A factor behind the Paris attacks (edit: and now Lebanese attacks) might be ISIS attempting to control the world’s media narrative. See, if reports are to believed they’ve just had to give up the entire Shingal region after sustained attack from the Peshmerga (plus bombing support). ISIS haven’t had a strategic victory in some time […]
Read more "ISIS: Frantically Hand Waving"Much as I love HPL’s fiction and as much as I generally admire the mind that comes across in his letters, this is the right thing to do and a long time coming. I find Lovecraft’s bigotry infuriating as I do vile: he had a bright, flexible intellect in almost every other area but pigheadedly and […]
Read more "On That World Fantasy Award Trophy And Lovecraft"As a boy, the poet Ovid would talk in rhyme as he went about his day on the family farm. His dad would clip him about the ear and tell him to stop, saying “Do not be a poet, my boy! Homer died but a poor man!” (How Ovid senior knew this is a mystery- […]
Read more "Follow Your Writerly Dreams, or, Better Still, Don’t."It’s almost trite to say I want that anomaly around that star to be ‘megastructures’. Everyone does, just about. We’ll never contact them of course- they’re simply too far away- but the knowledge of the existence of alien civilisation far beyond our own in it’s achievements would have a profound effect on us. It’d be […]
Read more "What The Alien Megastructures Would Mean To Me"Much as I quite like the new Bond stories they messed up giving him an origin story. How do you explain the next actor and all the actors before? To me, the name James Bond was a cover name agents took along with the 007 number (it would explain why he’s so carefree giving his […]
Read more "My James Bond pet theory and how Skyfall ruined it!"Is it all that surprising the E-cigarette was invented in China? Or, at least, anywhere outside of the West? There was no technical barrier preventing western nations from fabricating such a device–essentially a cylinder with an atomizer in it–for perhaps as long as a century, and the medical and ethical impetus to do so since […]
Read more "Review: Cold Turkey by Carole Johnstone"One of the delights of writing scripts for Badshoes Film is seeing on set photos come in. I (and, I imagine, my scribble-partner Lucy Wade) sit there trying to decipher what’s what, who’s playing what character, what’s been kept, cut, modified or improved upon. You know that squee you get from seeing teaser photos of […]
Read more "On Set Photo Fun"Don’t know if this is something to do with ageing, but I find I’m more interested by character than ideas when it comes to writing these days. I have less idea bursts than I did in my twenties, which scared me for a little while but I’m comfortable in that now. People fascinate me more […]
Read more "Quick Thoughts on Character Over Ideas."Eastercon have released a questionnaire, so if you want a say in the future of that convention now’s your chance. My main suggestion was to allow the general public into the dealer rooms, possibly even the art rooms. Frankly, I’m a little embarrassed for fandom every time the person on the door turns some curious […]
Read more "Eastercon Questionnaire (and a suggestion I made)"So I got tagged in a game of 777 by the wonderful Teresa Edgerton, fantasy author supreme, out on Twitter. The idea is you pick seven lines from the seventh page of your current work in progress. Here goes: Hargy wouldn’t pee himself. He wouldn’t let them see him piss himself. They walked past the […]
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