Category Archives: writers

101 #womentoread

Unlikely though it may seem, it’s still not at all uncommon to hear people insisting that there is no issue around the representation of women in F&SF, that a theoretically level playing field means there is no industry bias and … Continue reading

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Wasps and sharks

Blovky sandstone houses and mills made a town down in the valley. I saw the road I’d accidentally taken the night before and the battered park where the living brown river escaped its banks. The flashing lights of JCBs and … Continue reading

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‘A gradual tailing off of talent’? No, not really.

In his Guardian review of the latest issue of Granta, which samples the work of the 2013 line-up of the Best of Young British Novelists, Theo Tait has this to say: Best of Young British Novelists 4 doesn’t, as a whole, inspire … Continue reading

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Warning: this machine will eat your brainssss

A look inside James Smythe’s The Machine Maureen Kincaid Speller recently posted a fine review of Colson Whitehead’s Zone One, a ‘zombies take Manhattan’ novel that was submitted for the Clarke last year and one of those books widely thought … Continue reading

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Cave & Julia

Readers of this blog might remember my recent mention of a story by M. John Harrison called ‘In Autotelia’, an exquisite piece of writing that hasn’t garnered nearly as much attention as it deserves. I’m hoping that ‘Cave & Julia’, … Continue reading

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Conned

We had a great Eastercon. Spending time with so many wonderful friends and colleagues is always a pleasure and a privilege, and chats with Ian Whates, Pete and Nicky Crowther, Andrew Hook (at the con just for one day with … Continue reading

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BSFA Short Fiction shortlist

It being the very eve of Eastercon, I’d been thinking about writing a blog post on the six stories that are up for this year’s BSFA Award, because awards shortlists are always interesting (if not always for the right reasons) … Continue reading

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And talking of the Clarke…

(This year’s Clarke Award nominations – in colour. Photo by Tom Hunter.) Being a Clarke judge must be hell. The judges of the 2011 Booker Prize were famously accused of lowering the standards by choosing ‘readability’ over worthiness or innovation. … Continue reading

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The Aquarium

Aleksandar Hemon’s ‘The Aquarium’ seems likely to be the most affecting piece of writing I’ll come across in a while. It’s a story, but a factual one, an excerpt from Hemon’s new memoir The Book of My Lives, the account … Continue reading

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Oh, thank God

Just as I was getting all hot under the collar over the ludicrous accusations being levelled at Hilary Mantel over her supposed ‘attack’ on the Duchess of Cambridge (how many of those pumped for soundbites about this on the one … Continue reading

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