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…
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…
‘The Vile Desire to Scream’, my first free ebook novella.
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…
Introducing the Armouron Knights.
I’ve had an ongoing love-hate relationship with Apple for many years. The affair started back in the early days of my illustration and design career. It was a time when the print industry was moving away from print-ready artwork. At that point, every aspect of a page design had to be laid out on a board and photographed to…
‘The Water Babies’, Jean-Claude Van Damme’s surprise offering and ‘100 Bullets.
The spectacle of ‘Avatar’, a steampunk ‘Sherlock Holmes’, the bizarre imaginations of Jeunet et Caro, and a very fitting prequel to the ‘Mortal Engines Quartet’.
So, before Christmas, we took the kids to the National Concert Hall to see ‘The Snowman’. It was a great show, with the half-hour film as the main event, but also featuring the Spotlight Stage School doing some excellent renditions of Disney tunes – although there were a few strange choices, given the range they had to choose from….
It’s probably fitting that I was reading some of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories over Halloween, as he was truly the grandaddy of modern horror. Any secondary school student can tell you that writing in the nineteenth century was a little wordy and long-winded for modern tastes. But with no television, radio, cinema or console games, they had plenty…