisation […]
Read moreTim Susman is a speculative fiction author who lives in sunny San Francisco (If you’re not familiar picture Clacton-On-Sea with classier burger joints and wider roads). Like a lot of authors in this digital age he’s recently branched out into having more than one name. Those of you into the anthropomorphic, or ‘furry’, literature scene will no […]
Read more "Author Interview: Tim Susman (aka Kyell Gold)"
J.L. Worrad 