Space to Work, Rest and Play

So I did my back in. I managed to get a new TV corner unit on special offer, and had help getting it into the car, but had to get it out on my own. I was well impressed with my own display of Herculean strength, until I got up the following day with a stiff back – a…

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The Hard Facts

Charles Stross, one of the UK’s most successful sci-fi writers, and a compulsive and prolific blogger, has written a series of posts about writing for a living, but there’s one post I think everyone should see, about the lifestyle of a writer. There are a lot of blunt truths here – though there are some key differences in the…

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Something Old, Something New . . .

I would be wary of claiming that I could define what makes great art, or what qualities bestow the term ‘classic’ on something – particularly when that term can turn most kids off it quicker than pressing the power button. But for me, a great story is one that ticks all my various and demanding boxes and leaves me…

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Ideas for the Future

I’m borrowing the theme/title from Trinity Week for this piece, partly because of the great event I got to do with Philip Reeve and Conor Kostick last Tuesday, and partly ‘cos it fits nicely with the other stuff I want to talk about . . . An article I read recently on Publishers Weekly about new apps for the…

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Almost as Strange as Fiction

In ‘Small-Minded Giants’, I described a city built in the form of a machine that could generate electricity using the movement and activity of the people living within in it. Since then I learned about a train station in Tokyo where they had a very simple version of this idea built into the floor at the ticket barriers, the…

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Fun Lovin' Storytellin'

So I finally got to see the Fun Lovin’ Criminals perform live. Though the fact that I saw them in Navan made it a bit surreal – especially during ‘The King of New York’, when Huey Morgan had the Naaaaavan crowwad chanting ‘Free John Gotti’ over and over again. Did they know Gotti was a gangster and a murderer…

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