I began this blog about three years ago,  with a great and sluggardly reluctance , having received quite a few petitions signed by the entir...

SF seems fond of David Graeber. Hopefully it's because he's from the future. Charles Stross's book Neptune's Brood , whic...

You again. I've been thinking a bit about how SF short stories, when they bunch up, often turn into novels. And how so many SF novels ...

This review first appeared in Interzone #248 in September 2013. There’s something faintly paradoxical about the whole premise. Epic fa...

We are giving away this mini-collection of short stories ("Fred," "The Invasion," "The Butteryellow Reliquary...

"With Augmented Reality You'll Always Know When No REALLY Means Yes," by  Tim Maughan.   " Weakness analysis  — having t...

"Now, with the death of communism and social democracy's struggle to sustain its postwar gains, the idea of the whole of humanity a...

Does .@ exist in science fiction? It's a Twitter thing. Let me explain. If your tweet begins "@so-and-so," that means it w...

"Imagine Bob Heinlein wearing a box-fresh leather jacket at a smart-drinks concession, speed-reading Wired from behind a pair of dime-...

Mirrors of some recent Goodreads reviews : Peter Watts, Blindsight (2006) ★★★★ Nasty, woebegone, butch and relentless hard SF (maybe ...

Another fascinating squidgy squib from  Adam Roberts  about  worldbuilding .  SpongeBob WorldBuild. It is the distinction between those fa...

Recent blog posts: Tales of gamification: a list. Useless time travel: a list. Young Adult fiction, prizes, markets, canons, fandoms. (...

Wait, what is this gamification ? "[...] online design that plays on people’s competitive instincts and often incorporates the use of...