Another book I’ve read as part of Drew Wagar’s Monday night Twitch book club. Similarly to the situation with H.G. Wells, I’d never read any Jules Verne before, though I am familiar with a number of his more famous stories - particularly Around the World in 80 Days, From the Earth to the Moon, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. And those are mainly via TV and movie adaptations

Progress on The Shadow of Arcadia is still slow. I’m finding this to be the hardest book I’ve yet written, but I am still making progress. It is now past novella-length, and past the length at which I extracted it from the original draft of From the Grave of the Gods, but there’s a lot still to add, and I’m just shy of half the way through. As I write Part Two of the novel, I have a very clear picture in my mind of where it’s heading, and there’s a sequence which I am absolutely dying to write.

I picked up Last Flight of the Necros Night by Eldritch Black & E.G. Seven for free on Amazon, and the premise sounded good, also I really dug the vibe of the cover art. I fancied a little taste of cosmic/sci-fi horror, especially since I recently played the new remake of Dead Space, so I’m on a bit of a kick at the moment. I’m sorry to say this one didn’t do it for me.

I love Studio Ghibli movies. I could endlessly rewatch almost all of them (sorry, Tales From Earthsea, you don’t quite cut the mustard). I know Azalea Forrest is a Ghibli fan as well. So, when I kept seeing Witch in the Lighthouse being described as “Ghibli-esque”, I knew I had to pick it up. You may recognise Azalea Forrest as being the first author to have an interview on this blog, so check it out here to learn more about her and her books.

On Monday nights, fellow author, Drew Wagar runs a Twitch livestream all about science fiction, fantasy and writing. At the end of 2022, he had the idea to use the streams as a sort-of book club, where we would collectively look at old (public domain) sci-fi novels. Our first piece of “homework” was to read some of H.G. Wells’ classic The War of the Worlds if we hadn’t already read it. I’d personally never read it, though I was familiar generally with the story from movies and TV. So I downloaded a copy and started reading…

A Twilight-zone inspired science fiction short story collection from J.D. Sanderson. Anthologies and short story collections really are great, aren’t they? I’ve come to enjoy them over the last couple of years, and it’s one of the more unexpected things to come out of my journey back into reading science fiction. Especially from fellow independent authors. There’s a goldmine of great ideas and exceptional work to be read, that all too often doesn’t get the attention it deserves.

Dr Becky’s YouTube channel is great. I really enjoy the way that she talks about the new discoveries in astrophysics and astronomy. I started watching her videos on and off maybe a year or so before the launch of the JWST, but particularly since the telescope’s launch, her videos have been a great way to keep track of the new discoveries and observations it’s making. I’ve been fascinated by black holes ever since I was a child and so I was quite excited when Dr Becky announced that she was releasing this book…

I’ve seen Legends & Lattes going around the writing community for a long time and heard a great many good things about it. I had it sitting in my wishlist on Amazon for ages, waiting for a good moment to buy, and then when that time came along, the author had the audacity to get a trad publishing deal and for the book to be republished by Tor, which meant it disappeared and I “had” to wait for it to become available again…

The Shield Road was my final read of 2022. I blasted through it during that nebulous span of days between Christmas and New Year where time has no meaning and the human body subsists on the excess snacky bits we over-bought before the festive season. I’ve seen snippets of Dewi’s work before on Twitter, and - seeing the sheer quality of his prose - I knew I would have to pick up The Shield Road as soon as possible.

It took me a while to get through Children of Dune, not because it’s not good - because it is, very much so - but because November and December are heavy months for me, and I didn’t find the time nor the inclination to read very often. So it took a lot longer than I would have liked, and in fact, I finished it just before Christmas. There’s a lot about Frank Herbert’s writing that’s really grown on me as I’ve continued through the series…

You all know by now how much I adore Ursula K. Le Guin’s writing, so it comes as no surprise that I would be over the moon about the prospect of learning more of the art of writing from her. Steering the Craft is a fantastic short guide packed with lots of great insights and writing exercises across a range of different aspects of the craft. Mainly aimed at the kind of writer who’s been doing this thing a little while and wants to hone their craft, it’s an excellent resource for both lone and group work. As such, it doesn’t go over the basics like how to create characters, build fictional worlds etc… But focuses more on style.

The experience of selling signed copies of my books for the first time at craft fairs. At the end of October I bought a stall at the Fairkytes Arts & Crafts Market in Hornchurch. I’d never done anything of the sort before, though I had seen other crafty people in my family exhibit at them. It was certainly a learning experience, so I thought I’d share that with you. I became aware of the Fairkytes Arts & Crafts Market entirely by chance when a family member happened to mention they had seen it advertised on Facebook.

Arthur C Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama has been recommended to me a lot over the last year or so, and for good reason. It’s one of the heavy-hitters of classic science fiction, one many would consider an “essential” read. I’m not so prescriptive as that. Even though I fully believe in the benefits of reading widely, and of having a mixed repertoire of the classic and modern - especially as a writer - I also believe that people should read whatever they want to read, and not to be made to read something that doesn’t suit them. That said, Rendezvous with Rama is one I would highly recommend…

It’s 1st November, and that means it’s the turn of From the Grave of the Gods to have its book birthday! Two book birthdays in a year? Surely not! Now I’m just hogging all the celebrations. But it is true, From the Grave of the Gods, my first ever full-length novel made its way into the world one year ago today. It’s hard to believe. So much has happened since, and so many of you have welcomed my humble series starter with open arms, following along with Commander James Fowler’s remarkable journey. I’m honestly blown away by the reception.

It’s been a while since I last dipped my toes into the Earthsea Cycle. The Farthest Shore was the end of an internal trilogy, and it felt like it brought things to a close, but the story didn’t end there. In Tehanu, we revisit Tenar, twenty-five years on from her escape from The Tombs of Atuan, and we watch Ged wrestle with the consequences of his sacrifice in The Farthest Shore…

I’ve been interested in reading Neuromancer for a while, so you can imagine I was thrilled when my wife’s cousin lent me her copy of the book. It’s sat on my shelf for a while though, because, y’know, TBRs be like that sometimes. I didn’t really know what to expect when I went in to reading it. I have encountered the cyberpunk aesthetic minimally - mainly through movies like Blade Runner, or games such as Cyberpunk 2077…

Launch day has come at last! The third book in the Augment Saga is now available to purchase. I am pleased to announce that The Flight of the Aurora: An Augment Saga Novella is out now and available to buy in ebook format from Amazon for £1.99, and in paperback from all retailers for £6.99. It is also available to read for FREE on Kindle Unlimited! From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank all of you who have supported me in so many ways, whether that’s through pre-orders, reviews, sales, shares, likes, retweets or beta-reads. You’re all amazing, and I truly appreciate you…

Before I started reading Accretion, Dianne warned me on Twitter to “buckle up”, and… Oh boy, yeah. It’s been a wonderful journey going through this space opera saga, and I’m looking forward to reading its conclusion with Luminiferous. Apologies to everyone for the delay in putting out this review. I recently reviewed Gareth L. Powell’s Light of Impossible Stars and About Writing, and for some reason my brain was adamant I only had two reviews to write, not three. So when I did the previous two reviews…

Well, here’s a first for the blog: a review of a non-fiction book! I recently read the new expanded edition of Gareth L. Powell’s About Writing. As a writer myself, I’m keen to learn more about the craft and improve. One great way to do this is simply to write (this is, in fact, the most important way), another is to take advice from established writers. For new (and not so new) writers, there’s so much rich knowledge to be gleaned from those who have been immersed in the industry for a long time…

It’s been a long time coming, but I’ve finally read Light of Impossible Stars. Last time - when I reviewed the second book in the series - I said I wouldn’t leave it too long before reading the last book, but it took more time to get to than I had anticipated. Having now finished the trilogy, I can say with confidence that it is an absolute masterwork. Carefully and meticulously crafted, there’s not a word or phrase used idly. Before I dive into the review proper, I wanted to talk briefly about the prose in a broad sense across the whole series…