In case you missed it, TTA Press included a link to my story “Mid-Life Crisis” in their selection of Christmas goodies:

Click here for link.

I found the following quote from actor Stephen Mangan in a copy of yesterday’s Telegraph:

“Science. It is the way, the truth and the light. Not just for its beauty, its ability to deliver us from quacks and astrologers and homeopathy, its ability to illuminate the strange and wonderous place that it this universe, but also for being the gift of accumulated knowledge that mankind continues to hand down through the generations.”

I can’t say I’ve paid much attention to Mangan’s work as a comedy actor in the past, but this quote pretty much sums up the the way I feel about science, and does so in the most succinct and elegant manner.

On the Innsmouth Free Press website, Paula R Stiles reviews the Future Bristol anthology:

“If you’re familiar with the style of Hub Magazine or Irish ‘zine Albedo One, you’ll have a pretty good idea what to expect. Lots of snark, off-the-wall weirdness you won’t normally see in North American specfic (the publisher is from Texas), and considerable attention to world-building… The stories themselves are lovely (being an editor of a ‘zine, I am one picky bitch, so that’s saying a lot); the editing is nice and clean; I love the cover (okay, I really love the cover); the whole thing is as professionally-done as any big publisher puts out; and it’s great to see so many female writers and protags. When Silvia and I say that we wish we could see X type of specfic more often, we mean this type of stuff.”

While in the latest issue of Vector, the critical journal of the British Science Fiction Association, Ben Jeapes writes:

“Future Bristol is a collection of love stories for the city of Bristol… The whole collection is a good read by a good set of authors.

This video takes you from the snowy peaks of the Himalayas to the very edge of the observable Universe. I hope you find the expanding scale as fascinating as I do:

All our myths are attempts to address three questions:

1. Where did we come from?
2. How do we behave now we’re here?
3. Where are we going?

Science fiction concerns itself mainly with the third question (and you could argue that the other two are the purview of religion and mainstream literature, respectively). Bearing all this in mind, here are seven things I’ve learned about writing:

1. Some days, writing is like scrabbling around in a dark pool looking for pretty stones.
2. If you want people to read your story, write about people.
3. You will be remembered for what you write, not what you fail to write.
4. If a reader has to put your book down and use a dictionary to look up the meaning of the clever word you’ve used, they may not come back.
5. Stuck for inspiration? Stop thinking about it. Have a bath. Go for a walk. Clean the car. Distract yourself and inspiration will strike.
6. Want to be a more productive writer? Give up caffiene and quit smoking. Seriously. Both are counter-productive distractions.
7. The only thing more terrifying than beginning to write, is not to write at all.

“The impulse to create beauty is rather rare in literary men… Far ahead of it comes the yearning to make money. And after the yearning to make money comes the yearning to make a noise.”

- HL Mencken

I have a lot of books I need to catch up with, so one of my New Year’s resolutions will be to work my way through the following list:

• JG Ballard – The Complete Short Stories
• Bruce Sterling – Ascendancies
• Cordwainer Smith – The Rediscovery Of Man
• Harlan Ellison – The Essential Ellison
• Arthur C Clarke – The Collected Stories
• Philip K Dick – Human Is?
• Vernor Vinge – The Collected Stories

Which books are you planning to read next year?

If you missed this year’s BristolCon event, don’t worry; the convention will be running again next year.

The convention will take place on November 6th, 2010 at the Ramada Hotel in Bristo, a two minute walk from Bristol Temple Meads railway station.

Following the success of this year’s event, the convention is being expanded from an afternoon to a whole day’s worth of programme events. Guests and rates have yet to be finalised, but will be announced in due course.

Click here to read my review of BristolCon 2009.

I was trying to clear down some of the comment spam from the website’s spam folder (there’s been an awful lot of Russian spam over the last couple of weeks), and I somehow managed to delete the last 20 genuine comments. Sorry about that. So, if you’ve made a comment recently and are wondering what happened to it, now you know.

Pendragon Press has advance PDF copies of my novel Silversands available for reviewers.

Click here for more info.