The uncanny in literature should be like an MC Escher painting, possessing a realistic-seeming logic our minds cannot grasp and even recoil from.
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ARRIVAL: Like Me, Clever But Not Quite As Clever As It Thinks It Is
Saw Arrival. Give it 7 out of 10. Good idea film, good visuals. What knocked it short of an 8 score was the unconvincing contact procedure. They do almost nothing to prepare Amy Adams for her first encounter. Don’t show her footage of the aliens, don’t even describe them, oh, and one of he regular […]
Read more "ARRIVAL: Like Me, Clever But Not Quite As Clever As It Thinks It Is"Visualising Your Novel’s Characters With Hero Forge
(Being a quick review of the miniature company’s custom design page as a writing tool, plus some thoughts from other authors (including Angry Robot’s Rod Duncan of Bullet Catcher’s Daughter fame)!!!) In my youth I would fantasise about a contraption where I could design model miniatures and they’d pop out of one end fully formed. Think of […]
Read more "Visualising Your Novel’s Characters With Hero Forge"Brexit And The City
I think everyone here living in the multicultural cities have been sucker punched. We assumed everyone in the country was like us. In fact we’d bought into this narrative where Britain had been a bastard for centuries, had learned some vital lesson after getting blitzed fighting a greater evil and had, essentially, embraced caring for […]
Read more "Brexit And The City"Fantasycon 2016
I can report a great time was had by all. Congratulations and thanks to the whole F-con team. I’d report more but I’ve got shit to write and edit and you know how it is when you get back from a con: you wanna hit the ground running, fuelled by all the awesome you’ve been […]
Read more "Fantasycon 2016"Graham Joyce: Two Years Gone
Before I met Graham Joyce I’d stories I’d never submitted anywhere simply because they were set in Leicester. The Midlands, my internal logic ran, aren’t really about anything, have no atmosphere, not in the same way London, the North or Scotland do. And then I saw Graham speak, and then I immediately bought one of […]
Read more "Graham Joyce: Two Years Gone"Chuck Tingle: SF’s Lord Of Misrule
Another Summer another Hugo Awards. Those of you familiar with recent Hugos will know how this time-honoured award (and very good thing) has been under a fair amount of pressure these last few years, being trolled by a bunch B.O-ridden shit-kickers calling themselves the Rabid Puppies (and their more moderate pals, the Sad Puppies, who […]
Read more "Chuck Tingle: SF’s Lord Of Misrule"A Quick Game Of Thrones Prediction: The Valonqar Prophecy
On the prophecy of the Valonqar: The Hound is the Valonqar. That works for me. If GRR Martin was gonna have it that Cersei thinks the Valonqar is Tyrion but it then actually turns out to be Jaime then Martin may as well have used the phrase ‘your little brother’: it’d get the same effect […]
Read more "A Quick Game Of Thrones Prediction: The Valonqar Prophecy"Ants
Beautiful ant towers up on Danes Hill this morning as I came home from work. Both black and red ants working their asses off on their respective nests. Love is in the air and so will a shit-ton of winged ants soon be too (Man, that was a poorly constructed sentence). The hive mating season […]
Read more "Ants"The Fox
A fox followed me to work last night. A young’un, trotting a constant six foot behind me. I kept stopping and he’d stop. But he wouldn’t run. He would just look at me, a nervous look in his eyes but never budging an inch. When I would start walking again he’d start too. Never known […]
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J.L. Worrad 