I was tempted to start this post with ‘And so it begins . . .’, but that would be wrong. Because Google’s leviathan-like surfacing in the book market has been a long time coming. Google Editions, the company’s new online bookstore, is due to start selling this summer. I have mixed feelings about Google’s strategy. On one hand, I’ve…
This afternoon, I was at a function in the headquarters of the Arts Council to celebrate the announcement of Ireland’s first ever Children’s Laureate. A host of us crowded into the room to hear President Mary McAleese declare Siobhan Parkinson our first Laureate. So for the benefit of anyone who doesn’t spend half their life immersed in the children’s…
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…
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…
Web problems, Derren Brown, that volcano and Philip Pullman.
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…
Trim Hot Air Balloon Festival and some military applications.
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…
‘The Vile Desire to Scream’, my first free ebook novella.