Writing and reviews with an environmental, science fiction, and fantasy touch
The Czar’s Spy came in a kindle volume called ‘British Mystery Multipacks Vol. 6 – British Spy Mysteries.’ It contains two of my all-time favourite stories, The Riddle of the Sands and the 39 Steps, which is why I got
Today is Global Climate Strike Day. Thousands of people will be demonstrating, all over the UK, that they support the students who have been striking for a year now, to get the Government to listen. Many thousands more will be
Damyanti Biswas writes cracking, atmospheric and immersive short stories. Today she launches her first full-length novel You Beneath Your Skin. I’m planning to review it later in the year – I’m a bit behind with my launch reviews at the
Datura is a weird book. I mean that in a good way – it fits into the subgenre of Fantasy/scifi of ‘weird’. Leena Krohn is an award-winning Finnish author, but much of the time this story could be set in
Jetpack is a plug-in for WordPress.org users. It gives me most of the bells and whistles that WordPress.com users have. The main benefits are the sharing things, although for some reason I seem to have them working at present, statistics,
The Essex Serpent first lodged in my mind when Sarah Perry was a guest at either Norfolk & Norwich Festival or Noirwich. I think it was in NNF on a session on noir, because I’m sure Sarah Waters read her
Things creep up on me when I’m busy. When the season changes, the urgency shifts. One minute it’s summer, and I have ages to prepare to launch my book in November, the next minute it’s September, it’s autumn, and there’s
Two anthologies for you today, to help me catch up on my reviews. I like reading anthologies when I’m busy, because of the easy put-down, pick-up nature of the book. The downside is I find it almost impossible to remember
I said I wasn’t doing Flashback Friday any more. Then events of this week made me think of all the things I needed to do, and I remembered this story: Guilt in Greyscale, from 2015. It was an ‘include these
Today is August Bank Holiday Monday in England and Wales. Not the UK, as Scotland has its August Bank Holiday at the start of the month. I’m old enough to remember that England used to do that too, and I
Cosmic Colin: Hairy Hamster Horror and The Witches both came from my library. MG means middle grade, a period of schooling in the US that translates into the roughly 8-12 age group in the UK. I regularly peruse the childrens
August has been an odd month over here. July thunderstorms continued through August with rain in the west and dry in the east – until last week, when it hit the east as well. We’re talking UK weather, of course.
‘Red Wheelbarrow’ is the WEP/IWSG prompt for August. As you know I’ve been turning out some ‘interesting’ stories in response to these prompts. I’ve enjoyed them. I’ve also enjoyed and welcomed the comments on my stories. Caged Bird | Flash
Witchbone Book One ~ The Goblin’s Winter: a paranormal fairy tale is a very long title for a book. Several other things make me wonder whether the author took heed of editorial advice for MG tales [also demonstrated by the
The Scorpio Races – spotted as I was leaving the library, always looking for Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven Boys, which has been on my TBR forever. The Scorpio Races has nothing to do with that book, but, boy, what a gem.
Welcome to July. No. I was all set to write my July IWSG post but I couldn’t access my website. Then things got worse. If you’re interested you can read more here. Welcome to August. A thousand things I thought
My reaction to The Aunt Who Wouldn’t Die almost made me do a mini-review and give you another today to catch up on my reading. But the more I try to explain how I felt about said Aunt, the longer
Excuses today for the silence from me most of this month, except for the moon landing post. Did you notice? I haven’t been out much either this month, failing to visit just about everyone. Book reviews are generally prepared soon
Crow Country was the first Mark Cocker book I came across, and realised it was a Norfolk book. Years ago I ran a ‘Local Hero’ reading challenge, where participants could add books about their own local patch – the size
Galileo’s Theme Park is an anthology, part of Third Flatiron’s series. They call for submissions about three times a year. You can see future calls, as well as past publications at their website here. Galileo’s Theme Park ed Juliana Rew
50 years ago, we were sitting around our 12 inch black and white televisions, or glued to our radios, wondering how the courageous astronauts were doing up there, orbiting the Moon. Would they manage to land? Would they sink into
The Unwinding: Gin’s Story came as a Net-galley suggestion. Juliana Rew is the editor of the Third Flatiron Anthologies, so I was keen to see what sort of book she wrote herself. I am now totally insecure as a writer.
Pan’s Labyrinth came out on July 2nd. Wait a minute, I hear you say, surely that’s been out for ages? Well, not the book, apparently. Guillermo del Toro directed the film and Cornelia Funke has helped him get it into
30 Days Wild is over for another year so it’s time to wind things up on the blog. First, a summary of the last few days, and then a quick review of the month. Days Wild 27 -30 In truth
Needlemouse is out this week, or at least, so it says in my Netgalley list. Goodreads says it’s been out since April. Since the publishers were kind enough to send me an ARC via NetGalley I’m sticking to what it