I’ve got a new post up at Black Gate, looking at Salman Rushdie’s first novel, Grimus. I note at the start that the book was in the running for a sf prize before the publishers pulled it, wanting to avoid Rushdie being branded (in both sense of the word) as a science fiction writer. Brian […]

I’ve got a piece in the just-released Speculative Fiction 2012 anthology. Subtitled “The best online reviews, essays and commentary” (mostly to do with science fiction and fantasy), it’s available in paperback or as an ebook. You can find it on Amazon here, or Amazon.co.uk here. Proceeds go to support Room to Read, an international charity […]

I’m old enough now that in my adult life I’ve seen new things come into the language, for better or worse or both. One of the things I’ve seen, and so have you if you’ve been paying attention, is the use of the phrase “tasked with” to mean “ordered to do.” It’s not a usage […]

It’s been awhile since I’ve done a recap of posts here at the blog, but I’ve been fairly active recently, so let’s catch up a bit.

I’ve got a new post up at Black Gate, about the Scarlet Pimpernel and the idea of secret identities. Or, more precisely, the idea of heroic identities. It goes a bunch of odd places, and I’m happy I got it out on the anniversary of Superman’s arrival on newsstands.

It’s been feeling like spring around these parts, and after snow only a few days ago, it looks like warmer weather will be settling in for the near future (and hopefully longer). When I say ‘feeling like spring’ I mean that — you can smell it, you can sense it in the air. No more […]

Maybe worth noting here that over the past couple of months, as I try to return to full health, I’ve taken up archery. This was Grace’s idea; she found that our local branch of the SCA had a weekly archery practice near us, and we’ve been going since mid-February. It’s been incredible fun. As I […]

Grace and I just watched last week’s Doctor Who. We enjoyed it quite a bit; I thought it felt a lot like an episode of the classic show — humans trapped in a confined metallic labyrinth, chased by an alien, and only the Doctor can save them. And David Warner guest-starred as an elderly scientist. […]

Semi-ironic (if possibly-obvious) thought of the day: contemporary novels evoking Jane Austen and set in the Regency era dating scene are much less like the hard-edged contemporary satire Austen wrote than like the pseudo-historical yarns of Walter Scott. Who is usually held up as the exact opposite of Austen. This is probably especially true in […]

Another day, another book sale in a community centre. This one was at Westmount’s Victoria Hall, to benefit the Friends of the Westmount Library. I got: