Publications of the type:
Swiftly sees Adam Roberts in pastiche mode, wherein he riffs on a proto-sf classic to produce something sharply satirical and piquantly post-modern, all the while shining a light on the elephants in our collective room. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work. Sadly, by comparison to his recent works, Roberts seems to have fallen…
One piece of advice that the aspiring writer hears frequently is “avoid unnecessary words”. Lean prose is essential; include nothing that doesn’t drive the plot or develop a character, exclude flowery language and excess description. Lucius Shepard ignores this cardinal edict—almost every single story in this collection could be told with greater brevity—but the mark…
I had high hopes for Philip Palmer’s Debatable Space. A new science fiction novel from Orbit? A novel from a new author represented by none other than John Jarrold, an agent who knows his genre onions? A novel billed by the press release as “ideal for readers of high concept space opera,” no less? And…
It’s not difficult to get hold of the short stories of Philip K. Dick, if you’re of a mind to do so. However, doing so usually involves unearthing anthologies old and new in which his work has appeared, or going instead to the Complete Works—four hefty volumes, which allegedly contain a fair amount of filler…
There are dozens of analogies one could draw between music and literature. Here’s just one of them: their fandoms are, when reduced to simple behaviours rather than specifics, almost identical in character. Fans, whatever they may be fans of, are obsessives. Here’s another: fiction anthologies are like mixtapes (or playlists, for those too young to…