What an opulent life the future holds. The first tower of a new high rise complex in London offers state of the art elevators, in-built gym, pool and squash facilities, and includes a supermarket stocked with the biggest brands and ...
Read More »Science fiction and fantasy TV theme songs: An assault on the ears
Theme songs are important. They set the mood and make fans immediately think of their favourite shows. Unfortunately, science fiction and fantasy television have been consistently appalling at picking a good song for the job. Why is that? When Star ...
Read More »Patchwerk by David Tallerman: What science fiction novellas should be
This is what science fiction writing should be. Having fun with outlandish ideas while keeping the prose simple and elegant. My love of SFF writing was born from reading Ursula Le Guin and Tallerman’s new novella follows in her daunting ...
Read More »Trees: You don’t believe in anything
One of my favourite things about science fiction is the ‘what if?’ questions the genre explores. Not just from a writing perspective – though challenging yourself with a ‘what if?’ writing exercise can be great fun – but for the ...
Read More »Consistency is king: Magic and powers in fantasy stories
Fans of SFF works have a bad reputation for being nit-picky, especially when it comes to the details of world-building. Strong world-building, however, is a big part of why readers are drawn to science fiction and fantasy. If we were ...
Read More »Made to Kill by Adam Christopher
From the blurb, Made to Kill sounded like it was 100% made for me. A science fiction noir with robots? Sign me up! My love affair of the noir genre began in childhood after discovering Humphrey Bogart in The Big ...
Read More »Gender representation in Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
I have been working my way through a number of classic science fiction novels, an area of my reading I’ve felt has been lacking. The latest was Robert Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I found the novel a ...
Read More »FantasyCon 2015: How to be an awesome panellist
For all writers, readers, publishers, agents, and general genre enthusiasts, FantasyCon is one of the friendliest and informative places to be. For those of you unfamiliar with FantasyCon, it is unlike the conventions you may be used to – it ...
Read More »The Cheltenham Literature Festival: Part 2
Following on from yesterday, here’s a further breakdown of some more of the events at one of the year’s biggest literary celebrations: Julian Barnes The Man-Booker winner was talking about his latest piece of non-fiction, Keeping An Eye Open: Essays ...
Read More »Con Man: Because convention man doesn’t sound as cool
Those of us who attend conventions aren’t as scary or weird as we’re often made out to be – though that’s not to say there aren’t plenty of scary weirdos (or terrifying people in Alien costumes that like to sneak ...
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